Chinese Biographies: Yao Ming, With Pinyin Annotations

Discover the story of a basketball superstar on this way to international fame in this engaging biography. Though his amazing height destined him for a life in sports, Yao Ming developed the personal drive and ambition that pushed him to excel. Readers will admire his inspiring strength of character as they learn how this contemporary cultural icon overcame the many challenges on this path to stardom.

Features:

-Pinyin annotations separated by word rather than syllable for pronunciation development
-Pre- and post-reading comprehension questions to build reading fluency
-NEW “Where is he now?” section with the latest personal and professional information
-Companion website with audio and a rich array of resources to support instruction and practice: cheng-tsui.com/chinesebiographies
-Appropriate for classroom instruction or independent study, the Chinese Biographies series is ideal for high school, college, and heritage learners who have mastered 500-1,000 Chinese characters.

A pinyin-free version of Yao Ming is also available.

About the Series
Chinese Biographies chronicles the lives of pop culture icons with connections to the Chinese-speaking world. Learning about world-renowned personalities from fields such as sports, music, and fashion helps engage student interest, while reading practice will boost their confidence and enjoyment of the language.

Targeted at North American high school and college language learners, this award-winning series of readers focuses on international celebrities like Jay Chou, Lang Lang, Ang Lee, Yao Ming, Jeremy Lin, and Vera Wang to maintain a cultural context relevant to American students.

The second edition offers two equally helpful versions of the text: one version in Simplified Characters (without annotations) and one version in Simplified Characters with word-by-word pinyin annotations—giving students a better understanding of how Chinese characters come together. This flexibility allows teachers and students to choose what learning style best fits the class, the student, or even the day!

These engaging biographies are designed for students who have mastered 1000-1200 vocabulary words. Each chapter is preceded and followed by comprehension questions to facilitate dialogue between teachers and students. The Chinese Biographies Companion Website includes additional exercises to improve students’ grammar and vocabulary as well as providing access to mp3 audios, class handouts, and vocabulary lists. Chinese Biographies are ideal readers for both classroom instruction and independent learning.

Online resources include:

-Audio Downloads
-Comprehension Exercises
-Grammar Notes
-English Translations
-Sentence Pattern Exercises
-Vocabulary Lists

Grace Wu is a Senior Lecturer in Foreign Language in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in Chinese literacy and Chinese character teaching. Currently, Grace is the Chinese Reading and Writing Course coordinator at the Penn Chinese Language Program. Combining Grace's creativity and her 20-year experience in the field of Chinese language education, the Chinese Biographies series has been selected as the best grant project of 2012 for the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.