Chaoyue ─ Advancing in Chinese: A Textbook for Intermediate & Preadvanced Students

"Chaoyue: Advancing in Chinese" covers the five Cs--communication, cultures, comparisons, connections, and communities--and follows three communicative modes in lesson design: interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational. The authors arrange their lessons around four topics intrinsically interesting to students: the self, schooling, social customs, and the global village, fostering a full appreciation of Chinese culture. Each lesson contains warm-up activities, mini-dialogues, authentic readings, conversational relays, a cultural unit, examples of sentence patterns, and a vocabulary list. Two review lessons are geared specifically toward synthesizing and reinforcing the language and culture skills taught throughout the book, and footnote glossaries assist in reading comprehension.

Written by experienced Chinese language instructors, "Chaoyue" helps students reach the preadvanced proficiency level within two semesters, or approximately 150 to 180 hours of course time. The preadvanced stage is comparable to a fourth-semester college Chinese course, or 250 hours of instruction. Unlike other language texts, "Chaoyue" is printed in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters, as well as the phonetic systems used in China ( "pinyin") and Taiwan ( "zhuyin fuhao"). It also includes a CD-ROM with additional assignments and review as well as an online teacher manual.

Lesson sections include:

-Warm-up activities that articulate the lesson's theme and activate students' prior knowledge

-Short readings in the form of letters, e-mails, reports, dialogues, stories, and interviews

-Dialogue practice with key vocabulary and sentence patterns

-Interactive activities such as surveys, debates, and small group discussions

-Conversational relays that ask pairs to complete minidialogues

-Authentic readings in the form of advertisements, Web sites, maps, and signs, with multiple-choice review questions

-Common expressions that relate to the lesson theme

Yea-Fen Chen is coordinator of the Chinese language program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and has been teaching Chinese for over twenty years. She coauthored three other Chinese language textbooks: Integrated Chinese Level 1, Crossing Paths: Living and Learning in China, and Shifting Tides: Culture in Contemporary China. Meng Yeh is a senior lecturer at Rice University and coauthor of Communicating in Chinese: Student Lab Workbook. She has provided consultation for many Chinese language programs at K-12 schools and colleges and has received the Sarofim Teaching Award. She founded the regional chapter of the Chinese Language Teachers Association in Texas. Frances Yufen Lee Mehta is a senior lecturer at Cornell University and has taught Chinese for over twenty years. She is the author of Colloquial Chinese Reader and is the recipient of several awards, including the Clark Outstanding Teaching Award. She specializes in pedagogy, teacher training, and material development. Mei-Ju Hwang is the lead Chinese teacher for the Springfield Chinese Program in Massachusetts. She has taught Chinese for over twenty years and leads the district Chinese curriculum development and assessment. She has received several awards in teaching excellence and is the recipient of the Distinguished Community Partner Award from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. She is also the coauthor of Flying with Chinese and a codeveloper for LangNet, directed by the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland. Yuanchao Meng teaches Chinese at Oak Hill Middle School in Newton, Massachusetts, and was a visiting senior instructor at Bridgewater State College for twenty years. She is the author of Setting the Stage for Chinese Level 1: Plays and Performances for Grades K-6 and Setting the Stage for Chinese Level 2: Plays and Performances for Grades 7-12. Natasha Piercehas been an ESL and Chinese teacher for twenty years and currently teaches Chinese at Madison Memorial High School in Madison, Wisconsin. She has also worked as a teacher trainer. Amanda Wood is a self-taught artist currently residing in Cincinnati, Ohio. In addition to illustrations, she paints murals, designs comics, completes commissioned pet portraits, and, with her animation partner, creates informational animations and advertisements for Insight Virtual Schools.