On October 15th, 2009, Discover China made its debut at the world's biggest book fair, Frankfurt Book Fair, after three years' patient polishing. This glossy-magazine-looking textbook aimed at college students in English speaking countries employs an innovative methodology of Chinese teaching and is of great significance both for the publishers FLTRP and Macmillan, and for the learners of Chinese around the world.
As China's leading publishing house, FLTRP has been actively pursuing its mission of "recording human civilization and bridging different cultures." Its latest movement in line with this mission is to cooperate with international publishers to introduce the Chinese language and culture to the rest of the world. Discover China is a strategic publishing project of this kind. As Discover China’s co-publisher, Macmillan is a world renowned educational publisher with extensive and successful collaboration with FLTRP in the field of language textbooks. It is their common goal to introduce the Chinese language and culture to young people interested in China from an active and modern perspective and to meet the increasing need of suitable textbooks for leaning Chinese in the international market. To achieve this goal, they have jointly carried out comprehensive market surveys, precise product positioning and careful preparation work by establishing an international and professional publishing team. This team features the consultant Simon Greenall, an ELT expert who has authored textbooks with international fame such as Reward; the chief author, Prof. Ding Anqi from Beijing Foreign Studies University, a versatile author of teaching Chinese as a second language and a leading figure in exploring innovative teaching methods for learners with western cultural backgrounds; dedicated and experienced project managers and editors from the two publishers who pool their resources and knowledge of the target audience and the target language; UK and Chinese designers who contribute their aesthetic skills to create the elegant blend of western and Chinese elements of the book. Moreover, on the basis of detailed discussion, in-depth analysis and repeated trials, the publishing team has creatively integrated ELT methodology, linguistic expertise of the Chinese language and cultural background information to make Discover China a user-friendly, systematic and practical course book, standing out among other similar books because of its “discovery” of a new approach to Chinese teaching and learning.
As its main audience is young adult learners, Discover China employs a communicative, structured, and integrated approach to facilitate language learning. Emphasis is placed on pair work, group work and on a wide variety of speaking and listening activities to develop language proficiency. It has the following features:
A helpful “zero unit” gives learners an overview of the systems underpinning Chinese pinyin, tones and writing.
Authentic, everyday contexts are designed to make learning more meaningful and prepare students for real life situations. There are four resident characters (Steve, Mark, Anna and Wang Yu) of similar ages to the targeted learners and all the learning passages are interesting conversations among them.
Inductive grammar approach helps students independently recognise and understand Chinese language patterns instead of forcing upon them rote memorizations of linguistic rules.
Systematic vocabulary development are built through topic-based practice and extension exercises, preparing students for levels 1-3 of the HKS proficiency test.
Meaningful reading practice are performed through engaging texts in authentic-like contexts with varied practice activities tailor designed for college students.
Focused writing development for the most frequently used Chinese characters is included to make students better understand the Chinese language through its unique writing mechanism.
Insights into Chinese culture are provided in “Cultural Corner” sections in each unit to promote a deeper understanding of this country and its language.
Abundant resources include an online quizzes, MP3 downloads, extra speaking activities, cumulative wordlists, dialogue tape scripts and answer keys.
Magazine style design and lively artwork represent the most up-to-date aesthetic trend of textbook publishing and has been proven by market feedbacks as interesting and attractive. (By Zhao Jing) |
