Titel: Discover China - Student's Book One (+ 2 Audio-CDs) - 走遍中国 - 学生用书 1 (含2张CD光盘)
Author / Editor: Ding Anqi, Chen Xin, Jing Lili …
ISBN: 978-0-230-40595-0, 9780230405950
Series: 走遍中国 Discover China
Publisher: Macmillan Education, Foreign Language teaching and research press - 外语教学与研究出版社 (外研社)
Language: simplified Chinese Character
Date of Publication: 2010
First edition
Number of pages: 184
Dimensions: 27.6 x 21.6 cm
Binding: Paperback


Description:

About the course

No one could claim that learning Chinese is easy. Discover China recognizes the challenges of Chinese and helps to make learning and teaching effective, meaningful and enjoyable. Discover China is specially designed for young adult and adult learners and employs a communicative approach to language learning. Emphasis is placed on pair work, group work and on a variety of speaking and listening activities to help students become confident Chinese language speakers. Discover China gives students a comprehensive, integrated and systematic introduction to the language.

KEY FEATURES

Some of the features of Discover China:

�� Language in context presents key vocabulary and language points in real-life situations
�� A truly communicative approach lets students learn by using the language in real-life situations, providing them with the tools they need to communicate in Chinese naturally
�� Structured, effective learning based on the sequence ‘presentation, practice and production’ has activities move from controlled practice to personalized tasks
�� Inductive grammar teaching encourages students to discover the language rules of Chinese for themselves by identifying the patterns in targeted language samples
�� Systematic vocabulary and grammar development through topic-based practice and extension exercises. The lexical syllabus is based on levels 1-3 of the HSK Proficiency Test and the grammatical syllabus takes students up to the Vantage level (level B2) of the Common European Framework
�� Meaningful and integrated character writing practice through grouping characters with common radicals — these high frequency characters are presented within the context of the unit theme
�� Insights into Chinese culture through “Cultural Corner” sections linked to the unit topics, promote a deeper understanding of this remarkable country and its language, while full-colour photos throughout the book illustrate the cultural context
�� Extra pair work activities for each unit, providing additional communicative speaking practice
�� Supported by abundant resources including workbooks, teacher’s books, online quizzes, MP3 downloads and extra speaking activities; these allow teacher-guided learning in the classroom and self-teaching at a pace suited to individual students

COMPONENTS OF DISCOVER CHINA LEVELS 1, 2, 3 AND 4:
�� Comprehensive Student’s Book + audio CD with regular review units, vocabulary extension activities, extra speaking practice and detailed grammar explanations
�� Workbook + audio CD to further develop students’ reading, writing and listening skills and enhance their grammar and vocabulary knowledge
�� Supportive resource website www.mydiscoverchina.com
�� for students: unit quizzes, MP3 audio downloads, cumulative wordlists and further practice
�� for teachers: a downloadable Teacher’s Book (PDF format), Power Points and lesson plans


PERSONALISED; TOPIC DRIVEN; SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

Speaking practice
Discover China focuses on the personalization of language practice to make learning real and meaningful.
Language acquired enables students to tackle real-life, everyday situations with confidence. Through a variety of activity types, speaking activities begin with structured, controlled practice with full support, and move towards creative, personalized production activities.
Controlled speaking activities are linked to presentation dialogues and reading texts. Activities are function-oriented, requiring learners to use relevant vocabulary and language
points in realistic, contextualized ways. These language functions guide students towards fluency at the Vantage level (level B2) of the Common European Framework.

Communication activities are designed to stimulate freer, learner-centred interactions. Creative choices are built into exercises to allow for meaningful and personalized dialogues.

The extra pair work activities at the end of the book are open-ended creative exercises designed to incorporate wider scopes of vocabulary and language points. Options built into activities allow for a high level of learner autonomy, empowering learners to take charge of their learning.

Pronunciation
Integrated pronunciation practice of new words prepares students for communicative activities in the unit. Words are carefully selected on basis of frequency of use and complexity of pronunciation.

Cultural Corner
Cultural Corner facilitates the development of crosscultural communication and understanding. Topics are relevant to learners’ lives and serve as springboards for cross-cultural discussions.

Words are carefully selected on basis of frequency of use and complexity of pronunciation.

Chinese to go
Chinese to go provides practical language expressions, or ‘chunks’, of immediate use to learners. These common and useful phrases are linked to the unit theme and help students in everyday conversation.
Language acquired enables students to tackle real-life, everyday situations with confidence.


INTEGRATED, CONTEXTUALIZED LISTENING AND READING PRACTICE

Reading texts covers a wide range of text types relevant to learners.

Resident characters
Resident characters are used throughout Discover China for the presentation of new language.
They play a functional role in providing a basic communicative context for language presentation.

Pre-listening
Pre-listening activities provide each unit with focus and context. Pre-teaching of key words familiarizes students with thematic vocabulary as well as linking learners’ prior knowledge to the language points of the unit.

Presentation dialogues
Meaningful, authentic conversations are role-played by the resident characters and link the new language presented to the theme of the unit. These dialogues present the new vocabulary and grammar of the unit in a natural context.

Pre-reading
Pre-reading activities are designed to activate students’ background knowledge and schema in regards to the text topic. Target keywords are pretaught to prepare students for the main reading task.

Reading
Reading texts cover a wide range of text types relevant to learners, such as diaries, text messages, thought maps and blogs.
Depth of topic coverage progresses at a controlled pace starting from simple short, simple text types to substantially longer, more sophisticated reading.

Character writing
In the Writing section, students are taught how to write the most frequent characters. To allow flexibility and further development of character writing skills, the Workbook provides extended character practice of new words presented for recognition purposes in the Student Book.
Activities focus on the most commonly used characters, linking to the unit theme and to existing vocabulary with shared radicals.


INDUCTIVE GRAMMAR AND SYSTEMATIC VOCABULARY

Language in use
In each unit, the Language in Use grammar sections typically follow an inductive or “discovery” approach drawing on learners’ existing knowledge. Students focus on the forms of the grammar through the presentation of simple, everyday examples.
These exercises guide students to make connections between grammatical forms, functions and the meanings they signal.

Grammar Reference
Grammar Reference at the back of the book gives understandable but detailed references to key points.

Students focus on the forms of the grammar through the presentation of simple, everyday examples.

Vocabulary
Vocabulary is clearly and systematically presented with words appearing in the same order as in presentation dialogues and reading texts. Vocabulary corresponds to levels 1–3 of the HSK Proficiency Test, and is tightly linked to the themes and topics covered in the units.

Vocabulary extension at the end of each unit further expands the scope of new words within the theme. Extra vocabulary practice in the workbook allows for a flexible approach.

Vocabulary and listening sections pre-teach words which appear in the presentation dialogue in lesson 1. These dialogues serve to put new words into a meaningful context to show natural language use.

Vocabulary is tightly linked to the themes and topics covered in the units, and are chosen to help learners produce natural, everyday language.


Authors
- Ding Anqi is a doctoral candidate on Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language at Renmin University, Beijing. She holds an MA in the subject from Nankai University, Tianjin, having completed undergraduate studies of English Language and Literature at Shandong Normal University. Ding Anqi has taught Chinese language and on teaching methodology in both academic and corporate spheres since 1996, and is presently Deputy Dean of the School of Chinese Language and Literature at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
- Jie Zhang is currently a doctoral candidate in Applied Linguistics at Pennsylvania State University, USA. She has extensive experience in second/foreign language teaching and learning. After five years teaching English in China, she now teaches Chinese and ESL at Pennsylvania State University. Prior to that, she has taught English in China for five years. Her research interests include Chinese/English as a foreign language and second language acquisition. Simon Greenall has been a textbook writer and course designer since 1982, and is a past President of the International Association for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (1997–99). In China, alongside his work for Discover China, he is the co-Editor in Chief of New Standard English, for junior and senior high schools, and New Standard College English, both series published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing, and Macmillan Publishing (China). Huang Dian has taught Chinese at the University of Westminster since1989, where she is a Senior Lecturer and the coordinator of the Polylang Chinese Programme. Huang Dian is also the Chairman of the British Chinese Language Teaching Society (BCLTS) and a committee member of the Universities’ China Committee in London (UCCL)

Academic advisors
- C.K. Tang graduated from the University of Hong Kong with the degrees of MB, BS, BA (Hons), MPhil and PhD. He has worked at the National University of Singapore, and since 1997 has been associate professor in the School of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong. Author of more than 30 academic papers on Chinese literature and language, C.K. Tang is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Oriental Studies and Journal of Chinese Literary Studies." />



Expert’s opinion:


“Discover China offers a series of meaningful topics, integrated task-based speaking activities and relevant exercises with the direct links to the real world. Discover China minimizes traditional teaching methodology, stimulates fun learning and empowers students to become effective learners. These unique features make Discover China so different from other textbooks in the market”. - Huang Dian (Senior Lecturer in Chinese at the University of Westminster and Chair of the British Chinese Language Teaching Society)

“I find Discover China carefully designed, well structured and beautifully printed. Its integrated approach to language instruction, inductive grammar teaching and abundant resources are distinctive. I am particularly delighted to see that most practice activities are constructive and consciousness-raising tasks.” - Lening Liu (Professor in Chinese Language and Program Director at Columbia University)

“Discover China replaces rote memorization and drills adopted by standard Mandarin textbooks with a wide variety of enjoyable activities and interesting role-plays in the context of everyday life in modern China, making it possible for students to express themselves effectively as native speakers do.” - Tang Chiu Kay (Associate Professor, School of Chinese at Hong Kong University)"

Discover China Student's Book 1 Unit 1 interactive sample. download PDF