Monkey King Chinese vol.1A

Monkey King Chinese (School-age edition) is a series of elementary Chinese language primers for primary school children from the 1st year to the 3rd year in English speaking countries. This series of textbooks are divided into three levels according to the year rank. Each level consists of two volumes, A and B. There are altogether six volumes and a total vocabulary of 152 words in the first two levels. Owing to a full understanding on the dispositions and learning habits of primary school pupils aged from six to ten in English-speaking countries, the editors have chosen topics which appeal to children and at the same time decrease difficulties of the contents to add more fun in the learning process. The aim of this series of textbooks is to give the children a preliminary understanding of the Chinese language through fun games and lay a good foundation for future systematic study. The style and content arrangement of the textbooks are in accordance with the principle of progressing in an orderly and step-by-step way. Some topics among the three levels may be repeated but their difficulty is increased gradually. Words are the focus of the first level; phrases are the focus of the second level; and sentences the third level. The style and content arrangement of each level are as follows: Level One: Words are the foundation, supplemented by Pinyin, nursery rhymes, handicrafts, and exercises, among which Pinyin are mainly single finals and tones. Level Two: Word groups and phrases are the foundation, supplemented by Pinyin, nursery rhymes, handicrafts, and exercises, among which Pinyin are compound spellings of initials and finals. Level Three: Short sentences are the foundation, supplemented by nursery rhymes, Chinese characters coloring tasks, words and expressions for everyday use, handicrafts, and exercises. Compared with the first two levels, Level Three has some simple Chinese characters, words and expressions for everyday use, and functions as a transition for regular Chinese language education. Some suggestions to teachers: 1. Teacher leads the reading of words and expressions, sentences, nursery rhymes of each lesson using vocabulary cards, Pinyin cards, and CD. 2. Teacher can give some necessary explanations to the Chinese characters, handicrafts and the exercises. Then allow the children to freely express themselves. 3. The task of teacher is to accompany children to learn Chinese through fun games. In the middle page of each volume there are “award stickers” and teacher can use them to award children as an encouragement. 4. It is not required for children to learn to write Chinese characters. They only need to learn to pronounce the Chinese characters by imitating and identify by coloring. It is enough for children to know that Chinese characters are square-shaped and have some objective senses of them. 5. The colored parts in each nursery rhyme can be substituted by other words and expressions in each lesson. Teacher can freely arrange class activities according to the nursery rhyme in order to make children practice words and expressions and sentence patterns repeatedly in the process of playing games. We hope Monkey King Chinese will become a good friend of foreign primary school pupils just like the handsome Monkey King- Su Wukong.