Step Up with Chinese for Beginners is a standards-based secondary textbook for beginning learners designed by North American educators in collaboration with Chinese language specialists at the Beijing Language and Culture University. Developed in accordance to ACTFL’s 5Cs, each lesson was created to teach Chinese in a real-life context while incorporating the three communicative modes. This beginner text encompasses 10 units to be covered in one academic year. Eschewing the traditional text-vocabulary-grammar centered approach, each unit is broken down into small chunks of pattern to learn and practice. Each step builds upon previously learned vocabulary and sentence patterns in a systematic way. Students will learn all the necessary material to engage others in meaningful communication and gain a better understanding of the Chinese culture. Step Up makes an excellent first textbook for secondary learners with little or no Chinese background. Program Components The accompanying workbook features a wide variety of different types of exercises to enhance students’ proficiency in all four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. The book’s companion site (http://stepup.cengageasia.com) offers interactive vocabulary flashcards, free mp3 audio downloads, printable character practice sheets, and password-protected instructors’ resources including teacher’s guide, dialogue tape scripts and answer keys.
Introductions 1 & 2: Pinyin 拼音 and Chinese Characters 汉字
Unit 1: Nice to meet you! 你好！
Unit 2: Getting to know you 你是哪国人？
Unit 3: What time is it? 现在几点？
Unit 4: What's today's date? 今天几号？
Unit 5: My family 我们一家人
Review 1
Unit 6: My family pet 我家的宠物
Unit 7: My school 我的学校
Unit 8: My busy schedule 天天都很忙
Unit 9: My interests, my dreams 我的爱好
Unit 10: It tastes so good! 好吃！
Review 2
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Lucy Chu Lee
Affiliation: Livingston High School, New Jersey Lucy Lee is a veteran teacher at Livingston High School in New Jersey, teacher director at Rutgers and William Paterson University and past president of the Chinese Language Association of Secondary-Elementary Schools (CLASS).
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Xia Li Chen
Affiliation: Beijing Language & Culture University Lixia Chen is the director of Confucius Institute at the Beijing Language & Culture University.
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Includes topics relevant to secondary students’ daily life
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Breaks down lesson into manageable chunks to help students progress from “bite-size” stages to more lengthy and complex tasks
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Offers a variety of communicative classroom activities to help students achieve target language goals
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Interweaves traditional and contemporary Chinese culture pieces into the texts and activities
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Encourages students to use the target language to talk about their own lives
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Reinforces language learning by making connections to other content areas