ERYA CHINESE·THE BASICS OF CHINESE CULTURE (I) has a total of 15 lessons, each composed of sections such as learning goals and pre-lesson questions, text, new words, cultural notes, proper nouns, and exercises. The texts are about the most representative Chinese cultural topics, e.g., historical sites, food, literature, arts, folk customs, martial arts, and clothing, aiming to help students form a general idea of Chinese culture and have a feel of its long history and unique charm. Meanwhile, the texts were made as lively and appealing as possible, explaining profound knowledge in plain language and taking foreigners’ perspectives into account so as to motivate them to keep learning and spreading Chinese culture. The new words are provided with pinyin and Chinese paraphrases and include a selection of cultural terms uncommon in other courses. The cultural notes succinctly introduce the cultural contexts of words and notions in the text to help students better understand the text. The exercises come in diverse forms, such as blanking filling, matching, true or false, multiple-choice, discussion, and presentation, reinforcing students’ knowledge and encouraging them to express their own opinions.

Li Chunyu, Doctor of Letters, is a professor and PhD tutor in the Chinese Language and Culture College of Beijing Normal University. Li received several teacher and talent awards in 2012 and 2013. During 2009 and 2010, Li went to West Point to be a visiting professor in the Department of Foreign Languages. Li’s research interests include “modern and contemporary Chinese literature and culture” and “cultural transmission of international Chinese teaching”. She has published more than 10 academic books, over 40 articles in different journals, and hosted several state- and city-level research projects. 

1. Representative topics that present the most fundamental and classic elements of Chinese culture to learners

2. Accessible texts with explanations of new words and cultural notes to facilitate learners’ understanding

3. Diverse forms of text-related exercises and cultural comparison exercises to develop learners’ intercultural communication skills

This book is for elementary level Chinese language learners, second year undergraduates majoring in Chinese or TCSOL, overseas Chinese language and culture teachers, and readers who are interested in Chinese culture.

Suggestions:

· Pay attention to teacher-student interaction: PPT presentations and speeches on the topics in the “Today I’ll Present…” section after each lesson; discussions about relevant movies and shows

· For each lesson, follow the following steps: students preview the new words, text and exercises – teacher briefly introduces the cultural knowledge related to the current text and teaches the new words – students read the text, teacher explains important points via questions, and students finish exercises 1–3 with the help of the teacher – students are divided into groups and have discussions on one or several topics – students create a presentation on the topic in “Today I’ll Present…”.