2. Chinese Made Easy for Kids, recognized as one of
the best Chinese learning materials worldwide,
is made for you by Hong Kong’s prestigious Joint
Publishing Co Ltd. (est. 1948).
Simplified
and Traditional
Chinese versions are
both available
For more information or services, please email to:
publish@jointpublishing.com
or visit: www.jointpublishing.com/cheasy
3. INTRODUCTION
The primary goal of this series Chinese Made Easy for Kids is to help total
beginners, particularly primary school students, build a solid foundation for
learning Chinese as a second/foreign language. This series is designed to emphasize
the development of communication skills in listening and speaking. The unique
characteristic of this series is the use of the Communicative Approach, which also
takes into account the differences between Chinese and European languages, in that
the written Chinese characters are independent of their pronunciation.
Chinese Made Easy for Kids is composed of 4 colour textbooks (Books 1 to 4), each
supplemented by a CD and a workbook in black and white.
1 2
3 4
1
4. COURSE DESIGN
Chinese Made Easy for Kids (Books 1 to 4) have been written to provide a solid
foundation for the subsequent use of Chinese Made Easy (Books 1 to 5).
ls and
P honetic symbo
tones
ls
e phonetic symbo
Children will be exposed to th
author
beginning. The
and tone s from the very ry
ercome tempora
believes that children will ov
m e, an d
or t pe ri od of ti
co nf us io n w it hi n a sh io n
od pr on un ci at
w il l ev en tu al ly ac qu ir e go
on -g oi ng
an da ri n w it h
an d in to na ti on of M t,
ti ce . T hr ou gh ou
re in fo rc em en t of pi ny in pr ac
each
ue or grey above
pinyin is printed in light bl , n to the
ildren s attentio
char acter, to draw ch
characters.
Chinese characters
C hi ne se ch ar ac te
rs in th is se ri es ar
e ta ug ht
ac co rd in g to th e
ch ar ac te r fo rm at io
n sy st em .
Once the children
have a good grasp
of radicals
an d si m pl e ch ar ac
te rs , th ey w ill be
ab le to
analyze most of th
e compound charac
ters they
encounter, and to m
emorize new charac
ters in a
logical way.
2
5. Vocabulary and
sentence structures
Children at this age tend to learn vocabulary
related to their environment. Therefore, the
chosen topics are: family members, animals,
food, colours, clothing, daily articles, school
facilities, modes of transport, etc. The topics,
vocabulary and sentence structures in previous
books will reappear in later books of this series
to consolidate and reinforce memory.
Textbook: listening an
sp eaking skil d
ls
The textboo
k covers ne
w vocabulary
s e n te n c e s tr and simple
u c tu re s w it
h p a rt ic u la
o n li st e n in g r e m p h a s is
a n d sp e a k in
g sk il ls . C h
develop ora il d re n w il l
l communic
ation skills
e x e rc is e s , through aud
d ia lo g u e s , io
q u e s ti o n s a
and speakin n d a n s w e rs
g practice. In ,
consolidate order to rein
knowledge, force and
the games in
are designed the textbook
to create a fu
n learning en
The accomp vironment.
anying rhym
es in the tex
c o n si st o f n tbook mainly
e w v o c a b u la
ry in e a c h le
language acq ss o n to a id
uisition.
iting
hara cter wr
ork book: c ills
W
an d readi
ng sk
suit the
igned to y des
carefull ted to tr
ace
exerc ises are e expec
ty of ill b y
A varie ildren w skills b
, ability. The ch lop reading
children
s to deve raphs.
The
aract ers, and rt parag
y ch d sho the
and cop nces an ases as
phrase s, sente adua lly incre
reading cises gr to use
el of the exer n their
ability
y lev dent i
difficult e confi
beco me mor
children
. 3
Chinese
6. COURSE LENGTH
This series is designed for primary 1 to 6 students. With one lesson daily, able
and highly motivated children might complete one book within one academic year. At
the end of Book 4, they can move on to the series Chinese Made Easy (Books 1 to 5)
previously published. As the four books of this series are continuous and ongoing,
each book can be taught within any time span.
HOW TO USE Chinese Made Easy for Kids
Here are a few suggestions from the author:
The teacher should:
provide every opportunity for the children to develop their listening and speaking skills. A variety of
,
speaking exercises included in the textbook can be modified according to the children s ability
go over the phonetic exercises in the textbook with the students. At a later stage, the children should be
encouraged to pronounce new pinyin on their own
emphasize the importance of learning basic strokes and stroke order of characters. The teacher should
demonstrate the stroke order of each character to total beginners. Through regular practice of counting
strokes of characters, the children will find it easy to recognize the old and new characters
guide the children to analyze new characters and encourage them to use their imagination to aid
memorization
modify the games in the textbook according to children's abilities
skip, modify or extend some exercises according to the children's levels. A wide variety of exercises in
the workbook can be used for both class work and homework
encourage children to recite times table attached at the end of Book 3 and 4 of this series. The
author believes that being able to recite the Chinese times table will facilitate the children's learning of
multiplication.
The children are expected to:
trace the new characters in each lesson
memorize radicals and simple characters
recite the rhyme in each lesson
listen to the recording of the text a few times in Book 3 and 4, and tell the story if they can. As these texts
are in picture book form, the children should find them appealing.
The text for each lesson, the audio exercises, phonetic symbols and rhymes are
on the CD attached to the textbook. The symbol indicates the track number. For
example, is track one.
4
23. Other books in the same series:
"Chinese Made Easy", books 1-5 (for secondary school students)
This series includes:
Textbook with CDs
Workbook
,
Teacher s Book with CD
