Chinese Paradise is a series of textbooks for an elective course of elementary Chinese for children in English-speaking countries. There are 18 volumes altogether: 6 volumes of Student's Book, 6 volumes of Workbook, 3 volumes of cards of words and Expressions, 3 volumes of Teacher's Book both in Chinese and in English.

I. Teaching objectives
Students will:
1. Be able to understand and speak some simple Chinese sentences;
2. Be able to sing some Chinese children's songs and recite children's rhymes and simple poems;
3. Acquire some basic knowledge of Chinese characters, such as the basic strokes and stroke order, and are able to write some simple Chinese characters;
4. Gain a preliminary understanding of some of the Chinese culture.

II. Principles of compiling
1. Learner-oriented with scientific arrangement of the contents
Language teaching is integrated with presentation of cultural information, games and hands-on activities in view of some special characteristics of children in English-speaking countries, such as being lively, enjoying moving around in class, and being interested in making handicrafts and playing games. In order for students to learn Chinese and understand China through perceptual activities, language teaching is treated as the foundation while cultural information, games and hands-on activities as the supplements. Teaching resources such as Teacher's Book, CDs and CD-ROMs are accompanied with the textbooks catering to the need for different teaching means.

Teaching of the language points and training of the language skills are arranged in accordance with the rules of Chinese acquisition as a second language. The text, vocabulary and grammar are taught in a scientific, rational and progressive way. Teaching of Chinese characters, words and expressions and sentences are conducted through lively and interesting activities. In brief, students learn Chinese in an enjoyable and relaxing atmosphere, which well represents the compiling principles of this series teaching by pleasurable means and learning in entertainment.

2. Presenting knowledge of interest to children
Taking the arrangement of the topics for situational dialogues as an example, the selection of the topics is based on their practical application in communication and scientific methods of language teaching, as well as some special characteristics of children, such as liveliness and curiosity. Some common communicative topics selected include greeting, expression of thanks, inquiry and invitation etc., and other topics favored by children, such as travel, entertainment, sports and pets etc.
 
In view of the liveliness of children, entertaining and hands-on activities are provided in the Student's Book and Workbook, for example, making handicrafts and sticking stick-on pictures etc. Thus, the integration of language teaching, cultural introduction and game playing has been achieved.

III, Contents of teaching
1. Teaching of vocabulary
The decision on the quantity of the vocabulary included in this elementary course was made in consultation with HSK Guidelines for Chinese Words and Characters developed by the Department of Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK), The office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban) and the syllabus of the Chinese language for primary schools in English-speaking countries such as Australia and so on. The total number of words is about five hundred (500). Those words listed in the Student's Book are required ones, while the rest of them presented in the Teacher's Book with pinyin and English translation are supplementary ones.

2. Teaching of Chinese characters
Learning Chinese characters is difficult for students of English-speaking countries. In order to help students overcome the difficulty in learning Chinese characters, this course has made the following arrangements:
(1) The aim of teaching Chinese characters is to help students develop an interest in Chinese characters. Students are not required to write every Chinese character. It is sufficient for them to be able to recognize and read simple Chinese characters and have a preliminary understanding of the rules of character writing.
(2) One or two Chinese characters (mainly the pictographic characters) are chosen from each lesson in the Student's Book to help students understand the origin and evolution of Chinese characters and recognize and read them with the help of pictures.
(3) In the Workbook, various activities to learn Chinese characters, for instance, cutting out characters, sticking stick-on pictures, coloring characters and adding strokes etc., are designed to avoid the dullness and tediousness inpractising writing Chinese characters.
(4) A set of cards of Chinese characters with illustrations is available in the Student's Book to help the teacher explain the Chinese characters.

3. Teaching of pinyin
Two special features of this series is the tone illustrations and the alphabets of pinyin presented with color cartoon animals. Some nursery rhymes, ancient poems and tongue twisters are supplied to make the teaching of pinyin interesting and entertaining. The tones actually used in daily conversations are marked to show the alternation of tones in the flow of the language. Specific information can be found in Introduction to "The Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet" attached to the Teacher's Book.

4. Teaching of grammar
More than forty basic sentence patterns and grammar points are selected based on the topics in the Teacher's Book. Detailed descriptions are given to each grammar point. In view of the receptive ability of children, the part of grammar in this course is only prepared for teacher's reference and need not be explained in class.

5. Introduction to culture
To facilitate language teaching, some information on the Chinese culture interested by children, such as wushu, holidays and animals etc., are provided. The information also helps students gain a preliminary understanding of the Chinese physical geography, social life, history and culture and enhance their enthusiasm to learn Chinese.

6. Games and hands-on activities
Some games and hands-on activities of Chinese cultural characteristics are designed and presented in the last section of each lesson of the textbook, for example, kicking shuttlecocks, practicing Chinese Kung fu, making dumplings, and making paper-cuts and kites etc.

IV. Stylistic rules and layout
1. There are 6 volumes of Student's Book at 3 levels, each of which consists of twelve lessons. Stylistic rules and layout are as follows:
1) Can you say?
It includes two parts: a situational dialogue and new words. New words that are of the same color as the words and expressions in the dialogue can be used in substitution exercise.

2) Can you try?
This is an interactive game which helps students practise with the teacher the sentence patterns and the new words in "Can you say?" by means of a game.

3) Do you know?
This is the part of cultural introduction, in which illustrations of the Chinese culture are presented with a brief introduction. A question is usually included also, and students can find the answer to the question in the teacher's explanation.

4) Learn to read.
It is the part of Chinese pinyin in Volume 1 of Student's Book, and that of nursery rhymes, ancient poems, riddles and tongue twisters in Volume 2 and Volume 3.

5) Let's talk.
It is a short dialogue presented only in Volume 3 of Student's Book, which can be performed by students to review the lesson.

6) Learn to write.
This is for practising Chinese characters. In Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Student's Book detailed explanation about a Chinese character (two characters in some lessons) is given in each lesson, while in Volume 3 two or three Chinese characters are taught in each lesson.

7) Let's do it.
This is the game or hands-on activity. Simple and interesting Chinese traditional games and hands-on activities such as making handcrafts are provided. Most of these games and activities are related to the language teaching and cultural information given in this lesson.

8) Let’s sing.
Chinese songs are usually supplied in the latter part of the second lesson of each unit.

9) Story time
A story can be found in the latter part of the second lesson of each unit. Comic strips are used to help students review the learned lessons. Students may come across some new sentences in this part, but they are not required to master them.
  
10) Review
In the final part of every three units a review page with stickers is presented to help students review the main sentence patterns of these three units. Furthermore, a list of vocabulary is attached to the Student's Book.

2. Workbook
Workbook, an exercise book of Chinese Paradise, is accompanied with the Student's Book. There are altogether 6 volumes of 3 levels. Each volume consists of 12 lessons and each lesson contains 6 - 8 exercise problems. Besides, an additional exercise is provided as homework in the Workbook of level 3. Exercises of each lessen are divided into four sections: Pinyin, Chinese Characters, Words and Expressions, and Dialogue. Furthermore, sticker pages and exercises of tracing the characters are attached to each Workbook.

3. Teacher's Book
There are altogether 3 volumes of Teacher's Book both in Chinese and in English. Color stickers are attached in each volume for the teacher to reward students.

Apart from all mentioned above the following teaching accessories are also available:
1) CD accompanied with the book as a bonus.
2) Cards of words and expressions from the Student's Book.
3) CD-ROM.

V. Allocation of time for teaching
The arrangement of the contents in this series allows for flexibility in view of the fact that there are not sufficient number of class hours for Chinese teaching in English speaking countries and different number of class hours are allocated to Chinese teaching in different schools. Schools with fewer number of class hours may skip some games and hands-on activities, while schools with more can provide more activities by using the Teacher's Book.

The suggested number of class hours allocated to teaching of each volume is as follows:
Volume 1: four class hours for each lesson;
Volume 2: five class hours for each lesson;
Volume 3: six class hours for each lesson.

We hope yon will find Chinese Paradise helpful in your Chinese teaching.