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I would love to see what everyone is using for Mandarin.

We used Ma Liping Grade 1 and Grade 2. Then we did Singapore Chinese from 1 A to 3A. Now we would like to switch to another textbook. I am researching which will be best for my two boys 11.8 and 9.7.

I know that Ruth in NZ uses Boya Chinese and Embassy uses New Practical Chinese Reader.

Please share what you use or plan to use. Thanks!

While I'm at it, Ruth, can you tell me where to find Boya sample pages? I would also love to see Integrated Chinese sample pages. Neither samples are available on Amazon.

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My older son has had success with Boya, but not across the board. It is a very reading focused book, so his writing, speaking, and listening skills are behind. The current tutor is working hard to remediate this. Recently, I have found my dream program -- the 2 book set of Fundamental Written Chines and Fundamental Spoken Chinese. They are actually fabulous, and my tutor is having my older work through the written book to shore up his writing. Here is an x-post of my review of them:

 

x-post:

We have finally found the books we have always wanted.


Fundamental Written Chinese
Fundamental Spoken Chinese

These are not little kiddy books, and don't have any cute characters or sparkly colors, but *how* they teach mandarin is without equal. :001_wub:

My younger (age 10) and I are using them with a tutor with whom we meet weekly.

The key is the graduated exposure of the characters, so by the time you have to write the difficult ones, you already have memorized all the pieces inside. This makes the writing fun and easy and not a big monsterous memory nightmare. The spoken book is not completely controlled by the written, but they do work synergisticly so by the time you are learning the characters you have already learned how to say the word in chinese so it feels familiar. It is also key that there is NOT pinyin written below the characters in the writing/reading book, so you never get dependent on a crutch. There are also lots and lots of well thought out exercises in both books, way more than I have seen in other books - grammar, speaking, vocab, writing, listening, dictionary skills, etc. There is way more example dialogues and example texts to read than you find in any book I have seen, so you have more than one way displayed for how words are used. The grammar is VERY explicitly and clearly taught, so no guessing what the word order is or why you are seeing it written in a different way in this chapter's dialogue than last chapter's dialogue. Goodness me, out of the 5 programs I have seen, this one outshines them all by a factor of 10. Our tutor was ecstatic.

 

The descriptions on the website say more than I ever could, so I have copied them here. If you have any specific questions, I am happy to answer them.


+++++


Fundamental Written Chinese teaches both mastery of individual characters and reading comprehension. It introduces characters gradually, moving from simple independent characters to more complex compound ones. How characters are organized and constructed is taught through the liberal use of charts that display the structural and organizational regularities of each character, that is, its radical, phonetic component, shared graphic components, stroke order, and principles of proportion. This knowledge is then reinforced by exercises at the end of each chapter that require students to draw on the compositional information presented in the charts.


Reading skills are taught through written passages that are accompanied by questions and exercises. Chapters begin with a reading passage and end with one or two shorter supplementary passages. Because words in Chinese are often composed of two different characters and because the optimum method for introducing new characters requires limiting the number of new radicals and structurally unrelated characters that can appear in any one character, many of the written texts in Fundamental Written Chinese make limited use of a Hanyu Pinyin-plus-character system of writing. This makes it possible for the text to remain faithful to a very controlled approach to character learning while allowing students to read passages that are within the scope of their abilities in spoken Chinese.


The authors of Fundamental Written Chinese and its accompanying text, Fundamental Spoken Chinese, treat written and spoken language as two different but related systems that are most effectively learned by delinking the sequence in which the particulars of each system is taught. Such an approach insures that reading and writing skills are firmly grounded in the spoken vocabulary and grammar previously learned. Both volumes are designed to provide students with a systematic, knowledge-based approach to speaking, listening, reading, and writing Chinese.


++++

Fundamental Spoken Chinese introduces most of the basic grammatical patterns of modern spoken Mandarin in a carefully planned, graduated fashion. Every chapter follows the same organizational format and includes: key grammar points, new vocabulary items arranged by part of speech, sentence patterns, and four or five short dialogues illustrating contextual use of each new grammar pattern and vocabulary item. Non-technical explanations of grammar are written from the perspective of the English-speaking learner and are illustrated with multiple sentences in simple chart form. When appropriate, vocabulary and culture notes are provided, together with numerous drills, exercises, and in-class activities. Finally, English-Chinese translation exercises help determine how well students have mastered the chapter’s grammar and vocabulary.


The authors of Fundamental Spoken Chinese and its accompanying text, Fundamental Written Chinese, treat spoken and written language as two different but related systems that are most effectively learned by delinking the sequence in which the particulars of each system are taught. Such an approach insures that reading and writing skills are firmly grounded in the spoken vocabulary and grammar previously learned. Both volumes are designed to provide students with a systematic, knowledge-based approach to speaking, listening, reading, and writing Chinese.


++++


There are also audio files for both books on the website

 

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There are extensive " look inside" for these books on Amazon. 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Written-Chinese-Simplified-Character/dp/0824831578

http://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Spoken-Chinese-Robert-Sanders/dp/082483156X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409348591&sr=1-1&keywords=fundamental+spoken+chinese

 

Which include the introductory essay describing the philosophical approach to teaching chinese and a few sample chapters.  Both books have introductory chapters that won't give you a feel for the rest of the book. So you need to get chapter 2 (page 19) in the spoken book to see the standard approach for the rest of the book, and to chapter 4 (p31) in the written book.

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Thanks a lot, Ruth! I checked out the sample texts. My boys are much beyond these two books and understand many spoken words and can read a good amount of written words. It is just a little hard to go on to Singapore 3B because it is much harder. I would like to find something that fits their level now.

I would like to have a look at Boya sample pages. Which Boya book is your older using now?

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I might end up using this series which is being used by a Chinese immersion program at a public school here (not my district). The company is based in Irvine, California.

 

美洲åŽè¯­ Mei Zhou Hua Yu

http://www.mzchinese.net/ChineseSimplified/index_Simplified.html

 

Their teacher's guide, exam papers and extras are available when you click the icon of the book you want in below link. For example clicking on book 3 would give you the resources for book 3

http://www.mzchinese.org

 

 

ETA:

Is this the 3A you are using?

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BLE129

 

Or the higher Chinese version

http://mc.iflashbook.com/iflashbooken/book_detail.asp?id=5000021

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Arcadia,

Thank you so much for Meizhou Chinese link! I like it a lot. It is geared towards American children who learn Chinese in America. My kids might be at Level 3 or Level 4. There are lots of similarities between Singapore Chinese and Meizhou. I will give Singapore some more try and then transit to Meizhou. I already bought all the way to 4B. I think the cultural topics in Meizhou are more relevant to our children. I wish I had known this series earlier.

For others who are interested in this program, you need to be a (near) native Chinese speaker and reader to be able to teach your child with this.

我们现在用的是“å°å­¦åŽæ–‡â€ï¼Œä¹Ÿæ˜¯æ˜Žå·žä¸­æ–‡èžå…¥å¼å­¦æ ¡ä½¿ç”¨çš„课本。里é¢å¤šæ˜¯æ–°åŠ å¡çš„文化多,有些è¯æ˜¯æ–°åŠ å¡ä¸“用è¯ï¼Œ 外人看ä¸æ‡‚。比如,“巴刹â€æ˜¯â€œå¸‚场â€çš„æ„æ€ã€‚我现在正打字时æ‰æ‚Ÿåˆ°å®ƒæ˜¯ç”±è‹±æ–‡çš„bazaar音译æ¥çš„。å¦å¤–还有公寓楼也是一个外人ä¸è®¤è¯†çš„字。美洲中文的好处在于它是以在美国或北美居ä½çš„学生为授课对象的。孩å­èƒ½æ›´æœ‰å…´è¶£äº›ã€‚谢谢你的链接,很有帮助。我å¯èƒ½ä¼šè€ƒè™‘转用美洲中文。 好åƒæ˜¯ä¸€ä¸ªå­¦å¹´ä¸€æœ¬ä¹¦ï¼Œé‡ä¸é‡ï¼Œå­¦èµ·æ¥ä¸ä¼šå¾ˆèµ¶ã€‚你说呢?

还有,美洲中文把周一到周五的功课都分é…好了,真çœäº‹ï¼

å¦å¤–,我还看到有è¯æ±‡çš„quizlet,好方便哦ï¼

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好åƒæ˜¯ä¸€ä¸ªå­¦å¹´ä¸€æœ¬ä¹¦ï¼Œé‡ä¸é‡ï¼Œå­¦èµ·æ¥ä¸ä¼šå¾ˆèµ¶ã€‚你说呢?

是一个学年一本书。 读完第å本就是å¯ä»¥ä¸Šå‡†å¤‡è€ƒ AP Chinese 的课堂了。一年少过两百个新字还ä¸å¤ªéš¾ã€‚

 

Mei Zhou Chinese is a book a year. Book 10 is meant to be pre-AP.

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我们现在用的是“å°å­¦åŽæ–‡â€ï¼Œä¹Ÿæ˜¯æ˜Žå·žä¸­æ–‡èžå…¥å¼å­¦æ ¡ä½¿ç”¨çš„课本。里é¢å¤šæ˜¯æ–°åŠ å¡çš„文化多,有些è¯æ˜¯æ–°åŠ å¡ä¸“用è¯ï¼Œ 外人看ä¸æ‡‚。比如,“巴刹â€æ˜¯â€œå¸‚场â€çš„æ„æ€ã€‚我现在正打字时æ‰æ‚Ÿåˆ°å®ƒæ˜¯ç”±è‹±æ–‡çš„bazaar音译æ¥çš„。å¦å¤–还有公寓楼也是一个外人ä¸è®¤è¯†çš„字。美洲中文的好处在于它是以在美国或北美居ä½çš„学生为授课对象的。孩å­èƒ½æ›´æœ‰å…´è¶£äº›ã€‚谢谢你的链接,很有帮助。我å¯èƒ½ä¼šè€ƒè™‘转用美洲中文。 好åƒæ˜¯ä¸€ä¸ªå­¦å¹´ä¸€æœ¬ä¹¦ï¼Œé‡ä¸é‡ï¼Œå­¦èµ·æ¥ä¸ä¼šå¾ˆèµ¶ã€‚你说呢?

还有,美洲中文把周一到周五的功课都分é…好了,真çœäº‹ï¼

å¦å¤–,我还看到有è¯æ±‡çš„quizlet,好方便哦ï¼

 

Well, I can't read this, but I've got about 20%. :hurray:   Yea for me!  It is like when I was little and I would take a newspaper and cross out all the words I did not know and was left with We.... do....little... chinese.... also.... good...book... have.... small...

 

Heee heee.

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Boya content is more geared towards students who are much older, at least high school or college. A younger student may not be able to relate to the dialogs or the passages.

I just compared Singapore Chinese with Meizhou Chinese. They both require a near native speaker to teach. SC progresses much faster and has almost double number of new words a year. SC has 24 or 22 lessons a year, with only five exercises (6 pages or so) per lesson while Meizhou has only 10 lessons a year with 18 pages of exercises per lesson divided into three weeks , one page per week day with an extra page on Friday. This would be the selling point for me. I would rather my students progress slowly than them being overwhelmed and hurried.

 

The extra resources including quizlet are very helpful for students to master the words.

 

So I highly recommend Meizhou Chinese for students with native speaker parent and/or tutor for Grade 1 and up. I wish I had started with this years ago.

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2girls&amom,

How old are your girls? What graded readers and early chapter books are you buying and where?

Another question: I only want to buy one set of books plus an extra workbook. Did you buy two complete sets or one set with an extra workbook? I emailed Meizhou and they would charge $14 shipping because it would be more than one set due to that extra workbook. :-( shipping for one set is $7. Another question: do you only speak Chinese to the girls?

Thanks!

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2girls&amom,

How old are your girls? What graded readers and early chapter books are you buying and where?

Another question: I only want to buy one set of books plus an extra workbook. Did you buy two complete sets or one set with an extra workbook? I emailed Meizhou and they would charge $14 shipping because it would be more than one set due to that extra workbook. :-( shipping for one set is $7. Another question: do you only speak Chinese to the girls?

Thanks!

 

Hi Jade,

 

I am only using it with my older daughter, who is 6. My other daughter is only 20 months old, so I only bought one set of the books. I have been speaking Chinese to them since birth (OPOL), but it is getting harder to maintain with my older one since we do school in English and I often forget to shift back to Chinese. I taught my daughter to read using the æˆ‘会读 set of readers then continued with the è¯»ä¹¦éƒŽ readers from the same publishers. My daughter also liked the Tao Shu and Shapes books. For chapter books, she likes the é˜…读 123 series and books by æ¨çº¢æ¨±, 张秋生, and 宫崎éª. I bought most of my Chinese books from Singapore, China, and Taiwan, but chinasprout.com also carries most of them.

 

我会读 (5 levels with 12 books each) -

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSE205

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSE206

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSE207

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSE208

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSE209

 

读书郎 (6 levels with 6 books each) - 

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSE220

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSE221

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSG018

 

Tao Shu and Shapes books -  

http://www.sgshinekids.com/tao-shu-2812026641.html

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BLE239

 

chapter books - 

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSY193

http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSY053

http://search.dangdang.com/?key=%D4%C4%B6%C1123%CF%B5%C1%D0

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你真棒ï¼ï¼ï¼

I can relate! I have to teach in English and it is hard to transit to Chinese. I am very guilty of not speaking Chinese to the boys. I have to make conscious effort to remember it. Thank you for sharing the sources! My boys love to listen to me reading 三毛æµæµªè®°ã€‚does your daughter read the readers and the chapter books by herself? That would be great!

Jade

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Yes, she's reading by herself. She picked up Chinese characters fairly easily. I forgot to mention that we also went through the å››äº”快读 reading curriculum after the 5 levels of æˆ‘会读, and, after that, she could read any children's chapter book I gave her. My daughter loves Chinese comics, especially å°å®å½“. I should introduce her to ä¸‰æ¯›!! 

 

By the way, are you teaching Simplified or Traditional chinese?

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