Chinese for Managers
Publisher: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2004
- Everyday Chinese, Vol. 1-2
- Business Chinese, Vol. 1-2
- Economy and Commerce Chinese, Vol. 1-2
- Phonetics, Vol. 1-2
Collaborators: EU-China Junior Managers Training Program and Beijing Foreign Studies University.
The Chinese for Managers series consist of four course books each with two volumes: Everyday Chinese, Business Chinese, Economy and Commerce Chinese, and Phonetics. Phonetics serves as a supplement to teaching business Chinese at the beginner's level. The other three books are arranged progressively at beginner, elementary, and secondary levels, and may be used in a sequence or independently. Each has a distinct focus, but all of them integrate listening, speaking, reading, and writing to make for a congenial learning experience. Everyday Chinese teaches the kind of Chinese language that businesspeople use on a daily basis and supplements it with office work usages. Business Chinese features professional language that enables business managers to "talk shop" among themselves, and is also augmented with usages and expressions that reflect Chinese social and economic life. The Chinese taught in Economy and Commerce Chinese covers topics on the socioeconomic life of contemporary China.
This series of course books are an outcome of in-depth studies of the norms governing the teaching of business Chinese. Their contents are carefully screened and condensed bearing the trainees' learning needs in mind. The teaching methodology is optimized on the basis of repeated comparisons of alternatives. In short, these course books symbolize the philosophy of teaching business Chinese as a foreign language to professionals in the business world. They differ from other Chinese textbooks in the following aspects:
1. Teaching "Business Chinese" at the beginner's level. Everyday Chinese makes a point of selecting topics with communicative value, and mingles them with office situations and a considerable amount of business terms and expressions. The arrangement is designed to bring learners in touch with business Chinese right at the beginning of the learning process.
2. Stressing linguistic functions through topical scenes and discussions. Business Chinese falls into the category of special-purpose language teaching, as it covers a wide range of fields such as management, marketing and trade, and learners can master it only when they are taught its essential functions. These linguistic functions are highlighted in our course books, in which each unit of texts is centered on a single topic so as to acquaint learners with the scenes, expressions and cultural backgrounds surrounding that topic and teach them to apply the business language through diverse forms of drills and exercises.
3. Intensifying learning by integrating listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The three main course books of this series are all narrated in Chinese, and the texts and writing exercises on the same topic. Listening is the first step in the language learning process, and that is why our course books feature a variety of oral drills to help learners comprehend, absorb and feedback linguistic information of relevant topics. The second step involves visual input and expressions through repeated written drills. Eventually the learner can not only understand what he hears and reads but also express himself orally and in writing.
4. Improving communication proficiency through case studies and drills. Practicality is what counts in language training for professionals. This training course helps learners analyze and solve problems that may occur in business transactions and other activities in a Chinese language environment. Thus learning business Chinese becomes a process in which students are asked to fulfill one task after another, and in the course of it they subconsciously improve their comprehensive communication abilities in Chinese.
The course books also offer plenty of extracurricular activities so that learners can go out of the classroom and further improve their communication proficiency in Chinese while getting a feel of Chinese social and economic life.
