《New Horizons —An Intermediate-advanced Course in Chinese(I)》is a series of intermediate to advanced Chinese textbooks designed for college students across the United States. The first volume of the series is tailored for third-year university students with intermediate to high-level Chinese proficiency. The book comprises 24 lessons, each centered around a socially relevant topic of universal interest to students. Every lesson is structured around a main theme, with an emphasis on combining interest, diversity, timeliness, and stability in content, aiming to inspire senior students to delve deeper into the contemplation of current social phenomena.

This comprehensive set of textbooks features a rich and complete content system. Each lesson includes preparatory work, texts in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters, vocabulary lists, explanations of language points, listening exercises (both pre- and post-class), pronunciation exercises, content-based exercises, vocabulary exercises, language point exercises, and reading and writing exercises. The appendices include a glossary of grammatical terms and abbreviations, a comprehensive index of language points, and a bilingual vocabulary list (Chinese-English), encompassing all the functionalities required for textbook use in one volume.

Liang Xia is a Teaching Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Washington University in St. Louis, USA, and a council member of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA. During the summer, she also serves as the Academic Director of the CET Study Abroad Program in Beijing. She has previously held positions as the Director of Duke University's Summer in China Program (Beijing) and as the Grade Coordinator for Princeton University's Beijing Summer Program. She has taught for many years at Princeton University's Summer Beijing Program and the Middlebury Summer Chinese School. In 2020, she published her monograph "Research on Chinese Language Education in American Universities" and has published dozens of academic papers in both Chinese and English. She has repeatedly served as a trainer for the dispatched teacher training program jointly organized by the Center for Language Education and Cooperation and the International Education Department of Beijing Language and Culture University, as well as a question setter for the interviews of dispatched teachers and volunteers for Confucius Institutes, a judge for the Chinese Teaching Heroes Conference, and has undertaken the task of reviewing the standards for international Chinese language teachers.

Cui Yonghua is a professor at Beijing Language and Culture University. He graduated from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Peking University in 1981 with a Master's degree in Literature and has since been engaged in Chinese language teaching, research, and publishing at Beijing Language and Culture University. He has taught Chinese in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. His major works include "Classroom Teaching Techniques for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language" (Editor-in-Chief, 1997), "Research on Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language" (Collection, 2005), and "Instructional Design for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language" (2008); he has published dozens of papers in related fields and has led and participated in the compilation of several Chinese language textbooks.

Zhang Zhengsheng is currently a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages at San Diego State University, California. He has served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA. His research areas include Chinese language and characters, Chinese language teaching, the application of technology in language teaching, and corpus-based stylistic studies. Recent related monographs include "Teacher's Manual for Integrated Chinese" (co-authored with Liu Yuehua, et al.), "Introduction to Chinese Natural Language Processing" (with Wong, et al.), and "Dimensions of Variation in Written Chinese." Recent related papers include "The Current Status of CALL for Chinese in the United States," "The Myths of Chinese Characters and Chinese Character Teaching," and "The 'Arrow' and 'Target' of Advanced Chinese Language Teaching Overseas."

Li Zhiqiang is a professor in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages at the University of San Francisco, USA, and has served as the president of the California Chinese Language Teachers Association. He has been a council member of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA, and the International Association of Chinese Linguistics. Recent publications include "Research on the Acquisition and Teaching of Chinese Phonetics" (2018) and "Research on Chinese Intonation and Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language" (2020, co-authored). Major papers include "Prosodic Realization of Tonal Target and its Alignment with Neutral-tone Syllables in Mandarin Chinese," "Prosodic Restrictions on the Distribution and Realization of Tonal Events: Evidence from Chaha," "A Model for the Acquisition of Mandarin Phonetics," "Phonetic Issues in the Teaching of Tones and Intonation in Chinese as a Foreign Language," "Phonetic Teaching and Research in Spoken Dialogue," and "Phonological Oppositions and Non-Distinctive Features."

Cecilia Chang is a professor in the Department of Asian Studies at Williams College, USA. He is the former Chair and Chief Examiner of the College Board AP Chinese Test Development Committee and currently serves as the principal of the Middlebury Chinese School. His main research areas are second language acquisition and reading theory and strategies. Since the 1980s, he has been involved in teaching and teacher training at the Middlebury Chinese Summer School. In the Middlebury graduate program, he mainly offers courses on Introduction to Chinese Teaching Methods, Chinese Reading Teaching, and Chinese Curriculum Design and Textbook Compilation. Related monographs include "See How They Read: An Investigation into the Metacognitive Awareness of Non-Native Readers of Chinese," "Effects of Topic Familiarity and Linguistic Difficulty on the Reading Strategies and Mental Representations of Nonnative Readers of Chinese," and "The Teacher-Training Workshop of the 2006 Middlebury Summer Chinese School: Guidelines and Critique."

Wang Jing is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Studies and the Associate Director of the Chinese Language Program at Princeton University, USA. She is a council member of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA. Her main research directions are the translation studies of Tang and Song dynasty novels and the teaching materials and methods for advanced levels in teaching Chinese as a foreign language. Recent publications include "Imaging China: An Intermediate-Advanced Chinese Film Reader" (2020, co-authored) and "An Introduction to Song Dynasty Fiction" (2017, co-authored). Recent related papers include "The Use of Video Materials in Advanced Chinese as a Foreign Language Teaching," "A Survey Report on the Teaching of Classical Chinese in the United States," and "The Splendor Beyond the Story: Thematic Film Clip Cultural Teaching."

Li Shuai is an Associate Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures and the head of the Chinese Program at Georgia State University, USA, and the Vice President of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA. He is the book review editor for the journal "Chinese as a Second Language." His research focuses on the acquisition of Chinese as a second language and second language pragmatics. He has co-edited "Classroom research on Chinese as a second language" (2019) and "Engaging language learners through technology integration: Theories, applications, and outcomes" (2014). In 2017, he was invited by the journal "Chinese as a Second Language Research" to co-edit a special issue on pragmatics research in Chinese as a second language. His research has been published in international journals such as "Language Learning," "The Modern Language Journal," "Language Teaching," "System," "Language Assessment Quarterly," "Language Testing in Asia," "Pragmatics and Cognition," "Chinese as A Second Language," and "Chinese as A Second Language Research."

This set of textbooks fills the gap in the shortage of widely influential intermediate and advanced Chinese textbooks in the current US market. According to the survey report (2014) of the Chinese Language Teachers Association of the United States, the textbooks used in Chinese classes for middle and upper grades in the US are relatively scattered. The most popular Chinese textbook in the current US market, "Integrated Chinese", only includes four volumes for the first and second grades, thus creating a major vacancy in intermediate and advanced Chinese textbooks in the US. This set of textbooks starts with the third - grade textbooks that are in high market demand, and in terms of content, it can be largely connected with "Integrated Chinese" in vocabulary, language points, and text content.
The members of the compilation team of this textbook have diverse backgrounds. There are teachers from public universities, private universities, and liberal arts colleges in the US, as well as front - line Chinese teachers in charge of Chinese projects in China. Therefore, they can better understand the textbook needs of different types of schools and students.
This book strives for "comprehensiveness": It adopts a brand - new format, is compiled from a new perspective, and views current social hot topics in an all - round way. The compilation and creation team has made bold innovations in aspects such as text writing, word list compilation, selection and explanation of language points, and exercise design.
The texts of this set of textbooks take topics as the main line, paying attention to the combination of interest, diversity, timeliness, and stability of the content. It can inspire upper - grade students to think deeply about current social hot phenomena and is inspiring, debatable, and thought - provoking.
The explanation of language points is a major highlight of this set of textbooks. Different from the "grammar points" in most Chinese textbooks, this set of textbooks lists about 300 "language points" in total. It not only includes commonly used sentence patterns, complex sentence forms, etc., but also real words with special usages, common function words, spoken language, book titles, and commonly used cohesive words, etc., which is more suitable for the learning needs of intermediate and advanced learners.
The "new - style tone marks" are also one of the highlights of vocabulary learning in this set of textbooks. This set of textbooks breaks away from the traditional four - tone marking symbols and uses a new set of tone - marking symbols. These symbols are not only accurate and intuitive, but also more convenient to use, and can better reflect tone changes, helping students master the pronunciation skills of new words well.
Phonetic exercises are another major highlight of this set of textbooks. Different from general advanced textbooks, this set of textbooks believes that students still need to strengthen phonetic exercises at the intermediate and advanced stages, especially phonetic exercises on tone changes at the sentence level, which can help students speak more native - like and fluent Chinese.
The setting of after - class exercises focuses on aligning with the ACTFL syllabus and the HSK exam. It adopts a rich variety of forms to cultivate students' listening, reading, writing, and other abilities. Moreover, the difficulty of the exercises gradually increases with the difficulty of the texts, continuously improving students' various language skill levels.