This book compiles the important theses written by Mr. Timothy Light on Chinese studies and language teaching in the past few decades, involving the content such as the Studies of Chinese Language, Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, Foreign Language Teaching in China and America. It is an excellent must-read for linguists, language teaching researchers and learners.

Timothy Light, a famous American linguist and expert in the field of Chinese language teaching, got his PhD Degree in Chinese Linguistics from Cornell University and now is a Professor of West Virginia University and Honorary Professor of Beijing Language and Culture University. When he directed the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures of Ohio State University (OSU) in the 1970s and 1980s, he accepted the applications of many teachers from China to study linguistics and language education there and helped develop them into backbones of academia. These experts are still playing an active and important part in the fields of Chinese Linguistics and Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL). He visited and lectured in China several times during the 1980s. When he lectured at Beijing Language Institute (now Beijing Language and Culture University), his note, Modern Foreign Language Teaching Methods: Theory and Practice (Beijing Language Institute Press, 1987) was China’s first academic work on Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. This book greatly influenced the field of TCFL and played an important role to promote its development.