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Threshold of Chinese Culture, a series of general teaching
materials on Chinese culture designed for overseas Chinese learners, is
suitable for overseas learners who are preparing for exams such as HSK, IB or
AP, or enthusiasts who have a strong interest in Chinese culture. Threshold
of Chinese Culture (vol. 1 and vol. 2) consists of four units, totally 16
lessons, with each unit named after a Chinese character, “美”(beauty), “智”(wisdom),
“礼”(etiquette) and “和”(harmony). Starting with the first unit “美” and ending with the fourth unit “和”, the four Chinese characters take learners
on a journey through Chinese culture from the shallow to the deep, as well as
from the outside to the inside. The content, all-embracing but not opaque,
covers geography and landscape, architectural design, painting and porcelain,
literature and music, clothing, food, housing and transportation, ancient
technology, etiquette and rituals, and Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. In
addition to providing an in-depth reading experience, we have also designed a
large number of cross-cultural comparisons and exercises, hoping to seek
commonalities while preserving differences in mutual understanding, and to
cultivate learners’ global perspective and mindset. As a cultural textbook, the
whole book includes texts in both Chinese and English in order to lower the
reading threshold.
Except for the paper
materials, Threshold of Chinese Culture comes with an online learning
applet, which includes not only teaching materials, videos, animations, games,
atlases and other resources related to the material, but also learning
micro-lessons specifically produced for the book. Delivered by real teachers,
the 5-to-8-minute-long micro-lessons also include the refinement and
supplementation of the content of the paper textbook, which can deepen the
learners’ secondary understanding of cultural knowledge.
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