Chinese for Commerce: Comprehensive Course I

“Step into Practice: Chinese for Economics Series” serves as a bridge for international students to switch from basic Chinese learning to business and finance majors, and also a good medium for advanced students of Chinese and foreign practitioners to further improve their comprehensive Chinese application ability according to their actual work needs.

This series consists of 7 books: Chinese for Commerce: Comprehensive Course (1 & 2), Chinese for Finance: Comprehensive Course (1 & 2), Chinese for Commerce: Listening and Speaking, Chinese for Commerce: Writing and Chinese for Commerce: Culture, covering common topics in the fields of business and finance.

The textbook strives to make the top-level goal of “integrating knowledge, ability and quality” concrete and put into practice, and make the outline project, content and style design reflect the training requirements of multiple knowledge abilities and quality indicators. In terms of knowledge, this book emphasizes business Chinese and economic and trade expertise, while in terms of ability, emphasis is placed on business Chinese listening, speaking, reading and writing, comprehensive ability to use Chinese to deal with real business issues and cross-cultural communication ability. In addition, it also helps to cultivate teamwork spirit and international vision

This textbook, Chinese for Commerce: Comprehensive Course I, belongs to the “Step into Practice: Chinese for Economics Series”. The whole book takes the ability outline as the core, the topic outline as the content scope supplemented by language knowledge, professional knowledge, social knowledge and other multi-dimensional clues, and simulation tasks as practical opportunities for learners to practice and consolidate their ability. It consists of 8 units, 16 lessons. In terms of the ability acquired, this volume focuses on the ability to collect and analyze business information, which is subdivided into four categories of “acquisition - understanding - analysis - integration”, and further details the ability items of each unit and the “micro” ability points of each lesson. In terms of the topics involved, it focuses on macroeconomics, mainly including economic aggregate, economic composition, stage of industrial development and industrial structure.

Chief Author: Zhai Yijiang   

Chief Author of This Volume: An Na

Zhai Yijiang is an associate professor and Master candidates’ supervisor of the School of Humanities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and was the Chinese director of the Confucius Institute at Heidelberg University in Germany. His main research focuses on teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages and comparative Chinese characterology. He has published textbooks such as the A 21st Century Course of Chinese as a Foreign Language.

An Na is a teacher of the International Chinese Education Center, School of Humanities, Shanghai Jiaotong University, with a PhD in Literature. Her main research focuses on corpus linguistics, second language acquisition, and international Chinese language education. Her representative publications include A Corpus-Based Research on Discourse Markers and Chinese Second Language Teaching: From Methodology to Post-Methodology.

    I. This textbook is an exploration and practice of “Can-do” concept in second language teaching in the field of international Chinese education, which closely follows the top-level goal of “integrating knowledge, ability and quality”, puts the cultivation of ability and quality into practice in a detailed manner, and gives out its specific operation path. Learning objective, learning content, language practice and task setting are all closely related to the core goal of cultivating language communication and application ability.

    II. Given the needs of business-related professional learning and academic research, as well as the requirements of business professionals’ professional ability, the book defines and refines the training objectives of business Chinese communication and application ability step by step, thus forming the ability outline of the whole book. According to the progressive level of “ability block - ability category - ability item - ability point”, the overall goal is firstly divided into cultivating understanding and expression abilities of business information. Then, according to the learners’ needs of using business Chinese, the former is subdivided into “acquisition - understanding - analysis - integration”, and the latter is analyzed into “introduction - explanation - investigation - research”. Based on above eight abilities, the ability items of each unit and the “micro” ability points of each lesson are further refined. Through the mentioned method, the operability of overall ability training objectives is ensured.

    III. With ability cultivation as the core, the content of units included is organized in a multi-dimensional and orderly way. The book takes the ability outline as the core and the topic outline as the content scope supplemented by language knowledge, professional knowledge, social knowledge and other multi-dimensional clues, with each outline independent but progressive vertically and each lesson correlated horizontally. Every part characterizes elaborate layout and sets for clear goal, not only taking into account the practice of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, but also the use of moderate volume of knowledge, which reflects the characteristics of this book as a comprehensive language textbook.

    IV. This book employs task-based teaching theory to design realistic communicative tasks. Each lesson is accompanied by a simulated communication task, which serves as a practical opportunity for learners to practice and consolidate their competence projects.

    After learning this textbook, learners can not only understand the business field and economic status of China, complete common business communication activities in Chinese, but also improve the ability to analyze and express business information, and effectively enhance the ability to conduct academic research and work research in Chinese.

It is suitable for majors in Chinese for business and economics, advanced students of Chinese and foreign business personnel.

The book has 8 units including 16 lessons totally, and is recommended to spend 4 to 8 class hours for one unit. It can be used alone or in conjunction with Chinese for Commerce: Comprehensive Course II in the order of “macro to micro”.

In terms of the overall course design, it is recommended to support with Chinese for Commerce Writing, Chinese for Commerce Listening and Speaking and Chinese for Commerce: Culture in “Step into Practice: Chinese for Economics Series”.