Review of A New Chinese Writing Course (English version) by Luo Qingsong

[Hofmann]

This is a review of A New Chinese Writing Course (English Version) by Luo Qingsong (羅青松, 2012), ISBN 9787513801393. I got this as a participant in a giveaway.

 

tl;dr: Effectively teaches various useful writing skills to intermediate learners of Chinese. Lack of translation of interface unnecessarily increases cognitive load. Looks a bit sloppy.

 

This book is meant to teach basic and intermediate writing skills to intermediate learners of Chinese. It contains 20 lessons, which range from introducing oneself to forming and supporting an argument. The language of instruction is Chinese, with only definitions in English.

 

Each lesson focuses on a particular genre, and contains explanations and examples of a few techniques that may be useful in that genre, example writings that employ these techniques, and some exercises and activities.

 

For example, Lesson 1 contains

• Two example writings, with a list of words that may be outside the reader's vocabulary, with Pinyin and definitions in English.
  
  • One is a personal introduction from an international student from Japan, sent to China by her company to learn Chinese. Above the example is a short note that tells you to what to pay attention to, in this case that personal introductions typically contain one's name, position, education, occupation, interests or hobbies, and daily activities.
    
  • The other is of a world history major from Germany describing his travel plans in China. A note tells you to that when writing about plans, state when, why, and how, and to look for how this is done in the example.
    
  
  
• Next is an explanatory section, containing
  
  • The typical layout of a composition, including type justification and indentation, with an example.
    
  • A list of common punctuation marks with explanations of their function and examples.
    
  • A list of example sentences for describing oneself used in the example writings, with key words underlined, such as "我畢業於東京外國語大學."
    
  • A list of example sentences for describing one's plans used in the example writings, with key words underlined, such as "這個寒假我計劃去一些南方城市."
    
  
  
• Next is an exercise section, containing
  
  • An exercise where one lists some daily activities and planned activities, and writes some sentences describing one's circumstances or plans, sharing them with a classmate. (This book was written with classroom instruction in mind, and assumes the reader has classmates.)
    
  • An exercise where one writes sentences with a certain word or structure.
    
  • A blank-filling exercise, where a text has some key words missing, with the key words listed nearby. The texts are both paragraphs from personal introductions.
    
  • An exercise where one inserts punctuation in an unpunctuated text.
    
  • An activity where one interviews a classmate, an writes a 50-100 character introduction thereof.
    
  
  
• Finally there is an assignment section, where one writes 300-500 characters of any of the following.
  
  • Introduce oneself, a friend, or relative.
    
  • Describe one's plans, or someone else's.
    
  • Something similar of one's own choosing.
    
  
  

 

The genres covered include text messages, notices, surveys, and writing instructions. All genres are potentially useful, some more than others. The language of example writings all seem authentic and unconstrained. Overall, I think it is appropriate and useful for its intended audience, with a predictable organization and sufficient practice.

 

Some things I would improve are

• Making the interface language English. There is such a thing as cognitive load, and someone who is likely to need the vocabulary lists (which are not that advanced) that accompany example writings is also likely to have difficulty reading instructions, explanations, and prompts. Alleviating this difficulty will enable them to concentrate on the examples.
  
• Some things make this book look unprofessional
  
  • Sometimes I see five or more different fonts on the same page; is that really necessary? The one used for section labels like "說明" and "練習與活動" is terribly difficult to read.
    
  • The font used for all the "提示"s and possibly some other fonts are of the faux bold sort, and makes it look like some kid typed this in Word.
    
  • All the í in Pinyin aren't kerned right.
    
  
  

But seeing as this book isn't very expensive, I understand where they might have cut corners.

[roddy]

There are page samples on the product page linked to above, if anyone wants a look - little too small to read comfortably, but you can get an idea of the content. 

 

Thanks, Hofmann.