Practical Audio-Visual Chinese 5

[dtails]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for any reviews of PAVC 5. I have seen a lot of posts by people who have skipped it but I haven't seen a single detailed review of it. I am hoping to hear from people who have personally used it, either as a supplementary book or as the main textbook in a classroom setting. What are the shortcomings and the benefits? My class last week just finished book 4 and we started book 5, so any advice on pitfalls to avoid would be great. Thanks, you guys are the best!

[etm001]

 

 

I have seen a lot of posts by people who have skipped it

I suspect there are a few reasons for this:

• "PAVC" fatigue, i.e. by the time students have slogged their way through PAVC 1-4, they want something different. Which leads into the next point...
• At a school like the MTC, students have to complete PAVC 1-4 before they have any opportunity to use a different textbook. So many leap at the chance to try something new.

Your post prompted me to take my pristine, unused copy of PAVC 5 off my shelf and browse through it. (Why is my copy pristine? Because I also elected to skip PAVC 5). First, for those who don't know, the book contains 20 chapters. Each contains the following:

• ~30 vocabulary terms
• ~5 sentence/grammar patterns
• ~5-6 proverbs/common sayings
• ~3-4 exercises of various types that reinforce the new vocabulary/grammar, etc.
• ~4-5 sets of commonly confused words, with example sentences (e.g., 具有，擁有，懷有 etc.)
• 2 short-form essays with associated discussion questions

PAVC 5 focus more on aspects of Taiwanese/Chinese culture than earlier PAVC books; topics include the Chinese zodiac, simplified vs. traditional characters, holidays, modern life/traditional values, poverty, etc. (Side note: "Taiwan Today" is a great textbook that focuses heavily on Taiwanese society and culture; in terms of difficulty it's roughly equivalent to PAVC 3-4).

 

I didn't use PAVC 5 in a classroom and I've never touched it since the day I bought it. Having said that, after spending 30 minutes browsing through it, here are my thoughts:

• It's more information dense than prior PAVC books.
• On the whole its content is better suited to improving your reading and writing skills than your everyday speaking skills.
• I think most of the topics are reasonably interesting and insightful, but it really depends on where you are in your learning process. To wit: several years ago I self studied the "Thought and Society" collection of essays. In the edition I had, the first essay dealt with the history/evolution of Chinese orthography. This made me wanted to throw the book out the window - I had no desire to learn this and I didn't see how it could be of any help whatsoever. Fast forward to the present day, and I can say that I would find that essay much more interesting now than I did then. (I mention this in part because PAVC discusses some topics you might have no interest in at all, such as Chinese orthography or the Chinese zodiac).
• There have been no significant revisions to this book in a quite a while, so some of the topics might feel slightly out-of-date.
• I think the inclusion of the proverbs/sayings is great, even though you might not be using them very often.
• They did a great job providing a variety of different exercises within each chapter.
• (I only skimmed a few of the short-form essays, so I can't comment on them).

In retrospect I'm glad I skipped PAVC 5 - I was definitely suffering from PAVC fatigue. But now, after several years (and a whole lot of self study), I find it a much more interesting book. While a good portion of its content would be review for me, it still has a much to offer, and I would do a much better absorbing the material now than I would have a few years ago. And this last point is an important one: if you've been non-stop plowing your way through the PAVC series in language school, even though PAVC 5 might be the next book in the course offering, it might not be quite the right book for you now. If you do find that to be the case (for whatever reason), keep it on your shelf and pick it up after a 1-2 years of further study. It maybe far more interesting/helpful to you in the future than it is now.

 

Last random point: the PAVC series has been replaced by the "A Course in Contemporary Chinese" series. I haven't checked recently, but I'm guessing they've not yet published the CCC equivalent replacement for PAVC 5. (Although a bit dated, the PAVC series at it's core is quite good, and it certainly provided me with a strong framework on which I pursued my further studies).

[dtails]

Thanks for the comprehensive review! I am studying at a language center in Taichung and I had suggested to the teacher to try Mini Radio Plays but she insisted on PAVC 5. I have worked half-way through Taiwan Today with self-study and hope to pick up Mini Radio plays after that. From the first three chapters of PAVC 5, I can already see the difficulty quickly increasing, and I'm using a dictionary far more than with PAVC 4. The dialogues and essays are more interesting though, I like the cultural focus similar to Taiwan Today. I agree with you that the 成語 are a great addition and, especially in earlier chapters, I am finding them useful enough to sprinkle into regular conversation. Of course, the first three chapters is only a small section of the twenty chapters so I will try to update when I'm further along or when I can compare it better to other intermediate textbooks.