Finally they published the course books, and it totally makes sense. Now with our courses in line with HSK levels, using the HSK course material published by Beijing Foreign Language Institute in 2014 and 2015, endorsed by Hanban Institute, Practical Mandarin can finally develop our curriculum to be in line with HSK levels, and manage the pace of students’ learning progress.
As many of our students have taken the HSK tests here in London, or have been thinking of taking the tests upon their completion of courses with us, our school found it difficult to combine the current course books we use with HSK requirements. Firstly, it’s hard to match them perfectly, Secondly, learning for an exam does always sound boring and annoying.
However, by examine closely the HSK Standard Course Books, we are very much confident to say – They Did It!
The best feature of the course is they cleverly import the HSK vocabulary building structure into the contents. Moreover, the contents are of current social, daily life, business contexts! There have been many times we criticize the good old New Practical Chinese Reader – being over 20 years old, out of date language use etc. The publisher finally took the practical approach to update contents that are modern and relevant.
The other feature of the course is the exercises are rather well designed. Though we prefer Discover China series especially Level One (that’s why we are still using this for our Entry and Advanced Beginner course), these HSK course books have clearly outlined language points to learn and to practice on.
We are super excited to launch these course books for our regular Elementary, Intermediate and Upper Intermediate courses for now! Hopefully in the future, when they publish Level 5 and 6, they would be as good as the current four levels.
