Action! China: A Field Guide to Using Chinese in the Community

Winner of the Chinese Language Teachers Association’s 2014 Cengage Learning Excellence and Innovation in Teaching Chinese Award.

Action! China is a practical guide for intermediate to advanced students of Chinese wanting to maximize their study abroad experience and enhance their language skills.

This handy guide contains over 90 Field Performance tasks which prompt real-life interactions with native speakers. By carrying out these real-life tasks students refine and solidify existing communication skills and gain a fuller understanding of and participation in the target culture.

The guide also provides over 60 Performance Watch tasks which help students understand how native speakers accomplish communicative goals through guided observation and analysis of naturally occurring interactions.

Action! China helps students understand and participate socially in Chinese, guiding them through skill-getting and skill-using processes and enabling them to form meaningful connections with Chinese people in the community.

Donglin Chai has been teaching Chinese as a foreign language since 2006 and is currently a visiting affiliate assistant professor of Chinese at Loyola University Maryland, USA. She has directed intensive Chinese study abroad programs for the US Department of State Critical Language Scholarship program and The Ohio State University.

Crista Cornelius is Director of the Xijin Chinese Language Program at Shaanxi Normal University in Xi’an, China, a new program integrating short-term Chinese study abroad with teacher training for novice Chinese language teachers.

Bing Mu is currently a PhD candidate in Chinese Language Pedagogy at The Ohio State University, USA. She has taught Chinese language courses of all levels in both regular academic and summer intensive programs at The Ohio State University. She has also served as a mentor for advanced American learners of Chinese in The Ohio State University’s Chinese Flagship Program in Qingdao, China.