序PREFACE

Over the past few years, the global landscape of foreign language supply and demand has undergone profound changes, notably through the emergence of teaching Chinese as a second language. The outlines of this new landscape are now being inevitably drawn in favour of China and the Sinophone world in general, due to the rank they assume in the international arena, but also based on the unprecedented degree of mobility of people within the Global Village.The worldwide teaching of Chinese has faced the major challenge of organizing and updating a discipline that is experiencing extremely rapid growth.Concretely, this involves designing suitable teaching materials, and setting clear and specific learning objectives for Chinese programs, to improve the quality and effciency of language pedagogy training of Chinese teachers.

Teaching materials are of particular importance for consolidating the discipline of teaching Chinese, and it is fortunate in this context that Basic Chinese for North America today designed under the direction of Prof. Yu Hongju, appears on the stage.This textbook includes useful grammatical explanations, clear and concise, and often designed with a perspective to French or English.Thus, the material is committed to a truly pedagogic view of language teaching—a welcome choice！

Basic Chinese for North America today provides learners with cultural insights enabling them to develop Chinese language communication with greater ease and renewed motivation. This method is intentionally practical, by including exercises, an index, and interactive computer software.It is positioned to build a quality bond with its users whom we wish every success.

Joël BELLASSEN

Research Director at INALCO

General Inspector of Chinese

National Ministry of Education（France）

February 11，2012 At Paris