New Concept Chinese 5 and 6 are based on Dream of China, a TV show close to modern Chinese people’s life. The materials selected are those that can help foreigners learn about and understand Chinese people’s life and improve their Chinese communication skills.

This book is composed of 20 lessons, each focusing on one topic and consisting of two parts—the text and the exercises. (1) Text, the first part of each lesson. In each unit, the first three lessons each have a text which is a brief introduction to one episode of Dream of China and the new words and grammar points involved. The last lesson in each unit is a short essay about common Chinese people’s lives, written by the editorial group. (2) Exercises, the second part of each lesson. The exercises in the first three lessons of each unit are mostly audiovisual and speaking exercises based on an episode of Dream of China and aim to cultivate students’ Chinese listening and speaking skills. The exercises in the last lesson of each unit are reading and writing exercises, which aim to cultivate students’ reading and writing skills.

Through learning New Concept Chinese 5, students can acquire a preliminary ability to read Chinese newspapers and magazines, enjoy Chinese movies and TV shows, and make relatively complete speeches.

Mr. Cui Yonghua is a researcher in Beijing Language and Culture University. He has been engaged in the field of Chinese teaching and research since 1981. His research focuses on Chinese grammar, Chinese language teaching and Chinese information processing, and his publications include Classroom Techniques for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, Teaching and Research of Chinese as a Foreign Language (a collection of academic papers) and some textbooks coauthored with others, such as Standard Chinese Course, Learning Chinese and Learn Chinese through Listening, Speaking and Watching. Mr. Cui has chaired and participated in many research projects, such as Radical Standards of GB13000.1 Character Set for the Purpose of Information Processing.