We are still in the process of adding more clips.

This set of multimedia materials, Real People on Real Topics, Video Materials for the book, "Beyond the Basics," is designed for students of the intermediate-high level who want to improve their advanced listening skills. The materials make use of video clips, Chinese texts with pop up annotations, various types of listening comprehension exercises and suggestions for how the video clips be integrated with the training of other skills such as speaking and writing. The materials can be used independently or as supplementary materials with the textbook, "Beyond the Basics" (Le4-zai-gou1tong1).

The responses are natural with no rehearsal and no prepared scripts and therefore there are quite a few grammatical errors. We decide to keep the authenticity at a cost of including grammatical errors in natural speech.

When you click any title of the lessons from the main page you will go to a lesson which consists of a video clip, the transcripts of the video clip and various listening comprehension exercises. You can view the video clips as many times as you want by clicking the play button. Instructional feedback is provided when you do the listening comprehension exercises.

If you want to look at the transcripts while viewing the video clips you can do so by clicking the hot link below the video clip. The transcripts are annotated and you can click the colored words for definitions or explanations. If you can not see Chinese characters, sometimes you might need to set the encoding to Chinese: Click "View" and then move down to "Encoding" (IE) or "character set" (Netscape) and set it to Chinese GB or HZ.

After listening students are strongly encouraged to get together and discuss the social and cultural issues raised; please refer to the instructional guides for help. Teachers or teaching assistants should provide opportunities for integrating these video materials into their own curriculum.

When you are done with the lesson you can click the link of "Return to the Main Page" and go to another lesson.