As a native Chinese who majored in Chinese language and literature for 5 years and taught Chinese classical language and literature in a college for 9 years, I had read about 100,000 Chinese classical poems and several thousands Chinese classical and modern essays, novels. I could recite more than 1000 Chinese classical poems and essays and I needed not to see my teaching plan on the platform. :-)

Anyway, I have not been teaching in the classroom since I came to Shenzhen and became an editor of magazine and newspaper, a manager in the newspaper office, network company and a multimedia company with TV, magazine, web sites, mobile phone and mini computer and so on... But, I have been working on my Chinese Learning Column via the little web site since 2005. I would like to develop my specialty, to help the others and to improve myself. I am happy that I have created a new room and opportunity to continue study something in my former professional field on a totally new and bigger International platform via Internet. A better thing is that I am working with bilingual English and Chinese. :-)

So, after I thought, researched and explored how to improve this column for a long time, after I worked on this project for almost whole of my National Day Holidays for about 5 years, I would like to reform the column Learning Chinese with Shirley Together to be 3 parts:

Part I:   Practical Chinese Language Learning

            -- Reciting I: Chinese Classical Poems
            -- Reciting II : Chinese Vocabulary
            -- Speaking I :   Chinese in daily Life
            -- Speaking II: Chinese in Current Affairs
            -- Listening: Chinese Modern Lyrics
            -- Applying: Chinese Vs. English

Part II: Essential Chinese Language Learning

            --Chinese Pronunciation
            -- Chinese Characters
            -- Chinese Grammar

Part III: Chinese as An Compositive Art
           
In the first part, I would like to help you to learn Chinese via reading and reciting Chinese poems, speaking daily Chinese, listening to the modern Chinese lyrics; to touch, to feel and to learn practical Chinese, to learn Chinese language via learning Chinese culture.

Via the experiencing to learn English, I know that the most difficult part for you is listening. Since 2005, I have created, played 85 pieces of music to match Chinese classical poems and I have sung them since Chinese classical poems could be sung thousand years ago, but for the time is too long and the music has been lost. Meanwhile, I have also sung more than 100 modern Chinese songs, translated their lyrics and offered their pronunciation with Chinese pingyin. Since 2007, I started to sing the Chinese classical poems and Chinese modern lyrics in both of Chinese and English.

What I wish is to help you to understand the meaning of the poems, texts and the lyrics. The emphasis is to improve your listening level, aural comprehension and oral Chinese... :-)
  
In second part, I would like to help you to improve your Chinese pronunciation via Chinese pinyin learning, Chinese Characters writing, Vocabulary remembering and Chinese Grammar. :-)

In the third part, I have combined the Chinese poems and I myself created paintings, calligraphies, and music together. I would like to created a unique style that with my own knowledge copy right inside, to help you to learn Chinese language during the process of enjoying Chinese traditional cultures. I started the exploring and on this style and I hope it will be helpful to you to learn Chinese.   

If you have any questions, comments and suggestions, please write to shirley@ebridge.cn or Yiping007@MissouriState.edu. You are welcome to publish your opinions in Forum as well.

Shirley Zhang
Sun, Feb 15, 2009