NI HAO

There is truly a dearth of good material for the upper elementary and middle school level. The Australian Ni Hao series, despite its high cost and some shortcomings, is often used to fill this gap.

Ni Hao dialogues are presented in typical comic book style, and feature Lanlan (a Chinese girl) and Dawei (an Australian lad) and their friends. The texts are in characters (both simplified and traditional versions are available) with pinyin printed above each character. The pinyin is then gradually dropped from characters which students 'should' know. This is an unusual approach for a modern Chinese language textbook, and might be viewed as a shortcoming by some, since it would appear to limit the approach and pace that an individual teacher wishes to use with the material. The textbooks are designed to be used from upper elementary through high school, although most teachers opt for other materials for high school.

I am using this series for my middle school students (heavily supplemented with other things of course). Ni Hao 1 follows an easy pace, and is a gentle and fun introduction to the language. The second volume picks up the pace considerably and probably warrants a slow-down in most classrooms.

As mentioned before, the books are rather expensive: volume 1 costs over forty dollars and volume 2 over seventy (including audio CDs- Cds? Who uses those anymore).

The high price is more inexplicable when you consider that the  illustrations are crude and amateurish, and lack color (my students always laugh at the illustrations- most of them could easily do a better job!). Incredibly, the illustrations and much of the content have not changed in 25 years. This series desperately needs a major makeover.

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Pros:

- Comic book approach may be appealing to many younger students.

- In general the layout and organization of the materials is clear.

- gives a decent introduction to the language.

Cons:

- Way overpriced for what you get.

- Needs to be updated and color added (the new 'color' version doesn't count- they went for a cheap bi-color overlay of the original drawings. Crude and unappealing.)

- Keep in mind this is set in Australia, if that would matter to you.

Bottom Line:

It's something to hang your curricular hat on for this level. If anything else decent shows up for this level, I'd ditch Ni Hao in a heartbeat.

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