This book discusses teaching of Chinese language listening against the background of the world-wide second language education and combines data introduction, theoretical study and practical analysis. It analyzes the features of various teaching methods so far, discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these teaching methods in Chinese language teaching and provides the currently available, accurate and effective teaching methods to develop students' listening comprehension of Chinese language. At the same time, it fully explores the cutting-edge communication teaching method and the task-based teaching method, the latter of which was developed from the former, in an effort to broaden readers' vision with rich and detailed data.

This book attaches great importance to the combination of theoretical exploration and teaching practice. It systematically discusses the following issues, which range from types of the listening activities to the control of listening materials, from classroom activities which focus on form to the task design which focuses on meaning, from the task-based classroom teaching procedures to the application of data coming from real life. All these practical issues in relation to the development of students' listening ability are discussed. It is a rare reference book for Chinese learners and researchers.

Zhang Bennan, Ph.D. of Beijing Normal University, was an Associate Professor of Renmin University of China, Visiting Scholar of McGill University of Canada, Visiting Professor of Graduate Institute of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, Taiwan Normal University. He taught at many universities in Northern America, Hong Kong and Taiwan and has taught at the Hong Kong Institute of Education since 1995. His main research interest is Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL) and has published more than 10 academic works (including co-authored books and translated books) and over 60 papers.