When I set out to design Chinese Uncovered, my main aim was to set it apart from every other Chinese course. The way I've done that is to base the entire course around a story, and, in fact, the course syllabus itself emerges from the story.
Let me explain...
Most Chinese courses are structured by taking a bunch of grammar rules, putting them together in a certain order, then teaching them to you one-by-one in a series of lessons. This is dull, and ineffective. In this course, we do things differently. In this course, you learn through 'StoryLearning'. This means you focus on relaxing, reading, and enjoying the plot of the story. The 'serious study' happens another way!
Rather than teaching you through a process of grammar rules, followed by tests, here's what we do instead. First, I make sure you see the grammar being used naturally in the story itself. This way, you get to learn how it works in a natural way. Second, you discover the rules by yourself... with a little help from your native Chinese teacher! Story first. Rules later. This makes learning much more effective.
This means you get to enjoy learning Chinese first and foremost, rather than get bogged down in technicalities. (Yes... it's fun!)
Doesn't that sound more exciting than your last textbook?
At every stage of the course, you’ll be immersed in real Chinese - both the written story and the audiobook. This means that by the time you finish the course, not only will you have read an entire book in Chinese, but you’ll have a large vocabulary, so you can express yourself fully in conversation. You will also have had many hours of listening practice, so that following spoken Chinese will be effortless.