A Comparative Study Between Jinbu And Easy Steps To Chinese-two Chinese Textbooks Used For British Teenagers

In this paper,two primary-level Chinese comprehensive textbooks,Jinbu and Easy Steps to Chinese,are studied from the perspective of their young users from British secondary schools.By referring to theories such as second language acquisition,needs analysis,compilation and evaluation of textbooks as well as research results from predecessor scholars and using the methods of data statistics,comparative analysis and questionnaire survey,the author makes a comparative study between these two sets of textbooks in terms of their writing principles,arrangement styles,texts,vocabulary,grammar points and tasks.The main research conclusions include: Jinbu is more targeted designed for its users and ESC shows high practicality despite the lack of scientific nature on its vocabulary arrangements and illustration designs;The texts of Jinbu is more diverse in terms of topics and genres but the difficulty level fluctuates greatly;The average vocabulary of both textbooks is about 11 per lesson but they are not well distributed into each lesson;Jinbu and ESC average 1.4 and 0.6 grammar items per lesson respectively,which are basically at elementary level and presented in the form of grammar notes;Both textbooks provide sufficient tasks but the tasks from ESC are designed in a less diverse way compared to those from Jinbu.According to the statistical results,combined with the survey of satisfactory and needs of learners with the use of the textbooks,and referring to some successful experience in compiling and using the textbooks,this paper puts forward some suggestions on improving the compilation of the textbooks for editors as well as optimizing the use of them for teachers.From the aspects of their texts,vocabulary,grammars and tasks,the suggestions include: As for Jinbu,appropriate adjustments can be made for the text levels,a word list and more enlightening tasks can be added;as for ESC,different types of topics and text genres,contents relating to the Chinese culture can be added;and a certain amount of elementary grammar items and more examples to illustrate them are needed for both Jinbu and ESC.