Towards A New Approach To Constructing A Country-Specific Word List For Teaching Chinese As A Foreign Language: The Case Of Korean

Teaching Chinese to foreigners is, and will continue to be, a great undertaking for the Chinese government and the Chinese nation. In this regards, the discovery of methods to effectively promote and develop this undertaking using our inherent strengths has become an important task which must be addressed. A vital development in the field of teaching Chinese as a foreign language (TCFL) has been the research conducted on the construction of a word list which can be used to teach Chinese to foreigners. The development of such a word list has a direct influence on matters such as: the writing of teaching materials; the compilation of dictionaries and reference books; the formulation of curriculums and instruction syllabi for the teaching of vocabulary; and the measurement and testing of the teaching itself.The traditional way of building a word list attaches much importance to questions such as "what should we teach foreign students?" and "how should we teach foreign students?" while paying less attention to the question of "whom are we teaching?" Therefore, academic circles have tended to regard the Chinese corpus as the definitive vocabulary list. However, viewed from today's vantage point, much of the data which has been collected is now antiquated and behind the times. Furthermore, our own practical experience with teaching Chinese to foreigners has revealed that simply teaching foreign students to understand Chinese culture and present-day society is inadequate. Rather, students should also be taught how to express their own thoughts. Here, it must be recognized that foreign students have their own cognitive structures and schemata, and that these cognitive structures will affect their learning of Chinese. Moreover, most of these foreign students will, after having learned Chinese, return to their respective countries and engage in business, cultural, economic, and academic activities that will require the use of Chinese. What's more, the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language is not restricted to a particular zone or region; that is, it is not something that is conducted solely within China, but something which can be conducted at the global level. Therefore, it is essential that foreign students be able to express their thoughts and ideas in Chinese.This research presents a new approach to the building of a word list for the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language; one which is grounded in a general view of human cognition. As we know, human cognitive processes are geared towards achieving the greatest possible cognitive effect while expending the smallest possible processing effort. In order to achieve this, individuals must focus their attention on what appears to them to be the most relevant and important information available. The essence of communication lies in its two critical characteristics: "understanding" and "expressing".Based on this fundamental notion, this research proposes a new conception of the "country-specific" teaching of Chinese as a foreign language. "Country-specific" is defined as "implementing different Chinese teaching curriculums and methods for each individual country." Furthermore, this research unveils a methodology which clarifies the important conceptual distinction between "teaching Chinese" and "teaching Chinese to foreigners". The theories behind this methodology are also discussed herein.The question of "what is the role of "words/vocabulary" in the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language?" is also discussed in this paper. Here we argue that in terms of the teaching ofChinese as a foreign language, "words" should possess two sets of characteristics: "significant adequacy" and "fluent adequacy". "Significant adequacy" refers to an integrate unit with structural compactness and significant definitude. On the other hand, "fluent adequacy" refers to a cognitive unit with explicit phonetic form which conforms to the limits of humans' working memory.The development of a "country-specific" TCFL which uses the corpus of the student's mother country when constructing the word l...