Research On Methodology For Customization Through Computer Aided Analysis And Restructuring Of Digitalized Mandarin Chinese Textbooks

The strengthening effort in international popularization of Chinese language has raised an urgent issue of meeting the surging demand for textbooks of Chinese for Specific Purposes (CSP). The present the way we compile textbooks, still at the early stage of the simple application of computer functions, has exacerbated the dilemma between the urgent demand and the backward means of production. Just as Xunzi, an ancient Chinese scholar, says in his "Advice on Studies" that a long journey can only be covered by small steps, so the way out of the dilemma should begin with the initial consideration of 'customizing' digitalized textbooks.Although the textbooks available for teaching Chinese to learners of other languages have reached a considerable scale in terms of publications, the overall quality of the textbooks is low due to overlapping and lack of orientation. However, the very lack of orientation may indicate that despite the differences in individual demand for learning materials, there is a common area for all students. It follows that some quality textbooks available can still be used by students with the same or similar demand. Therefore it is highly significant to sort out and mark the present textbooks through computer technology, multimedia technology, natural language processing technology and language corpus technology so as to both improve textbook production by making use of the parts of the contents available in the existing textbooks after taking the essence and discarding the dross. It is significant also because this is a specific and practical step in implementing the idea of restructuring and sharing resources.In order to address this issue, the present research, taking for example the textbook series of business Chinese, proposed the principles of efficient restructuring of teaching materials for individual students, which are characterized by digital decomposition of existing textbooks, standardized marking, separation of dynamic and stable contents, and customization through substitution of dynamic contents.The present research has mainly fulfilled the following tasks under discussion:1. Armed with the concepts of 'composing part/ware' in software engineering, the 'constituting part/ware' in CAI, 'target learner' in E-Learning, and with the technology of language information processing, the author, in order to make the marking and restructuring of decomposed teaching resources more scientific and reasonable, proposed the concept of 'content module by genre'. Its features are analyzed, and a comparative study is made with other similar concepts.2. Given the facts that there may be a limit of capacity in the process of restructuring textbooks and that the information links of content modules should be clarified in the process of marking, the present author, on the basis of the idea of text-relevance, introduced the concept of 'distance between content modules by genre'. The author also advanced a formula for the computation of the distance, which proved to be feasible after experimental analysis.3. For the first time, the meta-data standard for the construction of digitalized resource bank of Chinese language teaching materials, which will support the customization by restructuring of teaching materials, was set by the present author. It extended the IEEE LOM meta-data model.4. From the viewpoint of imperishability of digitalized resource, the issue confronting digitalized resource bank was raised in terms of resource stability and dynamics. The author discerned the properties of stability and dynamics objectively existing in the digitalized Chinese language teaching materials. From the diachronic angle, any resource has the properties of being both stable and dynamic; from the synchronic angle, these two properties are also existent in the teaching materials due to the differences in various fields and demands of groups of learners. This is why teaching resources should be reanalyzed and restructured.5. The research, taking for instance the textbook series of business Chinese, listed 14 variables potentially existing in different learner groups. It also designed tables of dynamic contents and substituting contents for automatic selection by computers, thereby providing a feasible method for customization of teaching materials according to fields of study and individual differences.6. The research advocated the use of vocabulary list with 'degree of stability' on multi-dimensions and developed the technology and method for separating stable and dynamic digital language contents, which provides a practical method for selecting the contents from original textbooks in the process of computer-aided restructuring of teaching materials.7. According to the information supplying capacity of the resource bank of digitalized Chinese teaching materials, the author proposed a four-level logical structural model for information retrieval so that and content module can be precisely pinpointed.8. The research proposed a three-stage method for restructuring teaching materials and operating procedures. Tasks were specified in each stage.9. The research established an experimental system for the creation of an analysis and restructuring system for 'customizing' Chinese language teaching materials. The system encompasses stages of collecting and computerizing, decomposing, marking, retrieving, dynamic selecting and substituting, restructuring, and distributing.The ideas constituting the originality of the research are:The research of customized Chinese language teaching materials is a firm step toward implementing principles of individualized teaching and learning. New concepts and methods include dynamics and stability of teaching materials, content module by genre, computation of module distance, meta-data standard, selection and substitution of dynamic contents, all of which will be useful in the compilation of textbooks.