The Design Of Exercises In Mid-level Extensive Reading Textbooks For Learners Of Chinese As A Foreign Language

In teaching Chinese as a foreign language (TCFL), reading is a specialized course aimed at training the reading skills of learners, mainly through extensive reading. In the process of teaching Chinese reading to foreign learners, reading at the intermediate stage, as a connecting link between the preceding and the following, plays a key role in improving the overall communicative competence of learners.As a medium of teaching activities, Chinese textbooks designed for foreign learners are flourishing. Consequently, the compilation of such books has grown into a new research field and drawn the attention of various scholars. The exercise is a major component of a textbook, and good exercises play a role that is not to be neglected in teaching. It is an urgent task to explore a flexible and effective mode for exercise design.Up till recently, there have been remarkable research findings in both mid-level reading teaching and textbook analyses. However, very few researchers are targeted at mid-level extensive reading exercises. In this case, the present thesis attempts to integrate the two areas, mid-level reading teaching and exercise design, and probe a new mode for extensive reading exercise design by both quantitative and qualitative methods under the principles of reading theories, Chinese Ontology theory, second language acquisition theories and textbook compilation theories.This thesis first proves that the present research is a beneficial attempt by elaborating on the rich content of mid-level reading teaching and the importance of relevant exercise design, surveying the status quo of researches into this field, and pointing out that researches concerning these two areas are insufficient. Then, the author makes detailed analyses of the extensive reading exercise design in four popular mid-level reading textbooks, and comments on the strengths and weaknesses of them by way of a questionnaire that surveys the use of the exercises and specific needs of learners. Finally, under the basic principles of textbook compilation, the author puts forward her own concept of exercise design, and operable design principles and guidelines, which are demonstrated to be different from previous exercises by specially designed sample exercises. At the same time, the overall characteristics of this concept of exercise design are explicated and feasible teaching methods suggested.