A Comparative Study Of Chinese And American Elementary Chinese Textbooks

Changes of China’s political and economic status bring the prospect of Chinese language. Many countries and regions see the cooperation opportunities in the competition with China. More and more foreigners become interested in Chinese language because of interest and their concern about the new economy. Chinese government and NOG also see the opportunity to spread Chinese culture and to win-win, so many publications about LCFL are published with their encouragement. Though the materials about LCFL are in great demand and the publish business of LCFL is flourishing, we still hear the continuous complaints about the Chinese learning materials published in mainland China, which causes the result that foreign Chinese teachers have to write textbooks by themselves because they cannot find the appropriate ones, while the Chinese learning materials we ourselves published can only be used in China. Considering the influences of China and America have on each other, the efforts that China and America have made-the Chinese Hanban has established the most Confucius schools and classes with country as a unit and the College Board of America has classified the Chinese language as an AP course, and the importance of the primary stage in learning a foreign language, the author chooses Learn Chinese with Me (Volume I) and Huanying:a Chinese Textbook for Middle School Students (Volume I) as the comparison. The former is published in mainland China and the latter is in the US. The thesis aims to identify the similarities and differences of the two textbooks, and among them which are welcomed according to the survey made by other literatures. The thesis tries to make contribution to the cause of Teaching Chinese of a Foreign Language, especially the cause of TCFL textbooks’ writing.The thesis mainly uses the method of comparative analysis to compare the two textbooks guided by related theories of linguistics, pedagogics and psychology. It’s composed of six chapters. They first part is the introduction, which is about the study’s background, the domestic general study of TCFL textbooks, the study’s importance, the methods and theories applied in this study; the second part is Chapter I, which is the comparison of the two textbooks’writing principles and styles; the third part is Chapter II, which is about texts’comparison; the fourth part is Chapter III, which is the comparison of the textbooks’phonetic system, vocabulary and grammars; the fifth part is Chapter IV, which is the exercises’comparison; the sixth part is epilogue, which is the conclusion of all comparison and suggestions on TCFL textbooks’writing. It is suggested that if the TCFL textbooks published domestically are to be welcomed by American students, we should thoroughly study the present TCFL textbooks published both in China and in America, and revise and complete those textbooks that we have written according their trial results.