A Comparative Study Of "Chinese Course" And "New Concept Chinese" (Elementary Edition)

Textbooks play an important role in the teaching of Chinese to foreigners. Itis the material of teaching and basis of tests.The quality of the teaching materialdecides the learner’s enthusiasm and the quality of teaching. The study of thecompiling of the textbooks of teaching Chinese to foreigners is particularlymeaningful.A Course in Chinese and New Concept Chinese （primary stage） are two setsof integrated textbooks for primary stage of Chinese learning. This thesis focuses onthe comparative and detailed study of the various aspects concerning compilingtheory， contents of texts， new words， etc.， in these two textbooks respectively.A Course in Chinese and New Concept Chinese （primary stage） take grammarand function as the key link respectively， which embody different teachingmethodologies.The common aim for both A Course in Chinese and New ConceptChinese is to cultivate the students’ communicative ability. Their compiling accordswith the compiling principle of combining structure，function and culture. However，A Course in Chinese focuses on the explanation of tranditional grammaticalstructure of Chinese， while New Concept Chinese emphasizes the teaching offunctional items， reinforcing consciously the sentence structure.In terms of the contents of the textbooks， we studied pertinence， practicabilityand authenticity of the texts.The words total of A Course in Chinese is twice as many as that of NewConcept Chinese，which complies with the requirements of HSK5and HSK4respectively.A Course in Chinese puts forward creatively the view that we should divide thegrammatical items of the primary stages into two parts aided by auxiliary word of“了”，that is， grammatical items before “了”and grammatical items after “了”.Each lesson of New Concept Chinese has pattern Drills，which cover129grammatical items of syntax outline formulatd by NOTCFL（国家汉办）.When it comes to the exercises， A Course in Chinese contain more exercises，most of which are related to grammatical structure. Nevertheless， so far asgrammartical exercises and communicative exercises are concerned， the exercises inNew Concept Chinese are more flexible， interesting， effective， and focused.To sum up， there exist great difference between A Course in Chinese andNew Concept Chinese in contents of texts， new words， grammatical points， textexercises， etc. Generally speaking， compared with A Course in Chinese， NewConcept Chinese is simpler， easier to learn， more interesting and practical.Both textbooks need improvements in several aspects to better serve the Chineselearners.