From Task-based Teaching Activities Of Chinese Textbooks Written

This study is based on five Chinese textbooks for primary one to primary five Malaysian Government Primary School (SRK) published by Malaysian Ministry of Education from the year 2007 onwards. These textbooks are written accordingly to Syllabus for Government Primary School Chinese Curriculum on the years 2006 and 2008. The publishing of them carries significance for they do not only serve as the Learning Chinese as a Second Language textbooks for Malays students in these schools, they also symbolize the intention of the Malaysian government to make them the acceptable first language textbooks for Chinese students and so to reverse their tendencies of choosing the other type of primary school (SRJK) rather than the Government Primary School (SRK). The goals in the syllabus are to be realized through the great amount of activities and exercises found in the textbooks. This study first takes a look on the activities and exercises and makes a comparison of them to show their different emphasis on the training of students'different language macro skills, hence, reveals their respective relationships to the goals in the syllabus. Based on the needs required by the syllabus for the activities to hone students' communicative abilities, this study makes use of task-based language teaching (TBLT) methodology to analyze the contents of the activities and the notes written specifically for helping teachers in activities teaching. The analysis is to examine how closely these activities adhered to the goals expected of them. Taking into account the above drawn conclusion, a list of adaptations will be suggested to the planning of the activities based on the TBLT principles, with the hope that the tasks expected from them can be more successfully fulfilled.