Investigations Into The Practicality Of Primary Oral Chinese Textbooks

Practicality is one important principle in compiling Chinese textbooks. At the primary stage of teaching and learning, cultivating students’ability to communicate orally is directly influenced by the practicality of oral Chinese textbooks. Taking five currently popular primary oral Chinese textbooks as example, this paper investigates their practicality from the perspectives of the content of language materials and the arrangement of language elements. After the comparison, analysis and summarization, this paper reaches its own conclusion.This paper first puts forward the significance, targets and methods of this research. In Chapter Two, it reviews and summarizes related literature concerning the practicality of primary oral Chinese textbooks. Chapter Three is devoted to investigating the practicality of language materials. Through the analysis of the choosing of topics, the content of language materials and the genres of language materials, this paper points out the similarities and differences as well as the pros and cons of the five textbooks. In Chapter Four, this paper studies the practicality of the arrangement of language elements. After analyzing the phonological items, new words items, grammatical items and cultural items, the author offers her thoughts on how to arrange language elements in a reasonable manner. In Chapter Five, the author of this paper put forwards her own opinions on the problems reflected in this investigation, in hope of providing some assistance for the compiling of primary oral Chinese textbooks and the teaching and learning of primary oral Chinese. The limitations of this research are stated in the end of the paper, and the author will further her study in the future.