The Primary School Chinese Teaching Materials Culture Content Analysis

Students of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL) in Philippine elementary schools are using local teaching materials as well as those provided by authorities of China Mainland and Taiwan. Due to differences in culture and tradition, current teaching materials introduce and represent culture-related knowledge differently in content. A study of the characteristics of the differences, and attitudes of material users is hence reported.Three popularly used series of textbooks, the Philippines-edited Chinese Reader for Filipinos, the Taiwan-edited New Chinese Textbook, Philippine Edition, and the China Mainland-edited Han Yu, are chosen as objects of the study. Culture-related knowledge is detailedly catalogued and carefully studied according to region and aspect differences. Attitudes and opinions of students and teachers are therefore studies through questionnaires and a survey.It is found through the study of textbooks that, the selected course books focus a lot on culture of the Han Chinese; and they also focus on the education of ’values’and’literature.’But, differences between the textbooks are found in the study of other fields.It is found in the questionnaires and the survey that, Philippine students would like to learn the Philippines-, Fujian-and Chinese minor ethnic groups-related cultural knowledge; and they would also like to learn more on the topics of’modern life style,’’communications,’and’practical Chinese.’We would therefore suggest that, editors should learn more about expectations of Philippine students. Setting Chinese as a tool for communications, we should help the students using Chinese to understand China, introduce the Philippines, and explore the world.