Southern Myanmar, "Chinese" Textbook Usage Survey Analysis

Due to many factors including historical, political, social and geographical, the education of Chinese language in Myanmar manifests in two extremes:the education of Chinese language in northern Myanmar is almost presented as the model of education as seen in the first language teaching, while that in southern Myanmar tends to be the model of education of a second language, mainly using the revised versions of the series of textbooks Chinese Language compiled by the Beijing Chinese Language Institute. However, scholars still do not pay attention to the aspects of the standards of selecting the textbooks, whether the teachers use the textbooks at their convenience, as well as whether the textbooks are suitable to the learners whose mother tongue is Chinese and those for whom Chinese ianguage is their second language. Therefore, according to a multiple-angle investigation, including the points of view of schools, heads of supplementary classes, teachers, students, that was conducted in a representative central city of southern Myanmar-Yangon, the author attempts to bring about the directed suggestions with hope to contribute a humble part to the healthy development of Chinese language teaching in Myanmar.The author chose the textbook Chinese Language that is most widely used in Myanmar as the object of discussion, conducting the investigation of the situation surrounding the use of the textbook in the area of northern Myanmar where the Chinese language instruction is developing stably, attempting to find the problems in using Chinese language textbooks in Myanmar and thus raising the directed suggestions. The purpose of the research of this paper include:1. To understand the situation of use of the Chinese Language textbook in Myanmar through the investigation of the use of the Chinese Language among the teachers and students.2. According to the understanding achieved, find out the problems in using the Chinese Language textbook in Myanmar.3. With understanding of the situation surrounding usage and the problems in use of the textbook, realize the reasons why the Chinese Language textbook is in popular use in Myanmar.4. According to what is obtained from the investigation, analyze the situation of the use of the Chinese Language textbook in Myanmar, thus it will be feasible to find the points that should be paid attention to during the process of compiling the localized textbooks.This paper employs the documentary method, methods of questionnaire and interview. When making the statistical analysis, this paper engages in the qualitative analysis based on the quantitative analysis.Finally, this paper, according to different types of Burmese learners, brings about the suggestions of textbook reform from the following eight points of view:1. Regulations for layout arrangement.2. Annotations should be attached to the table of new words.3. More localized elements should be added.4. Language comparisons.5. Cultural Aspects.6. Take the differentiations among the learners into consideration.7. Chinese Language textbook should emphasize on reading and writing skills.8. Appropriately introduce some common ways of expression of local dialects. What follows next is to go a step further to bring about the suggestions regarding the compilation of Burmese localized textbooks, including:1. Burmese localized textbooks should include the Burmese localized elements.2. Take the characteristics of the Burmese learners into consideration.3. Improve the communication and cooperation between China and Myanmar and compile textbooks that are suitable to Burmese learners.Being restricted to the author’s research ability, in this paper there are certain limitations in statistics and analysis. With this research, the author hopes to contribute to the practical and applied value of researching Chinese language teaching and textbooks in Myanmar.