"Practical Spoken Chinese," Analysis And Comparison Of The First Volume Of The "New Practical Chinese Reader.

The selection of a textbook is closely linked with the effectiveness of a beginner course in Chinese as a second language. Language schools, teachers, and students all need to take responsibility for this aspect of the language study process. Selecting teaching materials in accordance with a student’s language goals and study setting is a good guiding principle. This paper uses this principle to undertake comparative analysis work on two Chinese text books. The two text books are book one of both Chinese Made Easier and New Practical Chinese Reader. Because every teacher needs to be skilled in assessing teaching materials, this analysis provides the reader with one such type of assessment framework.The assessment of Chinese teaching materials is organized into seven aspects of the language course:1. textbook arrangement and layout,2. pronunciation instruction,3. the subject and style of dialogues and/or texts,4. new words and vocabulary,5. the approach to grammar instruction,6. the teaching of Chinese characters and7. the format of language exercises. The body of this paper first discusses the function of each of these aspects with respect to language study. Then for each of these seven aspects a synopsis is provided for each text book, along with the unique aspects of the content and an assessment of the text from a second language learning theory perspective with particular attention to assessment from the perspective of the Grammar Translation Method, the Direct Method, the Situational Method, and the Audio-Lingual Method. Finally, I have introduced specific differences between the text books and any clear advantages or disadvantages thereof. Based on this, I have indicated the language direction and ideal candidates for using each of these two courses.