Comparative Research On The Presentation Of Cultural Items In Advanced Textbooks For Teaching Chinese As Foreign Language

Language and culture can be inseparable when teaching Chinese as a foreign language. The teaching of a culture is best optimized by the inclusion of the language of that culture, and likewise, the teaching of a particular language is further enriched by teaching about the associated culture. However, culture teaching has become the more popular focus over language teaching, and many scholars are gradually shifting emphasis towards culture teaching in this new century of teaching Chinese as a foreign language.A critical component that links the "teaching" and "learning" of Chinese as a foreign language is the teaching material. The materials can be separated into categories that best serve their academic levels of proficiency:primary and advanced. Most of the teaching material is concentrated in the primary stage because the resources are richer, more abundant, and are more easily analyzed and compared. Analyses for the advanced teaching materials tend to be more complex and difficult as many texts can go in depth on practicing language points, nuances in grammar, and often contain less research pertaining to cultural content that would otherwise help to teach and learn a language.The content of this thesis will place a major emphasis on the advanced category and the "cultural items" collected and analyzed from four different textbooks regarded as the most popular by a majority of those teaching Chinese as a foreign language:Boya Chinese Senior Flight123, The Development of Chinese Advanced Integrated12, The Road to Success:"The Sprint, Article12" and "Successful, Article12", Modern Chinese Advanced Tutorial Grade3&Grade4". Thus, this thesis will analyze and classify the cultural items collected from these texts in order to provide guidance on the optimal structure of textbooks and teaching, as well as further develop the subject of teaching Chinese as a foreign language.