A Comparative Study On The Culture-related Contents In Current Textbooks Of Chinese Language For Junior High School Students In South Korea

In the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language, education on the students’ listening,speaking and writing abilities, etc. is definitely very important, but meanwhile, a generalknowledge of its national culture background is equal of importance for foreign students. Theultimate goal of learning a foreign language is to talk, to communicate correctly in the realcontext without any barrier. In order to achieve this goal while using a second language, ageneral understanding of its culture background would certainly be a necessity to make it,what is, beside of a good grasp of the language itself grammatically and colloquially, a mutualunderstanding culturally in conversations. It is also very essential for communication, a goodconscious of some cultural discrepancies between a foreign language and native languageswhich would help to avoid many misunderstandings caused by cultural conflicts anddiscriminations.In this article, the author has made a deep analysis on the cultural-related content withinthe Korean junior high school students’ textbooks. That was published after the release of itsrevised national education syllabus in2009, after a good study of its three textbooks, thenewest versions of ‘life Chinese language(生活中国语)’.The most noticeable change in thisrevised syllabus was focusing on the content that was conducive to comprehension andapplication in basic communication, moreover it emphasized on the culture knowledge wherestudents’ have been interested in a lie. Hereinafter, the author would give his completeanalysis and comparison on the newest versions of the Korean junior high school students’textbooks ‘Daily Chinese language(生活中国语)’which has been due to its revised nationaleducation syllabus on culture content.Chapter1, introduction, that introduces the research object and its necessity and givessome reviews over some previous researches, discussing the importance, urgency anduniversality of the educational promotion of Chinese language in today’s South Korea, fromKorean political, economic and cultural considerations for China that have ever occurred since the ancient times.Chapter2, theory background, most of the references in this chapter are from someeminent scholars’ theories which all have given their credits to the importance of the culturalbackground behind the language itself in learning a foreign language in it. In this chapter, theauthor has made a detailed explanation on the differences in the cultural education fromdifferent aspects such as region, race, time, etc.Chapter3, analysis on the cultural-related contents within the current Korean junior highschool students’ textbooks after a good study on the forms of manifestation, statistics,classification diagrams of cultural contents in the newest versions of ‘Daily Chineselanguage(生活中国语)’. The author has generalized the cultural-related contents in Chineselanguage textbooks into five parts:1) education goal for Chinese culture in the revisednational education syllabus in2009;2) the presentation of culture contents in students’textbooks;3) the way how the materials in students’ textbooks related to the cultural contents:4) the classification on cultural contents in students’ textbooks;5) the categories and statisticsof different cultural elements in the students’ textbooks.At the end of this article, the author puts forward conclusion and own opinion and theshortcomings as well as the research which has direction for the future.To sum up, those research results of this paper would be helpful for certain furtherresearches in the cultural education, especially for these teachers who teach Chineselanguage and Chinese culture in the junior high schools.