A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Text Books In Thai Elementary Schools Under Country-specific Perspective

Based on the three important principles of compilation of teaching materials: targeting,interesting,and practicality,this paper compares two sets of Thai primary school Chinese textbooks,which are "Experiencing Chinese" and "Happy Learning Chinese"(Book 7-12 for both),in terms of the compilation ideas,the textbook’s structure,the text content,as well as the grammars and vocabulary.This paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter introduces the purpose and significance of the study,research object and research method.The second chapter introduces the theoretical basis and the current situation of the research.The third chapter compares the structure,text content,the vocabulary and grammar of the two textbooks.The fourth chapter shows the results of the questionnaire survey took place in two elementary schools of Thailand.The survey is aimed to understand the student’s perceptions and satisfaction towards these textbooks.Lastly,the fifth chapter is the conclusion,some suggestions on textbooks compilation for Chinese learners in elementary school of Thailand are also presented.This paper comes to the following results.“Experiencing Chinese” has a better structure which leads and guides the students to learn a foreign language in a more scientific way.The texts in both textbooks are close to the learners’ life and fit the principle of practicality.The quantity and difficulty of vocabulary in “Experiencing Chinese” are more reasonable and well accepted by the students.Moreover,“Experiencing Chinese” did better in terms of grammars,its arrangement is appropriate and suitable for Chinese proficiency of primary school students.In a conclusion,this paper argues that the three principles of textbook compilation are well embodied in “Experiencing Chinese”.Nonetheless,there are some merits in “Happy Learning Chinese” that can be use as reference,such as its illustrations.