The Comparative Analysis Of The Cultural Sections In Chinese Learning Books And Their Problems And Alternative Solutions

The principal objective of foreign language education is to help learnerscommunicate effectively through the language. However, since languages are notcreated overnight but are developed by the needs and necessities by society over time,learning a foreign language first requires understanding of a foreign culture before thelearners can use the language depending on the cultural context, which indicates theirability to communicate “freely.”China’s superior cultural education enables students to eliminate prejudice and torespect both cultures by understanding the cultural differences between Korea andChina. At the same time, various approaches of Chinese cultural education inducestudents’ interests towards Chinese language learning, and therefore, culturaleducation is undoubtedly crucial.This thesis has the following objectives. First, I am going to emphasize theimportance of cultural education in foreign language learning and then assessproblems of the current cultural education by comparing Chinese language learningbooks. Finally, I am going to suggest alternative methods and more effective andpractical ways of cultural education.The main contents of this thesis are the following:Chapter1examines the value of cultural education, and Chapter2examinestheoretical backgrounds of the cultural education. Then, Chapter3compares andanalyzes the cultural education sections within the three Chinese language learningbooks that are currently used in Korea. Finally, Chapter4examines the problemswithin these cultural education sections and suggests possible solutions as well aseffective and practical ways to improve them.The learning books that have been analyzed in this thesis are: Chinese MasterSTEP1, Chinese Conversation within301Sentences, and Basic Chinese. Throughoutthe analysis, the methods suggested by Finocchiaro&Bonono and Chastain havebeen used, and the analysis is divided into three sections: Material Culture (i.e.scenery, food), Behaviour Culture (i.e. etiquette, spare time), and Psychological Culture (i.e. national character, history).