A Comparative Study On The Sino-us Primary School Mother-tongue Textbooks

As direct teaching text materials in class, textbooks are the medium ofteaching and achieving the course objectives, thus imparting the knowledge ofmother tongue. Mother-tongue textbooks, the carrier of inheriting the knowledgeand culture, are the main source of teaching and learning. The United States, asone of the most developed countries in the world, always takes educationalpolicies into account and regards them as one way of the national securitystrategy. Its philosophy of education, features, experience and achievements areunmatched by most countries all over the world. Further analysis and study of thetextbooks can help us to grasp American’s advanced principle and developmentdirection of mother-tongue construction, which is also of important effect inperfecting Chinese native textbook construction.This study will take the mother-tongue textbooks of Shanghai EducationalPress and Hatton Mifflin edition for further comparison and analysis, thus havinga distinct impression of similarities and differences and their own characteristicsin system. The aim of analysis in discrepancy and features is to rethink andsummarize.On the basis of literature review and research background, the thesis broadlycompares and analyzes the educational values, the historical development ofnative textbooks, and the overview of mother-tongue courses and frame structureof Sino-US native textbooks. Meanwhile, the detailed analysis of four textbookswritten systems concerns the comparisons in text-selection system, theknowledge system, the exercise system and the visualization system.The study found that two sets of textbooks emphasize listening, speaking,reading and writing skills training, and focus on cultivating children’s languageskills and the ability to overall perception on the text. The presentation styles ofboth editions are of abundant pictures, relevant essays and rich color. Illustrationsreflect the aesthetic characteristics of each country. Shanghai edition prefers simple frame structure, while the whole structure of Mifflin edition is of stronglogic. In addition, Mifflin textbooks have broader-designed contents and properlevel of difficulty. Regarding the layout design, the presentation styles ofknowledge in both editions are spiral, and Mifflin edition is more prominent here.The purpose of this study is not to know which edition is better, but try tofind out their own laws in textbook-writing and conclude the merits anddisadvantages after deep comparison and analysis, thus improving our nativelanguage textbooks construction by learning from others. Finally, on the basis ofanalyzing differences and concluding features, this study summarizes theexperiences of other country to promote and optimize the construction of Chineseprimary school mother-tongue textbooks, thus laying the cornerstone for the laterstudy.