The Compilation And Design Of Elementary Chinese Textbooks For Native Spanish Speaking Children

Textbooks are one of the four key parts of teaching activities.They manifest the overall design of teaching activities-meaning what to teach and how to teach – and serve as the principal tool for teachers to develop classroom teaching and for students to engage in learning activities.The compilation of textbooks requires the use of linguistics,psychology,and pedagogy,with relevant teaching theories as the theoretical basis.Depending on the target audience,Chinese textbooks can be classified as textbooks for children and textbooks for adults.The compilation of children's textbooks should take into account the physiological and psychological characteristics of their readers to make the learning process fun and accessible to juvenile learners.The textbook discussed in this thesis,Chinese Fun Learning,is principally designed for juvenile learners whose native language is Spanish.Firstly,Chinese Fun Learning selects the high-frequency words needed in the textbook by sourcing the words from domestic and foreign translated best-selling Chinese language children's books.The textbook design also takes into careful consideration local cultures when creating the syllabus.Secondly,the principles of textbook design emphasize three aspects: the principle that highlights the Chinese language's characteristics,the localization principle that adapts to local cultural backgrounds,and the fun-learning principle that considers the learning needs unique to children.Thereinto,in the "character-based" princip"character-based"le,the teaching process mainly integrates the “synchronized learning and using" principle;in the localization principle,local vocabularies and relevant cultural themes are added;in the fun-learning principle,many children's songs,games,and classroom activities are introduced.Thirdly,the textbook design emphasizes practicality and includes teaching cases in the teacher's guidebook for every lesson for the user's reference.Finally,by analyzing students' test results and the feedback from questionnaires sent to students and parents,the textbook designer discovered some shortcomings in the compilation process and carried out further edits and improvements.