Investigation And Research On Mandarin Teaching In UiTM,Malaysia

Universiti Teknologi MARA(UiTM)of Malaysia,as the first vocational technical school in Malaysia to offer elective Chinese courses in the 1960 s and 1970 s,has now become the university with the largest number of students who study Mandarin.In the teaching process,the author found that there are still some problems in the school’s Chinese teaching in terms of teacher capabilities,textbook standardization and cultural communication channels.The current research mainly focuses on the Mandarin courses in Malaysian colleges and universities,the cultivation of second language teachers,the compilation of textbooks,second language teaching methods and Chinese education.However,there still lack comprehensive researches on the above problems and the current situation of the school’s Chinese teaching can not be reflected.This thesis first clarifies the concept of "teach Mandarin as a second language" as a theoretical basis,and further introduces its development status by taking the Chinese international education courses of the Kong Zi Institute at University of Malaya and New Era University College as examples.Secondly,combining with the teacher interview records of the eight campuses of the school,the author analyzes the status of Chinese teachers and curriculum settings.According to the principles of textbook compilation,a comparative analysis method is used to conduct in-depth research on the currently used three sets of local Chinese textbooks-"Foundation Mandarin","Special for Tourism and Hotel Management" and "Gateway to Mandarin Chinese".A questionnaire survey was designed for target students from different campuses and majors.Afterwards,UiTM-Kedah Mandarin Club is selected as the research object.Based on the interviews of the teachers in charge of the club and the questionnaire information of the members of the club,the various Chinese cultural activities held in the past ten years are divided into five categories.Combining with 5W theory,the author analyses its influence in spreading Chinese culture through cases.Finally,it is concluded that the number of the school’s Mandarin teachers is far from enough;the three sets of textbooks basically meet the needs of elementary Mandarin teaching,and have relatively distinctive localization characteristics.But there are also problems such as incomplete after-class practice investigations,too little introduction of excellent Chinese traditional culture,and irrational vocabulary arrangement.The types of the club activities are diverse and interesting,but they have not been fully reflected as an important supplementary method for Mandarin teaching.With a focus on the UiTM Mandarin course,the thesis starts from the three aspects of the teaching staff,Chinese textbooks and Chinese cultural activities,to conduct a multi-dimensional analysis,enriches the study of the actual situation of UiTM University Mandarin teaching to a certain extent.Also,it provides detailed overseas research materials for the follow-up study of Malaysian non-Chinese.