Textbook authors’ perspectives on selecting and instructing Chinese characters and words in beginner and intermediate textbooks

Abstract

This article explores how leading textbook authors select and instruct vocabulary in beginner and intermediate Chinese textbooks used in the United States. Leading textbook authors were approached; subsequently; four authors completed interviews with pre-designed questions. Grounded theory methodology was used to analyse the interviews, and their textbooks were surveyed for clarification and additional information. For vocabulary selection, the four participants first decided content according to learners’ communicative needs. Next, the three participants, who provided primary written texts, coordinated the content with sequenced grammar. They then coordinated the content and grammar with frequently and widely used words. For vocabulary instruction, the four participants used the following approaches to teaching the spoken and written forms of characters: integration with facilitation, integration with progression, separation with coordination, or gradation. They also used the following strategies to systematically support the learning of characters: scaffolding, providing an overall framework, teaching more words in the spoken form than the written form and consolidating the written form for high-frequency characters, or gradation and self-controlled learning. They all consistently explained the meanings of radicals for characters and explored the meanings of words and their composite characters. A theoretical vocabulary model is proposed for vocabulary selection and instruction in second language textbooks. For textbooks with primary written texts, this model proposes first deciding content by contextualizing learners in specific situations for real-life communication, and then coordinating the content and sequenced grammar with established wordlists. This model also proposes various approaches to teaching the spoken and written forms of words, systematic strategies to support vocabulary learning, and specific methods to set up form-meaning connections from the paradigm of the target language. For textbooks using audiovisual materials as the primary input, this model proposes the possibility of achieving differentiated results. Pedagogical applications of the study results are discussed.