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Teachers’ beliefs and practices in textbook selection and use when teaching Chinese as a second language

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Abstract

Textbooks are the primary materials for teaching in the Greater China Region, including the teaching of Chinese as a second language. This qualitative study examined how two teachers of first to fifth grade students in an international school in Macao selected, used, and adapted textbooks to teach Chinese to non-native Chinese speakers. It also examined the beliefs that drove teachers’ decisions and actions. Multiple forms of evidence were analyzed, including responses to interview questions posed at multiple points, responses to a questionnaire administered at the beginning of the study, school documents, and content analyses of lessons in the selected textbook series and materials teachers made to accompany textbook lessons. The two teachers in this study made a conscious decision to continue using two textbook series selected by others and used the year before. The selection and use of these textbooks were underpinned by a set of interrelated beliefs, including their views on effective instruction (e.g., clearly presented topic, appealing and motivating materials, effective learning activities, focus on Chinese culture); their students’ needs and motivations; their own teaching capabilities and attitudes; their epistemological beliefs about learning and knowledge; and the importance of local, national, and international standards and assessments. The two teachers devoted considerable effort to adapting the textbooks by developing their own materials that added, reduced, deleted, restructured, replaced, and re-ordered textbook learning activities. These adaptations were driven by specific teacher beliefs (e.g., the need for more meaning focused activities). Recommendations for future research and implications for teaching are offered.

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Acknowledgements

We especially wish to thank Edward Louis Gustin for his comments on linguistic issues.

Funding

This research was supported by the Higher Education Fund of the Macao SAR Government [HSS-UMAC-2021-01].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Macao, China

    Tien Ping Hsiang & Ziyu Zhou

  2. Mary Lou Fulton College of Education, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Steve Graham

  3. School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Xinghua Liu

  4. Lecong First Experimental School, Foshan City, Guangdong Province, China

    Ziyu Zhou

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  1. Tien Ping Hsiang
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Hsiang, T.P., Graham, S., Liu, X. et al. Teachers’ beliefs and practices in textbook selection and use when teaching Chinese as a second language. Read Writ 36, 1651–1684 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-022-10336-9

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