The Chinese Language published by SISA Publishing House is among the series of texts specific to senior high school students, which is designated by the Ministry of Education, Science & Technology of South Korea. It consists of Chinese Language I and Chinese Language II. Its feature is that each unit has a special part for culture so as to focus on Chinese culture for learners. This series of textbooks is also what the author has used for her teaching in the senior high school of Dongjak District in South Korea. Since the ESL teaching of senior high schools in South Korea is designed for learners starting from zero with limited lessons, no specialized cultural courses are set. Teachers can only expound on cultural content involved in the cultural column parts of each lesson when teaching language points. Taking the case of Dongjak senior high school, no Chinese courses are set in the first year of high school. Though there are elective Chinese courses in the second and third years, each week has just two lessons with each lasting for 50 minutes.

This paper has a deep research on compilation of cultural programs in both Chinese Language I and the Chinese Language II. These cultural programs are organized as well. According to actual teaching of cultural programs in the textbooks and recording of students’ feedback, the author analyzes advantages and disadvantages of the layout of the textbooks and makes recommendations, hoping to provide a reference to compilation of cultural content in the Chinese textbooks at the elementary level for senior high schools in South Korea.

1) Know more about students’ cultural requirements, and provide a reference for the compilation of cultural items in textbooks.

Through the investigation and analysis of cultural items and cultural teaching in the textbooks, we should have a further understanding of Chinese culture that students are really concerned about and what they truly want to learn about. Our teaching should be student-centered and starts from students’ interests to make them have a desire to learn Chinese, further promote the smooth proceeding of Chinese class and also provide a reference for the compilation of cultural items in textbooks.

2) Increase emotional connection with students, and arouse their learning motivation.

In the teaching of Chinese culture, students will ask questions to their teachers when there is anything they don’t understand or they want to further know more about it. The process of asking is also a process of communication, which can increase the emotional connection between students and their teachers. Moreover, some of the content in Chinese culture can be done by students themselves. For example, it has mentioned diabolo and shuttlecock kicking when introducing Chinese colorful daily life. Students can experience these funny activities themselves so that they will have a strong desire for learning Chinese.

3) Better spread Chinese culture.

Due to some objective reasons like political systems and international political standpoints, many foreigners do not understand China but have some prejudice and stereotype point about it. Bad impressions about China from some South Koreans may lead to same view from the people who are around them and vice versa. In South Korean Chinese teaching system, the senior high school stage is the first step to systematically learn Chinese, so it’s very important to introduce Chinese culture in this stage. Importance should be attached to how to introduce Chinese culture in a more accurate and systematic way in the Chinese learning, make students have a correct understanding of China and establish an objective comment on China through the full knowledge of Chinese culture, thus making people around them have an objective understanding of China.

The Chinese Language is divided into two volumes with a total of 23 units: the Chinese Language I and the Chinese Language II. Component parts in texts of the Chinese Language I and the Chinese Language II are almost the same. Part 1 is a leading part; Part 2 and Part 3 include 2 dialogues and texts; Part 4 is about listening practice; Part 5 is about speaking practice; Part 6 is about a comprehensive practice of listening and speaking; Part 7 is about a practice of Chinese writing; content of Part 8 has different types for each unit, including small games, songs and culture introduction in general; Part 9 is specially designed for culture column and related to contents of textbooks; Part 10 is also an introduction to culture but with settled contents on China’s cities and minority nationalities; Part 10 appears every 3 units. The Chinese Language II also includes an instruction to a Chinese movie called “Lost On Journey”.

The eighth revised edition of educational course syllabus in 2009 has a classification of the cultural programs as follows:

1) Programs relevant to everyday culture of Chinese people, which are helpful for understanding and expressions in communicative activities so that communicative activities are conducted smoothly.

a) Language culture: greetings, address people, etiquette in language, introduction, numbers, etc.

b) Interests and hobbies: sports, dance, music, reading, travelling, computer games, etc.

c) Family and school life: family ties, friends, teacher-student relationship, extracurricular activities, etc.

d) Food, clothing, shelter and transportation: dining, clothing, live, means of transportation, etc.

2) Social culture status and cultural heritage in China, which is indirectly related to communication and can attract the students’ attention and arouses their learning interests.

a) Socioculture: politics, economy, society, history, geography, system, traffic, minority, population, currency, language policy, etc.

b) Cultural heritage: historical sites, festivals, day of commemoration, commemorative activities, etc.

c) Art and culture: traditional culture, drama, music, film, fine arts, literature, etc.

According to the classification of cultural programs and relevant requirements in the eighth senior high school Chinese language course syllabus, the paper has a classification and arrangement of cultural programs in the Chinese Language. For ease of description, Part 1 to Part 8 are collectively called texts part, and Part 9 and Part 10 are collectively called cultural column part. In the following, a contrast is made to reflect how the texts part and the cultural column part embody requirements of the syllabus.

1) Space of the cultural column is short and content introduction is too brief.

The cultural column part consists of Part 9 “I’m a Chinese expert” and Part 10“Have a rest”. But only Part 9 appears in each unit and will change with contents of the texts. Part 10 appears every three units, and its content is often simple, just introducing China’s cities and minority nationalities which are unrelated to contents of the texts. Although Part 8 “Take it easily” in the texts part will introduce the cultural knowledge, only three lessons in the Chinese Language I are about introduction of cultural knowledge. Therefore, Part 8 is categorized into the texts part. The cultural column part of each unit only takes up 1 to 3 pages, of which only 1 page thereof is related to the contents of texts. There are only several pictures and three sentences of word description, which leads to a simplicity of introduction to cultural content and is disadvantageous for the students to understand cultural content.

2) There is an overlap between the cultural programs of the Chinese Language I and the Chinese Language II.

As the advanced version of the Chinese Language I, the Chinese Language II should cover rich content by following a principle of gradual improvement from the easier to the more advanced. However, the author finds in the teaching that there is an overlap between the two volumes regarding language knowledge and cultural programs in some units. For example, the cultural programs in the texts of Lesson 7 “How can I go to the subway?” in the Chinese Language I and Lesson 6 “Is the Bund far away from here?” in the Chinese Language II are about going out and transportation. There are four lessons starting with “How can I go to …” and ending with “By subway.”, and exist similar conversations in texts and overlapped cultural programs.

3) Old fashioned cultural content.

The author has heard in the teaching process that many students regard contents of the cultural column part as dated. For instance, the cultural column in Lesson 2 “Be there or be square” of the Chinese Language II describes “three major items” Chinese families wish to possess most in different eras (they are watch, sewing machine and bicycle in the 1970s, fridge, TV and washing machine in the 1980s, air conditioning, computer and motorbike in 1990s, and house, car and flight ticket in the 21st century). These contents have a sense of history to even Chinese students, let alone South Korean students. Moreover, these contents have little to do with the texts and cannot arouse students’ study interest.

4) A lack of comparison between Sino-South Korean cultures.

The cultural column part in both the two volumes of the Chinese Language introduces Chinese culture with little comparison between China and South Korea. The only comparison between China and South Korea appears in the texts of Lesson 6 of the Chinese Language II: the background of one dialogue is set in China, and the other short passage in South Korea. There is no extra compassion between Sino-South Korean cultures beyond that.

Educational course syllabus is not only the basis for textbook compilation and teachers’ teaching, but also a significant standard to test students’ academic performances and teachers’ teaching abilities. Compilation of textbooks must follow the basic teaching goals stated by the syllabus and determine the place of cultural programs in the textbooks. Most Chinese learners in South Korean general senior high schools are zero-based. In the face of these zero-based learners, the teaching goals are to comprehend culture relating to Chinese people’s daily life, have a knowledge of China’s basic situation and correctly understand the difference between two cultures. Therefore, everyday cultural programs account for a large part in the textbooks, especially China’s basic, traditional and modern everyday cultural programs. All of these reserves of cultural knowledge will help students master more language knowledge and understand what they’ve learned in the process of learning Chinese.

A survey is conducted to understand needs of textbook users and provide feedback on newly compiled textbooks. Before compiling textbooks, a survey should be made to know about cultural programs in which students are interested and listen to needs of learners. The author observes in the teaching that many students get interested in China’s handicraft culture, martial arts and superstars. However, cultural content such as martial arts and recreation is not included except for one page of cultural content about paper-cut in the two volumes of the Chinese Language.

Adding cultural content to textbooks is to allow students to better understand the language knowledge they’ve learned, so the cultural content in textbooks needs to be properly combined with the language knowledge. In the 23 lessons of the Chinese Language, there are 7 lessons on cultural column irrelevant to the texts, which is an extremely high proportion. The space on cultural column is actually short, while irrelevant part accounts for 30%. In fact, the writers can absolutely choose the cultural content relevant to the texts which have more value for learning.

Cultural content introduced in textbooks should be based on contemporary Chinese culture. With the development of times, people’s daily communication behaviors also change due to changes in cultural values. Some communicative behaviors dating back to ancient and modern ages may not be suitable for modern people’s communication, so cultural content introduced in the elementary Chinese textbooks should put emphasis on contemporary culture. For instance, in the cultural column part of Lesson 1 “Long time no see” of the Chinese Language II, the traditional Chinese greeting etiquette is mentioned, that is, making a bow. Even though this cultural program is worthy of an introduction, it is not appropriate for the elementary textbook. That’s because making a bow is not common in the daily greetings of modern Chinese people and rarely used in young people’s socialization.

Under the international environment of increasingly close exchange between China and South Korea, more and more South Koreans start to learn Chinese, and the number of primary and secondary schools offering Chinese courses in South Korea is also rising. During the process of language teaching, learning cultural content can not only assist learners in better understanding of language knowledge and increase of their study interest, but can also allow learners to correctly and objectively understand Chinese culture and cultivate their correct understanding of China.