I manuali di cinese universitario per principianti nell’Italia del Nord: proposta di analisi e strumenti per la valutazione

The paper aims to presenting the Chinese language textbooks used in the universities of northern Italy at elementary level. The analysis of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) textbooks arises from the increasing of CFL courses in the Italian universities and the resulting growing number of textbooks for CFL teaching recently published in Italy. As essential tools and main guide used by teachers and students in CFL courses, textbook and their analysis are very important. This is especially true in student-centered based CFL courses, where textbook preliminary analysis can further help teachers focusing on the real needs of students learning Chinese. The present analysis is mainly based on a pre-formed questionnaire, fully presented in the paper, and focuses on general aspects, such as approach, time of publication and target audience, as well as on more specific elements, like structure of the lessons, exercises, grammatical instructions, presence of additional materials and culture-related notes. The analysis also tries to give some tools for a possible evaluation of textbooks, to help teachers improve the teaching materials according to the CFL specific course necessities.