This study employs a corpus-driven approach to examine language use in commercial Chinese textbooks, the primary source of language exposure and use for LCTL learners, as an effort to identify core content domains for Chinese assessment in US universities.
In US universities, the assessment of Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCLTs) is challenging due to limited content materials, assessment tools, as well as low levels of proficiency among the learners (Nier, Donovan & Malone, 2009; Winke, 2006). For these reasons, it is common for LCTL programs to use large-scale tests to measure learning outcomes. Although these tests can be reliable general proficiency measures, they might be limited for placement and diagnostic purposes in local institutional contexts, as the content assessed in those tests might be incongruent with the curriculum or excessively difficult for LCTL learners. To address this problem, this study resorts to textbooks, the arguably most accessible content materials, as a potential resource to identify content domains with appropriate content coverage and difficulty levels for LCTL assessments. Using Mandarin Chinese as an LCTL example, we analyzed a corpus of 38 Chinese textbooks widely used in US universities, covering three general program/course levels. First, we applied Zipf’s law to compare the frequency and distribution of vocabulary and grammar in textbooks vs. natural language corpora to establish the authenticity and content validity of textbooks for assessment purposes. Then, employing corpus-analytic techniques, we identified a lexico-grammar core shared among the textbooks at each program/course level. In a series of pilot studies, a Chinese elicited imitation test developed based on the lexico-grammar core showed effectiveness for placement, achievement, and diagnostic purposes. We argue that a corpus-driven, curriculum-based approach to LCTL assessment is suitable for local institutional uses. We will provide the full version of the elicited imitation test and discuss the methodological implications of the corpus-driven, curriculum-based approach for the assessment of Chinese as well as other LCTLs.
