Reference Guidelines for TBCL Application—
The first set of course guidelines for Chinese language teaching
I. Why do we need the “Reference Guidelines for TBCL Application”?
We aim to aid Chinese language teaching become more empirically based and more closely aligned
with actual Chinese language usage scenarios, as well as aspire students to learn more efficiently, the National
Academy for Educational Research (NAER) has undertaken projects to establish a series of corpuses and
standards system since 2013. In 2020, NAER completed the establishment of the Corpus of Contemporary
Taiwanese Mandarin (COCT) and the Taiwan Benchmarks for the Chinese Language (TBCL) which have
been integrated into the COCT and TBCL consolidated application system (URL: https://coct.naer.edu.tw).
The TBCL comprises proficiency level descriptors for Chinese language listening, speaking, reading,
writing and translating, as well as Chinese character lists, wordlists, grammar points, hence creating 14
system integrated platform. In 2021, we intend to share NAER’s research progress in Chinese language
education with other countries around the world. In this prestigious conference, NAER strengthened the
fundamental beliefs of Chinese language teaching, curriculum goals, learning focuses, and implementation
directions. NAER’s objective to inspire the improvement Chinese language teaching resulted in the basis of
the Reference Guidelines for TBCL Application (henceforth, the Guidelines) that encompass five aspects,
namely, materials, teaching methods, resources and evaluation.
The Guidelines consist of five parts: fundamental beliefs , curriculum goals, learning focuses (i.e., learner
performance and learning content), implementation directions (i.e., course development, teaching material
compilation, teaching implementation, teaching resources, and learning assessment) and appendixes ( i.e., lists
of communication topics, learner performance descriptors and grading comparison charts for TOCFL, ACTFL
and CEFR). For the overall framework, please see Figure 1.
The Guidelines provide reference materials such as teaching content in Chinese language teaching (i.e.,
Chinese characters, words, grammar points, other linguistic knowledge, and topics of communication) and
teaching resources. With guidance of the Guidelines, instructors are capable of adapting their teaching strategy
based on students’ learning requirements and students’ performance. The Guidelines also offer instructors
suggestions on the five aspects including course planning, teaching design, teaching material preparation,
resource utilization, and test formulation.
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Fundamental
beliefs
Curriculum
goals
Learning
focuses
Overall
performance
Listening
Speaking Chinese
Reading characters
Learner Learning Words
Writing performance content
Translation Grammar
Culture points
Implementation
directions
Teaching
Course Teaching Teaching Learning
material
development implementation resources assessment
compilation
Appendices
Figure 1: Framework of the “Reference Guidelines for TBCL Application”
II. Features of the Reference Guidelines for TBCL Application
The Guidelines have two unique aspects, the first of which is a comprehensive research and development
procedure. The research and development of the TBCL consists of expert knowledge, reference to corpuses,
and the use of natural language processing (NLP). Each area of the TBCL were discussed extensively in dozens
of expert consultation meetings (attended by highly experienced Chinese language instructors), which lead to
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us altering the areas of TBCL after each meeting. Furthermore, we took into account of the detailed
comments from Chinese language teaching academies and institutes as well as teaching centers. On the basis
layout, the Guidelines were examined on different dimensions by Chinese language scholars, professionals,
well-polished instructors, Chinese language instructors around the globe through multiple consultations with
instructors and multiple reports to the Ministry of Education. As such, both TBCL and THE GUIDELINES
are based on comprehensive research and development procedures with a common consensus reached.
Secondly, THE GUIDELINES are appended with supplementary materials, including the four following
components: an FAQ, a user manual, the COCT and TBCL applicated system. In the future, workshops and
competitions will be held annually to promote the use of these resources internationally, as detailed in Figure
2.
FAQ
14 systems
Reference
YouTube Guidelines
videos
COCT and TBCL
consolidated
User manual
application
system
Technical Workshop and
reports competitions
Figure 2: Relevant supplementary materials of the Guidelines
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III. How do you use these materials?
To facilitate user application of the Guidelines, the National Academy for Educational Research has
established the COCT and TBCL consolidated application system (URL: https://coct.naer.edu.tw). The system
offers a single-portal access to proficiency descriptors, grading standards, teaching demonstration videos,
technical reports, and online query and application systems, as detailed below.
1. Online query and application systems
The consolidated application system encompasses 14 online query systems, including: (1)” Chinese
Character Grading Scales Query” (2) “Word Grading Scales Query”(3) “Basic Word Query” (4) “Grammar
Grading Scales Query” (5) “Affixes Scales Query”(6) “NAER Thesaurus”(7) “Teaching Materials Editing
Assistance System”(8) “Chinese Semantic Field Conjunctive Word Query”(9) “Automatic Correction for
Typos in Chinese Compositions”(10) “NAER Word Tokenization System”(11) “Calculation System of Word
Coverage Rate in Corpus”(12) “Comparative Tools for Word List”(13) “Chinese Interlanguage
Thesaurus”(14) “Chinese-English Bilingual Thesaurus”. For the guide of the 14 systems of and links to these
systems please see pp. 32-33 of THE GUIDELINES where information such as Chinese language teaching,
teaching material design, testing and evaluation, and research applications are provided.
Figure 3: COCT and TBCL consolidated application system, URL: https://coct.naer.edu.tw/
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2. YouTube demo videos
After establishing the systems, NAER has also provided five demonstration videos to
illustrate in detail the operation and application of these systems, which can be viewed at
https://reurl.cc/LmVOVy. The themes of the videos are:
(1) Development of Taiwan’s COCT and TBCL consolidated application system:
https://reurl.cc/ERLz6v.
(2) Basic usage of the systems: https://reurl.cc/9pLXDO.
(3) Advanced usage of the systems: https://reurl.cc/RXE1k6.
(4) Application of linguistic analysis: https://reurl.cc/60Ylqr.
(5) Application of Chinese language teaching: https://reurl.cc/W1MLby.
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3. User Manual
To help users implement the principles of THE GUIDELINES in their Chinese language teaching and
apply THE GUIDELINES, in 2022, NAER compiled a user manual, providing illustrations and examples on
how to use THE GUIDELINES in practical teaching. The contents of the manual cover three aspects,
knowledge, implementation, and tools, all of which offer reference materials for teaching practice such as
course planning, teaching material design, lesson plans and teaching activities to various professions such as,
Chinese language instructors, teaching material editors and other professions.
Figure 4: User Manual of Reference Guidelines for TBCL Application
We hope that the Reference Guidelines for TBCL Application can serve as a common foundation for
Chinese language instructors and learners around the world, as well as for all those who enjoy communication
and interactions using the Chinese language. As such, we take it upon ourselves to better depict the contents,
processes and objectives of Chinese language learning. More importantly, we hope that THE GUIDELINES
offer a basis of development for various innovative applications in international Chinese language education
in the future.
