Spanish language learning books in China: Qualitative analysis of the cultural content

Spanish language learning books in China: Qualitative analysis of the cultural content

Los libros para aprender idioma español en China: análisis cualitativo del contenido cultural

Livros para aprender espanhol na China: análise qualitativa do conteúdo cultural

¹Jilin University of International Studies, Chanchung , China (吉林外国语大学).

**Cite as**
Sanabria Acosta, S. (2023). Spanish language learning books in China: Qualitative analysis of the cultural content. Mendive. Revista de Educación, 21(3), e3350. https://mendive.upr.edu.cu/index.php/MendiveUPR/article/view/3350

This study was started from deficiencies found in graduate students of the Spanish language faculty of Hebei International Studies University, China, to construct the idea of the Spanish-speaking subject from the criteria of cultural diversity. The cultural content of the books Modern Spanish for Chinese vol. 1 and 2 was analyzed by qualitative analysis aided by Atlas.ti software with inductive and deductive coding methods that reflected errors in the use of language, cultural information, ethnocentric approaches that stimulate xenophobia and racism. Thus, it was corroborated that the content of these books invalidates them to offer an efficient course for students who need to interrelate in a Spanish-speaking country, since their content omits a respectful cultural representation of this area.

Palabras clave: cultura, diversidad cultural, estudiantes chinos, idioma español.

El estudio se inició a partir de las deficiencias encontradas en los estudiantes graduados de la Facultad de idioma español de la Universidad de Estudios Internacionales de Hebei, China, para construir la idea del sujeto hispanohablante desde los criterios de diversidad cultural. Se analizó el contenido cultural de los libros Español moderno para chinos vol. 1 y 2 mediante el análisis cualitativo asistido por el software Atlas.ti con métodos de codificación inductiva y deductiva que reflejaron errores en el uso del idioma, la información cultural, enfoques etnocéntricos que estimulan la xenofobia y el racismo. De esta forma se corroboró que el contenido de estos libros los invalida para ofrecer un curso eficiente para estudiantes que necesiten interrelacionarse en algún país hispanohablante, pues su contenido omite una representación cultural respetuosa de este ámbito.

Palabras clave: cultura, diversidad cultural, estudiantes chinos, idioma español.

O estudo partiu das deficiências encontradas nos alunos de pós-graduação da Faculdade de Língua Espanhola da Universidade de Estudos Internacionais de Hebei, China, para construir a ideia do sujeito de língua espanhola a partir dos critérios da diversidade cultural. O conteúdo cultural dos livros Modern Spanish for Chinese vol. 1 e 2 por meio de análise qualitativa assistida pelo software Atlas.ti com métodos de codificação indutivos e dedutivos que refletiram erros no uso da linguagem, informações culturais, abordagens etnocêntricas que estimulam a xenofobia e o racismo. Dessa forma, constatou-se que o conteúdo desses livros os inviabiliza para oferecer um curso eficiente para alunos que precisam interagir em um país de língua espanhola, uma vez que seu conteúdo omite uma representação cultural respeitosa dessa área.

Palavras-chave: cultura; diversidade cultural; estudantes chineses; língua española.

"The Spanish language has around 580 million people as native speakers, which represents 7.6% of the world population" (Instituto Cervantes, 2019) and implies the inclusion of a wide variety of lifestyles, value systems, traditions and beliefs that are essential to establish effective communication between people with their own cultural references and otherness. The relationships established between human beings are diverse and for this, knowledge of a common language for the exchange of messages is very important, since mutual knowledge of signs and symbols leads to an effective understanding of the message to be deciphered.

The Spanish-speaking countries constitute a region of complex cultural diversity, and this for humanity is as necessary a component as the aspects related to the biology of living organisms. In this sense, it constitutes the common heritage of humanity and must be recognized and consolidated for the benefit of future generations. For this reason, the case of teaching foreign languages implies the cultural component, since in the encoding-decoding process inherent to communication, not only are the basic components of the language found, but the message is decorated and specified with all the amalgam of gestures and expressions that have been apprehended in the cultural environment to which we belong and that constitute the basis of non-verbal communication.

Although it is very difficult to bring the particular idiosyncrasies of each human group that inhabits Spanish-speaking geographical areas to textbooks, whose main objective is learning a language, the high complexity does not exclude the importance of giving a respectful and trustworthy treatment to the characteristics of the countries whose language of official or majority use is the center of the discourse.

One of the concepts of culture as a central element in anthropology proposed by Marvin Harris (1994) proposes that "it is the learned set of socially acquired traditions and lifestyles of the members of a society, including their patterned and repetitive ways of living." think, feel and act (that is, their conduct)", which is a continuation of the definition proposed by Sir Edward Burnett Tylor who is referred to in the same text as:

Culture... in its ethnographic sense, is that complex whole that includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morality, law, customs and any other capacities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. The condition of culture in the various societies of humanity, insofar as it can be investigated according to general principles, constitutes a suitable subject for the study of the laws of human thought and action. (1871, p. 306)

The recognition and legitimization of these cultural differences between various human groups, as well as the existence, coexistence and interaction between different cultures within the same geographical space is constituted by cultural diversity, a concept that acts as a generator of respect between ethnic groups, languages, religions, values, worldviews.

Cultural diversity allows each culture to be characterized in a specific way, under the principle of recognition and respect for otherness. Precisely the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, which dates back to 2001, establishes twelve articles referring to this right for all citizens. In it, it is stated that:

Therefore, the research was conceived from the criteria of interculturality since various elements that build the individual in their environment such as: the set of values, traditions, symbols, beliefs and modes of behavior function as a cohesive element within a social group. and legitimize the criteria of identity. Likewise, they act as a substrate that make up and support the feeling of belonging to the group. Other elements such as the safe learning climate, efficient classroom management, clarity of instruction, active teaching, differentiation and teaching-learning strategies also offer information of interest to identify the aspects to be reinforced for an effective exchange of knowledge.

It becomes necessary, then, to link these aspects to the cultural content offered to the student so that he can form an idea, as accurate as possible, about reality. The accelerated evolution of society and the internationalization of economies, cultures and politics, put on the table the imminent need of people to know at least one second language and with them, the need to understand the cultural characteristics of their environment.

In the cultural information of the modern Spanish textbook, student's book, vol. 1 and 2 reaffirm the cultural reproduction through the teaching of the Spanish language as a foreign language and in turn build in the student or anyone who is aided by this text, the imaginary of a Spanish-speaking society through its texts and images.

Since it is recognized as a cultural subject and the environment is understood, it begins to identify the elements that unite and those that separate from other compatriots. In this way, when interpersonal relationships between Chinese students and teachers begin, it is understood that the Spanish-speaking subject that they construct in their subjectivity is not someone who can be identified as part of their own symbolic or communicative universe.

In this case, the reproduction of the cultural content by the students presented a marked deficit and through participant observation it was possible to determine that it is the books and not the relationship with the teacher that constitutes the main means of access to the information with which builds the criteria towards a different sociocultural environment and language.

Therefore, knowing the elements of Spanish-speaking culture to which importance is given in modern Spanish textbooks... and those essential for intercultural communication that are absent in them, is necessary to identify the way in which language is represented. Hispanic American cultural diversity.

There are not few investigations where the cultural content of textbooks acts as a central object. From different approaches it is intended to analyze the aspects that contain in itself the preparation of a material for learning.

By 2012 "the modern Spanish manual in its 2008 edition still did not have the updated regulations for the use of the Spanish language as established by the Association of Spanish Language Academies" (Xiaoxiao, 2012). In this same manual, the Analysis of the Chinese ELE manual: Modern Spanish is carried out, where it is deepened to improve the linguistic and pedagogical theory used in the teaching of Spanish (Camacho, 2015) and as the author concludes, the idea of teaching Spanish from Spanish, not from Chinese, because they have nothing to do with it, it is a matter of recognizing cultural differences and understanding the other culture as equally respectable.

Regarding the 2014 edition of Modern Spanish in the ASELE Bulletin, Gallardo reviews the Modern Spanish manual where he raises the evident pedagogical and methodological obsolescence (Gallardo, 2017) despite the repeated editions, in addition to the fact that, as he refers very coherently, Sociocultural knowledge explained only in Chinese limits the Spanish-speaking teacher from criticizing the content of the text. In the same way, it restricts the possibility of encouraging curiosity in the student by contrasting a text in their language and the same in the language to be learned.

In a critical analysis of the discourse in three materials for teaching Spanish as a foreign language, in 2020, the creation of neoliberal stereotypes was verified due to the erroneous approach to values and sociocultural aspects offered to the student (Cassany, 2020). It is necessary to clarify that this study was limited to Spanish society. Although these materials do not include the modern Spanish text, they do form part of the series of books that reproduce a distorted view of the cultural environment of the Spanish language.

Another review of the modern Spanish book observes the structure and methods used, clarifies the preference of books published by Chinese authors and books published in Spain as auxiliary material (Ma, 2020).

In this case, it is not mentioned which variant of the language is used for the preparation of the edition, nor is a critical review, but rather a descriptive one, of the text. Another interesting analysis with the intention of delving into the cultural component is the study of modern Spanish reading books, although it is indicated from the quantifiable aspects and the qualities of the information are not analyzed.

It does not take into account that the quantities can be biased by the qualities. More quantity does not mean legitimacy or certainty in the cultural information it offers. The author well declares that, "according to the introduction to the manuals, their main purpose is to enrich knowledge of the language, the laws that regulate it and increase vocabulary, which will affect an improvement in their oral expression and their expression written" (Polo, 2020), but these books constitute objects of cultural reproduction where the other is represented as a subject or group that bears culture.

Omitting these characteristics is misinforming and misrepresenting an objective reality of the language represented mostly in the Latin American and Caribbean region where Spanish is spoken as the official language or due to cultural influence.

It is valid to clarify that Hispano-America is not a historical-cultural entity equivalent to Spain because from the perspective that intends to carry out an analysis of cultural components, if one starts from the wrong position and is located in the wrong place to carry out the analysis, the probability of erroneous conclusions increases; that is to say, trying to homologate Latin America and Spain is a conceptual, geographical and taxonomic error because while Spain constitutes a country, Latin America is a geographical region made up of 19 countries.

Based on interviews with students and reviews of texts with themes on Latin American and Caribbean culture, written by students to be discussed in the exam exercise to opt for the title of Bachelor of Spanish Linguistics; the analysis of the preparation of the teachers to inform about the cultural content implicit in the study of a second language and the relationship of the students with the Spanish-speaking teachers, the reading material and the Chinese-speaking teachers, a low knowledge about diversity was identified culture in the Spanish-speaking environment provided, in a timely manner, by the assumption of the content of textbooks as irrefutable content material, both by native teachers and students.

Since the content of the textbooks is not subject to questioning, then it became necessary to analyze the cultural information present in the textbooks to learn the Spanish language of the course Modern Spanish for students vol. 1 and 2.

The analysis of the students' approach to refer to the Spanish-speaking cultural reality embodied in the theses written for the graduation exercise allowed the search and processing of empirical, theoretical and methodological information that led to the identification of the essential aspects of the problem in relation to the object of study.

It was induced that the common factor in the phenomenon addressed was the similar discourse regarding the content of knowledge. In this way, it was possible to deduce that the main problem for understanding the cultural complexity of the Spanish-speaking environment is not in the preparation of teachers or access to information, but in the content of textbooks that are assumed to be unquestionable due to to its national prestige.

For the analysis of the information, a qualitative study was carried out assisted by the Atlas.ti software, using inductive-deductive coding methods.

At first, with the impressionist manual coding, the entities linked to the selected textbooks were determined, so that information was obtained about the countries and cultural aspects that are present in the books of vol. 1 and 2 of Modern Spanish for Chinese students that make up this course. In this way, we proceeded to analyze 50% of the cultural content that is inserted in this course, since there are four books that complete this series.

Based on the relevant information obtained in the bibliographic review on characteristics of culture from the anthropological approach, we proceed to refine the codes that answered the research questions.

This inductive coding yielded nine groups of codes (Graph 1) to break down the cultural information and three to identify the social composition (Graph 2) that is built from the information present in the book and thus characterize the population by intensity of epithelial pigmentation, gender identity, occupation and leisure activities, age group.

It is known that rites, family, symbols, values, religion, arts, gastronomy, heritage and traditions act as cohesive elements to build an individual's feeling of belonging and recognize themselves as part of a social group that bears a certain cultural identity. . "Identity is not a fixed concept, but is recreated individually and collectively, and is continuously fed by external influence" (Molano, 2007).

The existence of various cultural identities that are interrelated in a geographical space and transcend political borders make up cultural diversity and this reality legitimizes the global concept of culture.

The book as a knowledge reproductive agent builds, in the imaginary, a subject with a certain appearance and behavior, directly linked to the Spanish language, that is, from the textual and visual information, the book informs us about the physical characteristics of the Spanish-speaking subject, their environment and the cultural elements with which they feel part of it.

Another present aspect is the iconography of the text for the population representation of the Spanish-speaking region, whose composition is very diverse since the colonizing and migratory processes led to the mixture between different human groups.

This is not easy to represent if skin color is conceived as a classificatory and distributive element, for this reason the message of cultural diversity that retains the idea of heterogeneity is thought to be more useful, in addition, international representation could be identified from the information referring to countries and territories that form a geographic and political unit whose language of majority or official use is not Spanish (Graph 3).

Graph 3- Countries and territories that form a geographic and political unit whose language of majority or official use is not Spanish.

In the presentation of the book, its authors state, a course whose main characteristic and function is communicative. ¹Under this criterion, words, phrases and sentences of expressive value in Spanish should be prioritized, but it is contradictory when a high level of words of infrequent or very technical use that are presented in the book at a vocabulary level is identified, including others. that are not even present in the dictionary as is the case of kola, kumel. This responds to the use of the repetitive method, that is, rote learning to reproduce knowledge. Which leads to the use of words without these having a practical function for the reality of the student.

In addition, the communicative approach must be circumscribed to the variant proposed by the book, which should be clarified because, if it is true that the common factor between all these geographical regions is the Spanish language, it must also be recognized that each semiotic space has its own characteristics that are have developed from particular historical processes.

Both the book's vocabulary and most of the information leans towards the Spanish variant. This conclusion is derived from the analysis of the information obtained in the books since it is not mentioned at any time. This, in turn, dismisses learning at a sensory and rational level, since it rules out learning through experience.

Another interesting element is the indication to adjust only to what the book offers at the level of knowledge. ²Such an indication completely ignores that the common standard on vocabulary, grammar and spelling for the Spanish language is determined by the joint work of the RAE-ASALE (Royal Spanish Academy-Association of Spanish Language Academies), so, even if a word or phrase for a specific context should be considered the benefit of revealing what would happen in other significant settings. Although the presentation of the book insists on the communicative nature of the course, this is also contradicted when it is indicated that cultural content should not be taught or explained in class. ³

Likewise, the permanent exchange of the language academies to establish, through dialogue and consensus, the common norm for use by all Spanish speakers with the final aspiration of favoring the unity of the language within the diversity of the Hispanic area is a detail that is completely ignored, that is, the statutes for the use of the Spanish language are dictated by this book and not by an international collaboration of Spanish-speaking countries.

Among the errors found is the reference to data from the Instituto Cervantes of the year 2012 where it is declared that the Spanish language is the third language internationally. However, the referred document outlines the following:

Another of the curiosities that the book presents are the lists of words to train hearing that includes vocabulary absent in the Spanish vocabulary and words of absolute technicality, ⁴that is, only used in certain scientific spaces. Such is the case of words like mus, vulpino, matute, vulgar, nickel, hoax, bureo, frown, hulla, farce, Zionism, trullo, ghetto, plinth, chromosome, dry, hyoid, glycol, glottis, glyph, pepsin and many others. others whose functionality is doubtful for the practice of an initial level of the Spanish language. In this regard, information does not fulfill a practical function.

The book focuses on cultural information from ethnocentrism in its negative meaning when it exposes the pace of life in Spanish-speaking countries as slow and most of the time dedicated to leisure and entertainment, which stimulates attitudes of xenophobia and racism. This is one of the recurring aspects when interviewing students so that they refer to any Spanish-speaking country. Generally, their criteria towards otherness are slow and idle. This point of view contradicts the documents of the People's Republic of China issued in 2008 and 2016 on the policy for relations with Latin America and the Caribbean in conditions of respect and mutual benefit under the premise of "cultural and humanistic relations of reciprocal learning (China, 2016).

Intrinsic characteristics of the Spanish language are affirmed, ignoring the cultural diversity of the 21 Spanish-speaking countries. About the cultural representatives of this language, reference is made to them without knowing the political impact of their disastrous social activity in the case of Mario Vargas Llosa who, although he is a member of the Spanish Academy of Language, his conservative line of thought places him "between literary greatness and ethical and political misery" (Borón, 2019), in addition, the literary current to which his work belongs is recognized in the book as modernist, however, the work of this writer adheres to the so-called social realism .

The equivalence of Spain with Latin America -where the Caribbean is omitted- constitutes a recurring error as comparable categories.

In principle, Latin America is made up of 20 countries, whose languages, in addition to Spanish, are French, Portuguese, all the endogenous languages and the mixtures that have arisen in the process of transculturation of the peoples.

Although in Spain several languages coexist together with Spanish, which means that in this region there are specific characteristics of the language, in Latin America there are more than 420 different languages and of the 522 indigenous peoples, 108 are cross-border. Most Latin American countries have an indigenous population ranging from 3% to 10% of the total. "In Latin America there are 103 cross-border languages, which are spoken in two or more countries" (Andes, 2009).

The variations implied by the effect of these languages on the Spanish language are collected by the respective language academies of each region. A simplified sample of the coexistence of other languages with Spanish is shown in Graph 4. The information in the text, which deals with this topic, shows both linguistic errors and cultural ignorance.

The limited conception of culture is expressed in the relationship of countries with economic categories (Spain olive; Mexico maguey; Venezuela oil; Colombia coffee; Cuba 5 tobacco; Argentina mate) does not take into account that in addition to the economic lines, the Spanish-speaking countries are the result of cultural processes over time. The same processes that have endowed the inhabitants and their places with identifiers, for which reason considering the origin of surnames as exotic culture (Yeg‡eS), are criteria in which xenophobic and racist attitudes proliferate.

The Spanish variant of the language is mentioned as peninsular Spanish, when the form spoken in the islands belonging to the Hispanic peninsula is also called that way. In other words, peninsular Spanish does not correspond to all of Spain, but only to the region opposed to the islands.

Another negative aspect is the pre-Columbian term that refers to the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America. To refer to the historical period prior to 1492, this is not satisfactory since Columbus only reached a part of the continent while other colonizers such as Francisco Pizarro, Hernán Cortés, Pedro Álvarez Cabral reached Peru, Mexico and Brazil respectively.

Regarding the use of words, although the forms of address don, doña, señor, señora are respectful forms in some cultural environments, it should be clarified that in others it can be insulting. Although the aim of the book is clearly to ignore cultural reality, this carries the risk of cultural error that can result in an embarrassing moment for those involved; for example: in certain contexts, doña also means "married woman" and señor can mean "lover".

In the same way it happens with "don" and "doña"; Latin America does not use the expression "don" or "doña" as much; Although in the Iberian Peninsula it can be used in a common way, in Latin America it can be humorous or ironic.

The repetition of a word or phrase in a text where it has already been mentioned before is not considered taboo 忌讳）sbut reiteration （重复） Reteretion in the Spanish language is not taboo but a deficiency in knowledge of the language and little lexical domain. If a greeting (good morning) is answered in the same way, this does not constitute a reiteration or a taboo because the same person does not repeat the information. A case of repetition would be: yesterday I went to the park, in the park there were trees and I sat on a park bench.

Neither are abbreviations, a sociocultural characteristic of Spanish-speaking countries, but rather «the reduced graphic representation of a word or group of words, obtained by eliminating some of the letters or syllables from its complete writing and which is always closed with a period.

It is contradictory that the comparison between English grammar and Spanish grammar is shown and recommended to understand the use of tenses without anticipating that linguistic interference is induced instead of proposing understanding from the very function of tenses to express oneself. In Spanish language.

Regarding the contradictions, it is observed in the text where travel is discussed, that the situational dialogue begins with the departure of a friend to La Paz, Bolivia and later, the following dialogue declares a trip to Caracas (capital of Venezuela). The information is uncoordinated and not concatenated, which provides the text with insufficient cohesion and coherence, as part of the geographical disorientation.

The Catholic religion is represented in a considerable number of Latin American and Caribbean homes, however, the population of these countries includes different practices as part of their religiosity, product of the influence of native cultures and enslaved African migrants, something that can be appreciated in the daily life of any of these countries ⁶, however, the other practices that complement Catholicism are not even taken into consideration, as well as the specific celebrations of each region that respond to specific traditions, many of which even date back to the prehispanic cultures.

The book does not relate the activities or artistic objects with leisure, the professions or the most relevant representative personalities of each country.

Regarding the negative elements identified, they deconstruct both the idea of cultural diversity and the assumption of knowledge from practice and objectivity. Negative elements provide irrelevant information that acts as a hollow well, fulfilling no practical function, ignoring one of the principles of his own Confucian philosophy, which reads "they told me and I forgot; I saw and understood; I did it and I learned it" in the practical exercises that continually assume learning from repetition and deny the acquisition of knowledge through sensory experience.

In the same way, the use of words without taking into account the meaning, and the ethnocentric positions in criteria towards otherness invalidate both the character of sociocultural information and respect for cultural diversity from ignorance of cultural identities.

The information on traditional dances and music is limited to identifying an artistic expression with a country, ignoring that each country has various artistic expressions of national relevance. The so-called Salsa is actually the commercial name of the musical genre Son and this, in turn, has regional variants. Another mistake that is made is to link Jazz with Salsa as a musical base when the two have musical ties, but different beginnings and contexts.

Another element to take into account is the information about the tango, its origins and most representative countries, nor is the visual information linked to the textual information, which leads to the fact that the artistic manifestation cannot be identified with the information about the country that It represents. Another element is that, although it is a book to learn Spanish, and therefore information in Spanish is necessary, when referring to the culture of Spanish-speaking countries, this information is given only in Chinese, which neutralizes any analysis by the bearers of the culture being disclosed. Cultural information should not only not be taught or questioned, but the lack of knowledge of the Chinese language of Spanish speakers is purposely used to disseminate cultural issues from the author's sole criteria.

In the book Modern Spanish Student's Book vol. 2, the text (通常用来指称美国以南的美洲大片以拉于语系诸分支为官方语言或者主要语言的地区。拉丁美洲由拉于北美洲的墨西哥，中美洲，加勒比地区的部分国家和南美洲组成.) subordinates the Spanish-speaking context to the United States.

In this information it is important to clarify that the United States has a large Spanish-speaking community and therefore also an Academy of the Spanish Language, since it has communities of Spanish-speaking migrants and also with Puerto Rico as a commonwealth and this makes it the second country with more Spanish speakers internationally, but the official language of use in the US is English. So, the Spanish-speaking countries are those that are in the American continent and have Spanish as their official language or majority use. The correct way would be 通常用来于指美洲大陆以拉丁语根语言（西班牙语、葡萄牙语、法语）为官方使用语言或大部分人口的国家组。构成拉丁美洲的国家从墨西哥延伸到北美洲、中美洲、加勒比海和南美洲。

In the iconography that presents personalities with a cultural impact in Spanish-speaking countries, mention of Frida Kahlo is omitted, despite the fact that in the photo she appears next to Diego Rivera. In this case, we are referring to images that are identified, since the vast majority have the absence of references as standard. Generally, there is no caption, so it is impossible to place most of the images in a geographical and cultural context.

Regarding the cultural heritage declared by UNESCO, Spain has the largest number of assets declared World Heritage Sites, however, it is incorrect to say that: it has the largest cultural and natural heritage declared by UNESCO. In the case of natural heritage, it is surpassed by Mexico and Argentina, and in the case of mixed heritage, it is equal to Mexico and Peru.

On the other hand, in the examples that show the beauty of the natural landscape in the Spanish-speaking world, whose importance is supported by the declaration as heritage by UNESCO, the sites referred to as located in the American continent are not those declared. as heritage and those that are part of Spain yes. In this case, the declaration of the sites declared as Natural Heritage is completely unknown.

About the volume of information in the book's Modern Spanish student book 1 and 2, it was obtained that the errors in the use of words, concepts, unreliable information, ethnocentric criteria, exceeds the cultural information identified in both books, however, the cultural information embodied in book 2 is less than in book 1.

The Spanish-speaking population, according to textbooks, has an adult majority, with a slight number of women that exceeds men, mostly students whose free time is dedicated to practicing sports, talking with friends and visiting restaurants and in In terms of physical appearance, the majority of the population ranges from redheads whose skin is very fair to those with dark Mediterranean skin that tans easily.

The information referring to Spanish-speaking countries exceeds those that do not have Spanish as the official language or of majority use, however, in terms of cultural information, it is very insufficient to understand cultural diversity in the Spanish-speaking space.

Taking into account that the Modern Spanish for Chinese course consists of eight books where four are textbooks and the rest are reading books, we have to analyze the cultural information in 50% of the content present in the texts that are used as a guide study in educational centers.

The analysis of the cultural information present in the textbooks to learn the Spanish language of the Modern Spanish course for students vol. 1 and 2 gave as a result that the characteristics of the cultural information found in these books make this course present considerable deficiencies for the construction of a correct idea about the cultural diversity of the Spanish language, since the imaginary that is built from the information present in Spanish-speaking countries is far from the cultural reality.

Another aspect that derives from this situation is that this vision disrespects the diversity of ways of being and doing existing in this set of countries, so the information in the books is highly ethnocentric and does not favor learning for the effective relationship intercultural.

Andes, U. y. (2009). Atlas sociolingüístico de pueblos indígenas en America Latina y el Caribe. UNICEF, UNICEF.

Borón, A. (2019). El hechicero de la tribu. Vargas Llosa y el liberalismo en América LAtina. Akal, Interpares.

Camacho, M. V. (3 de 2015). Análisis del manual chino de ELE: Español Moderno.

Cassany, E. M. (2020). El mundo según los libros de texto: Análisis crítico del discurso aplicado a materiales de español LE/L2. Journal of spanish language teaching, 1-19.

Harris, M. (1994). Materialismo cultural 3ra edición. Madrid, Alianza Editorial.

Ma, S. (2020). Yansheng Dong y Jian Liu Español Moderno (vol.1). redELE revista electrónica de didáctica del español lengua extranjera.

Xiaoxiao, M. A. (2012). El método Español Moderno (vol.I): revisión normativa y de su enfoque ortográfico y gramatical. Revista de enseñanza de ELE para hablantes de chino, 47-70.

¹ 从一开始就贯彻交际法原则,教给学生有交际价值的西班牙语字词 Translation by the author . _ _ See in modern Spanish Student's book 新版现代西班牙语学生用书第册) vol. 1 p1.
²切忌超出范围任意扩展授课内容(do not explain more than what the text strictly says) author's translation see in (18:303 p 5,480 × 61 in modern Spanish Student's Book 新版现代西班牙语学生用书第册) vol. 1 p2.
社会文化常识”板块中的内容为课外阅读材料,只提供课外阅读的参考资料,不是授课内容,切勿在课堂上讲解分析. The contents of the "Sociocultural Knowledge" section are for extracurricular reading. They are not part of the lesson. Do not analyze in class see in modern Spanish Student's Book 新版现代西班牙语学生用书第册).. Vol. 1 p.2.
⁵In the sample map on page 175 of the book Modern Spanish Student's Book vol. 1, Cuba is not shown as part of Spanish America, however the Dominican Republic is.
⁶These data do not include the American religions of African origin, which have a great impact on the Latin American and Caribbean population.

The author participated in the design and writing of the work, and analysis of the document.