Persistence And Innovation: Research Of A Centurial Primary And Middle School Classical Chinese Poetry Teaching

Classical Chinese Poetry is a unique cultural phenomenon and the teaching of Classical Chinese poetry is a particular field in primary and middle school language and literature. Since Chinese Language was established as an independent subject, it has been over a hundred years for the Chinese poetry teaching, which experienced twists and turns. What changes have taken place to the teaching thought, philosophy and its implementation of classical poetry teaching in the past hundred years? What experience and lessons have left? To fully summarize primary and middle school classical poetry education in the past hundred years, and to discuss the future development of primary and middle school classical poetry teaching, by using the methods of literature analysis, historical comparison, case study and field research, following the basic way of developing the future from the history, in line with the research principle of combing the history with the conclusion, the old with the new, and the foreign with the domestic, the dissertation makes a panoramic presentation to the centurial evolution of primary and middle school classical Chinese poetry teaching, a probing revelation to the current situation of primary and middle school classical Chinese poetry teaching, and a visionary conceptualization to the future teaching of primary and middle school classical Chinese poetry.The dissertation consists of an introduction, a conclusion and the main body, which is composed of three parts. Part One is the Historical Review and Reflection. This part comprehensively studies the centurial evolution of primary and middle school classical Chinese poetry teaching in terms of teaching objectives, teaching materials compilation, teaching methods at different historical periods. Based on the social, thinking and cultural background as well as the development characteristics of Chinese language and Chinese characters, this parts also makes a thorough analysis to the formation of the features of primary and middle school classical Chinese poetry teaching at different periods, trying to find the regular pattern of primary and middle school classical Chinese poetry teaching in terms of value orientation, objectives and requirements, content and method change.Taking the establishment of New China in 1949 as the boundary line, the dissertation divided the centurial evolution of primary and middle school teaching into the following two periods:the modern transition period and the contemporary transition period. Modern transition period includes the transitional, radical and moderate stages. From the period of New Order Reform at the end of Qing Dynasty to the period of the outbreak of the New Cultural Movement in 1917, the classical poetry teaching in primary and middle schools is at the stage of transiting from studying Confucian Classics to modern Mandarin education, presenting the feature of continuing tradition and improving classic Chinese language. What is emphasized in the classic Chinese language in that period is still the holly influence of royalism and esteeming Confucius, however, it also clearly contains the practical orientation, highlighting the instrumental function of language education. The teaching content focus on Confucian texts, lays emphasis on the classicness of selected texts, in the meanwhile takes the demands of the times into consideration, and pays attention to the appropriateness of texts arrangement. The teaching methods are basically the traditional language teaching methods of reading, reciting and explaining, however, there are measures of reflection and improvements. New methods are introduced while the old methods are adopted.The May Fourth New Culture Movement in 1920s developed the momentum of "criticizing the tradition and inhibiting the classical Chinese", which speeded up the modern transition of primary and middle school classical poetry teaching. The teaching objectives has changed from imparting Confucian Morals to practicing common language characters, cultivating students free thinking ability, and developing students'imaginative ability and ability of thinking. The teaching content has changed from sole classical Chinese to the coexistence of classical Chinese and modern Chinese, and the teaching of modern Chinese is gradually replacing the teaching of classical. Under the influence of western education, the teaching method started to change from the passive to active, from receptive to discovery, from closed to open methods. From 1927 to 1949, primary and middle school classical poetry education experienced modern transition, entering the gentle period of "reflecting the tradition and regulating classical Chinese". With the awareness and efforts of subject essence construction, modern revolutionary transition of primary and middle school classical poetry teaching has completed and the basic framework of modern poetry teaching has initially formed.Since the establishment of New China, primary and middle school classical poetry teaching entered the contemporary development stage. The contemporary development stage of primary and middle school classical poetry teaching includes three periods of fluctuation, exploration and syncretization. During the period of 1949 to 1978, governed by the revolutionary and political discourse, the primary and middle school classical poetry teaching experienced drastic ups and downs twice, seriously lost its original nature, which is mainly shown in the two aspects of narrowing literature value by political interpretation and weakening language training by literary analysis paradigm. After the Cultural Revolution, the instrumental view has long dominated primary and middle school Chinese language education. Under the guidance of scientific rationality, primary and middle school classical poetry teaching entered the period of exploration. On one hand, through changing the vagueness of teaching objectives, the arbitrariness of teaching content and the randomness of training methods, primary and middle school classical poetry teaching makes an extraordinary step forward to scientific development. On the other hand, because of excessive emphasis on instrument rationality, dissimilation of training brings the primary and middle school classical poetry teaching into deadlock patterns. Humanism appeared in 1990s as a rectification to instrument training in language teaching. In the profound reflections, cultural value which has been neglected for many years is once again emphasized. Literary appreciation is once again paid attention to, the process of which has developed into the process of aesthetic appreciation, emotional experience and meaning construction. The second part is dialectic analysis of reality, which includes the following two sections:holdout, the necessary demands of primary and middle school classical poetry teaching and dissimilation, the inspection of primary and middle school classical poetry teaching. Reviewing the history is to better look at the present situation. Holdout is a key word that we obtain from interpreting the development history of centurial classical poetry teaching. Modern primary and middle school classical poetry teaching is the main content of primary and middle school Chinese language teaching. This parts first explores the significance of sticking to primary and middle school classical poetry teaching from the three perspectives of society, individuals and discipline. Then it examines the problems that current classical poetry teaching is facing, reviews the causes for the problems and makes an in-depth analysis of the dissimilation of and its causes for primary and middle school classical poetry teaching in terms of objectives, content, methods and evaluation. The dissertation holds that the main problems in current primary and middle school classical poetry teaching are diverging teaching objectives, changing teaching content, polarized teaching methods, deflected teaching evaluation and deletion of teachers'professional development.The third part is future forward-looking and construction. How to innovate is a key issue in exploring the future primary and middle school classical poetry teaching. The basic line of this part is as follow:on one hand, on the basis of studying the history, the part discusses what primary and middle school classical poetry teaching should inherit and innovate in terms of curriculum, textbook and teaching methods; on the other hand, it discusses the implications that we can get from the classical poetry teaching in Taiwan and Hongkong in terms of curriculum design, textbook compilation, teaching methods, evaluation and testing, and how to apply current advanced scientific theories, education ideas and the latest research achievements into primary and middle school classical poetry teaching. Based on these discussions, the dissertation integrates the past, the present and the future of classical poetry teaching, proposes the concept and strategy of strengthening primary and middle school classical poetry teaching, establishes the core idea of cultural basis, constructs the teaching system of integrated planning, highlights the dominant position of chanting teaching, and sets up the curriculum awareness of epoch connotation.