A Study On Training Curriculum Of PSC

PSC training is of great significance to Putonghua popularization and the improvement of nationals’Putonghua proficiency. For this reason, this dissertation, through using survey method, literature research method and action research method, studies systematically and deeply on PSC training curriculum from the aspects of history, property, feature, goal, subject, content, implementation, environment, evaluation and so on.Only having acquaintance with history can we analyze the current situation exactly. Therefore, in chapter one, the author analyzes briefly the three stages of PSC training after the founding of New China, which include embryonic stage, developing stage and prosperous stage. However, the practical training of PSC appearing on the historical stage formally was in the prosperous stage after the mid-1990s, along with the implementation of PSC.The trend of a course depends on its property, feature and goal. In terms of property, the training curriculum of PSC is an comprehensive practical course focusing on skills instead of an academic research. Different features of the curriculum of PSC training can be concluded from different perspectives, among which broad objects, various objectives, authoritative contents, practical implementation and complex evaluation are comparatively obvious characteristics. The basic goal of PSC training courses is to help learners master standardized speech sounds and normative grammar of Putonghua. And the ultimate goal is to improve their ability of using Putonghua.The subjects of training, trained and managing are three subject constitutions of PSC training curriculum. The training subject refers to the trainers, the trained subject refers to the trainees and the managing subject refers to the administrative organizations of PSC. It is noteworthy that the managing subject of training curriculum, up to now, is actually referring to the organizers from language commissions, the national language testing center, language testing centers of all provinces, cities, colleges and universities. In this case, curricular practice of the managing subject is, in fact, faced with a complicated situation---the simultaneous existence of independence and dependence, convention and non-convention, authority and non-authority. Hence strengthening the coordination and communication, implementing executive authorities cooperatively is the direction of the managing subject of PSC training curriculum.To know the current situation of the contents of PSC training curriculum, this study gives statistical analyses on the contents of20different kinds of universal textbooks about mandarin from different aspects, such as Putonghua and its testing, phonetic knowledge and pronunciation skills, sample test papers, relevant appendices, CDs and study cards. From these analyses, we get the result that current teaching materials are of an obvious exam-oriented trend. Moreover, through investigating unstructured case interview, classroom observation and questionnaire survey, this study finds that, as a kind of pre-exam training focusing on skills, training courses of Putonghua test are of more obvious uncertainties than some ordinary pre-examination training curricula. Actually, there are many factors influencing on training courses, besides the common framework identified by state will and mandarin itself, various features of the training subject, the trained subject and the managing subject are also influential in training curricula. In this situation, to improve the quality of PSC training, it is required to fully consider the gradation of textbooks according to the universality, locality and specific profession, and to implement teaching with layers according to trainees’ mandarin levels.In this study, the author puts forward bold proposals of teaching models of PSC training curriculum on the theoretical basis of constructivism, and advances five teaching models, including conventional modified teaching model, hierarchical classification teaching model, cooperative and mutual teaching model, compartmentalized teaching model and extension connotation teaching model. Though these teaching models have some shared characteristics, their design principles, content of courses and teaching methods are of distinctive features.The last chapter of this dissertation discusses the curriculum environment and curriculum evaluation of PSC training. Though internal environment and external environment both belong to curriculum environment, this study pays more attention to the functions of the former which has more direct effect on classroom training. Internal environment can be divided into seven types of environments, including temporal and spatial environment, facility environment, emotional environment, interpersonal environment, organizational environment, information environment and public opinion environment. In this chapter, the author investigates and compares the current situation with the ideal condition of these seven types of environment, and puts forward corresponding solutions. In addition, there exist many problems in the curriculum evaluation of PSC training. Consequently, it is quite necessary to change the characteristics of goals, contents, models and evaluation of training curriculum from aiming at getting the mandarin certification, focusing on examination-oriented education, simple and one-dimensional to aiming at improving Putonghua proficiency, focusing on hierarchical construction, variety, complex and multidimensional.