Research On Hu Shi’s Ideology Of Chinese Curriculum And Teaching

Under the circumstance of complex historical background, special familyenvironment with profound cultural background and a wholly new Western educationalphilosophy, Hu’s idea of Chinese education came into being Set in the background ofthe time, Hu took Dewey’ educational ideas of Pragmatism and Individualism as thetheoretical source of its language education ideology and completed his ideologicalconstruct of language curriculum and teaching.In terms of "Curriculum Theory”, it mainly refer to curriculum objectives with itscore part as "everyone can use Mandarin (vernacular) to express their thoughts freely".This goal highlights the prominence of national language as well as respect andattention on students themselves. Under the guidance of the course objectives set forthe subjects, curriculum offers an important insight on the proportions among courses,Mandarin and national language. As to the course contents, in the area of nationallanguage education of the country, the first thing is to write novels as languageteaching materials and promote the creation of the vernacular; As to the classicaleducation, it is necessary to expand the scope and component of classical works andrefresh the ancient books with a modern eyesight; For the language points education, itis urgent for modern Chinese language education to take a scientific way in its processof development; And for classical scriptures, the key point is to look upon them witha historical point of view--respect reality and follow scientific principles.In terms of "Pedagogy", Hu stressed that the dominant position of students shouldbe highlighted and individuality and self-study ability of students should be focused on.Discussed in details from the teaching of reading, writing and oral communication, thepoints are as the following:(1) The teaching of reading. Hu put forward the idea that"reading books instead of talking about things" and his idea even pointed out thatteachers should give some guidance to students about what kind of books they shouldread and how to read after class. On the reading skills of students, Hu also encouragedstudents to learn independently and focused on how to develop good self-studyabilities.(2) Writing. Hu advocated to stimulate students’ interest in writing andself-awareness and offered them freedom of thought expression. It is preferred thatstudents can do autonomy proposition writing and express sincere emotion without the limitation of strict writing limits. And students should also form a good habit ofreading and taking notes and he also insisted that writing should comply with correctgrammar and innovative marking mode and he adopted the model of modifying orgranting mutual peer assessment between students themselves.(3) Oral communication.Mainly through the speech and debate training courses, students are expected todevelop the ability of critical thinking skills, the practical usage of actual language andculture points and a systematic and methodical thinking ability.As can be seen from Hu’s language curriculum and teaching ideas, as an "outsider”,many of Hu Shi’s ideas might not realistic, but it is undeniable that there are a lot ofrationality and science parts existing in Hu’s idea and may help to solve many practicalproblems associated with poor Chinese teaching for the moment.