In the past few decades, "how much classical Chinese" should be taught in high school Chinese language classes has triggered many debates. Recently, another female Chinese teacher from Beiyi criticized the current "108 Curriculum" for deleting classical Chinese as a "shameless curriculum". This issue has once again become the focus of public opinion . So why should high school students learn classical Chinese? Isn’t it okay if you don’t learn? Today, let us talk about the "Classical Chinese Rebellion"! Hiho~ Hello everyone, I am Zhiqi! Recently, a female Chinese teacher from Beiyi criticized the deletion of classical Chinese classics such as Gu Yanwu's "Integrity" from the "recommended selections" of the 108 curriculum as a "shameless curriculum" that will lead to low students' Chinese history and moral literacy. Related news After being published in the newspaper, it caused a lot of discussion in the community. Some supported her argument and believed that classical Chinese is the essence of Chinese and should not be deleted . Others objected that modern people use "vernacular" to teach too much classical Chinese and it is meaningless for students . In fact, high school Chinese courses This is not the first time that debate has arisen over how much classical Chinese should be taught. As early as 20 years ago, when the government lowered the proportion of classical Chinese in the curriculum, writers such as Yu Guangzhong protested that this would worsen students' Chinese proficiency . In the past few years, writers from another school such as Chen Fangming came forward to call on the government to "significantly reduce the proportion of classical Chinese" to make Chinese education more relevant to local people and contemporary life . Today we will talk about why high school students should learn "classical Chinese"? Wouldn't it be better to study less? So what do the high school teachers and students on the front line think? But before we start today’s discussion, let’s go into some business service time! [What exactly is "classical Chinese"? 】 Before getting into the topic, we must first define what classical Chinese is. According to the definition of the Ministry of Education dictionary, the so-called classical Chinese refers to "a polished, relatively streamlined style" and is also relative to the existence of vernacular and linguistic styles. The vernacular here refers to " Spoken language is "written language evolved from spoken language", but usually these two styles are collectively referred to as "vernacular literature". For the convenience of description, we will also refer to vernacular literature as a general term . To put it simply, as long as it is not our habit of speaking and writing This kind of vernacular Chinese can be regarded as classical Chinese in a broad sense . However, when it comes to the definition of "classical Chinese" in high school Chinese language classes, it is narrower and more controversial. Based on past textbook classifications and the common understanding of Chinese teachers, Zhilai said that the "classical Chinese" he studied in high school usually has the concept of "era", which refers to "ancient written language" such as Tang and Song poetry, the Four Books and the Five Classics, etc. On the other hand, if it is "ancient vernacular works" such as Lao Can's Travels Or modern poems such as Zheng Chouyu's "Mistake" are usually not considered "classical Chinese" . In the past, these "classical Chinese", mainly ancient Chinese classics, have always been the focus of Chinese language courses in Taiwanese high schools and a topic of endless debate among people from all walks of life. [The noisy "proportion of classical Chinese texts in high schools"] Starting from about 1945, for half a century, up to 70% of the selected texts in high school Chinese textbooks were classical Chinese texts . However, around the time the martial law was lifted, critical voices began to appear in society . People in the literary and educational circles believe that the government was trying to instill "the spirit of the Chinese nation" in education for political purposes such as "de-Japanization, anti-communism and anti-Russia", which resulted in Chinese textbooks being filled with Chinese classical texts that were "out of touch with Taiwan's local and contemporary environment". After the first change of political parties, the Chen Shui-bian government also reduced the proportion of classical Chinese in the curriculum to 45%. However, this caused a backlash from writers such as Yu Guangzhong, Zhang Xiaofeng, etc., criticizing this as "de-Sinicization" and that politics trumped education. Ma Ying-jeou The government decided to adopt the approach of "reserving flexibility for publishers" and changed the proportion of classical Chinese articles to "45 to 65%" and the recommended selection of classical Chinese articles was deleted from 40 to 30 articles . However, the Tsai Ing-wen government is ready to promote " During the 12-Year National Education Period, writers from another school, such as Chen Fangming and Xiang Yang, came out and called for the new curriculum to "significantly reduce the proportion of classical Chinese" and emphasized that Chinese language teaching should start from "the experience of the land where we live." Later, the "12-Year National Education" was launched. The "Course Outline" , also commonly known as the "108 Curriculum", indeed reduced the proportion of classical Chinese articles to "35 to 45%" and the recommended selection of articles was reduced to 15. This change once again aroused a debate, including Beiyi Women's The recent controversy caused by teachers is also part of it. So what are the arguments of each party in these debates ? [Public Opinion: Can learning "Classical Chinese" cultivate literary literacy? 】 The main argument that "high school Chinese language classes should teach more classical Chinese" is that education should be "progressive." They pointed out that education in junior high schools and primary schools is mainly based on vernacular Chinese, and Chinese is the mother tongue of most people, so Chinese When you graduate from middle school, your basic Chinese language skills are almost ready. Then, when you reach high school, you should start to develop "advanced skills" or "literary literacy." This way you will have a certain foundation in academic writing after you go to college. They also said that there are three main reasons why the study of classical Chinese is important in training "literary literacy" and cannot be replaced by vernacular Chinese. First, they believe that classical Chinese classics have been written for a long time and have passed the test of time to prove that they have certain literary value , while vernacular Chinese Most of them are modern articles that are prone to controversy in the selection of texts . The second reason is that language reflects history and culture, so only by studying classical Chinese can you understand the foundation of Chinese. Just like Latin is taught in high schools in many European and American countries, if classical Chinese is not learned well in vernacular, Writing and reading skills will also be unable to be improved, such as not understanding allusions, quoting wrong idioms, etc. Many times are related to the foundation of classical Chinese. Finally, it is because classical Chinese is a more accurate, refined, and rigorous style than vernacular Chinese and is more suitable for training. Literary literacy includes appreciation of article structure, mastery of language density and accuracy, etc. In other words, the purpose of learning classical Chinese is to improve students’ sophistication in “vernacular writing.” In fact, many opposing views agree with the value of these classical Chinese texts. But they feel that such advanced literary literacy training may be too early for high school students [Public Opinion: Let’s get good at vernacular literature first? ] Many people who believe that the proportion of classical Chinese teaching should be "reduce" emphasize that they do not want to deny the learning value of classical Chinese , but they believe that "basic Chinese skills" should be really developed in high school . To achieve this goal, learning classical Chinese is not very effective . The reason why vernacular Chinese is more important is because they believe that classical Chinese is a more advanced style, has a certain writing and reading threshold, and is generally older, so it is out of touch with people's "daily life" and its application value is not high. If you force it Students reading a lot of classical Chinese will probably only reduce students' interest and compromise their learning effectiveness. Some scholars believe that in recent years, many university departments have decided not to include Chinese language in the admission standards , which shows that the Chinese language education in high schools is too imbalanced. Focusing on classical Chinese cannot truly reflect students' language ability . In addition, some Chinese educators believe that if students are to write concise and rigorous vernacular texts , they should just choose concise and rigorous vernacular text models for teaching. There is no need to read classical Chinese in a big way , but they also emphasize that this does not mean that classical Chinese should be "not taught at all" but that it is enough to allow students to understand the connection between classical Chinese and contemporary culture and arouse the interest of potential fans at the high school level. Really in-depth teaching should be placed in higher education for enthusiastic students to study on their own . However, most of these positive and negative opinions are not voices "from the teaching scene." So what do teachers and students who actually attend classes in high schools think? ? [Teacher’s opinion: The problem is that it is not easy to implement? 】 Before the launch of the 108 curriculum, teachers generally opposed the deletion of classical Chinese. A survey by the Chinese Language Subject Center showed that more than 80% of high school Chinese teachers believed that "the proportion of classical Chinese" should be more than half. After the curriculum was launched, according to the National Teachers Union In this year's survey, 60% of high school vocational teachers agreed with the direction of the curriculum. However, more than half of the teachers believed that the "overall planning" of the curriculum was unreasonable and failed to change the "enthusiasm for academic advancement" and resulted in "overburden for teachers and students." " However, this survey is for high school vocational teachers of "all subjects" , and currently we have not found a survey specifically for "Chinese Language Subjects". Therefore, it is difficult to judge what most Chinese language teachers think after the curriculum is launched. However , in the near future During the discussion, some Chinese teachers raised similar views to this survey result. These teachers said that they were not completely opposed to "reducing classical Chinese" and they were sure that the addition of new vernacular works could reflect contemporary thoughts. However, the problem was that the overall planning of the new curriculum was not reasonable enough. First of all, the improvement caused them to encounter difficulties in the teaching field . The academic test questions were still mostly based on classical Chinese when the trend of entering higher education was still prevalent. This caused them to be in a dilemma in teaching , not knowing whether to teach according to the textbook or to help students prepare for the exam and to teach more classical Chinese. Secondly, the new curriculum has reduced the number of basic teaching hours, so they are in a hurry just to explain classical Chinese, and it is even harder to find time to guide students to discuss and apply classical Chinese knowledge . Finally, the arrangement of the textbooks for the classical Chinese part has become very fragmented. It is difficult to structure the development of Chinese, and it is even more difficult for students to understand the significance of learning classical Chinese. In addition to teachers, the real impact of adjusting the curriculum is students. There are also huge differences in the views of students on whether to reduce the number of classical Chinese [students’ opinions] : Do you have a high degree of recognition of the new curriculum? 】 In the investigation before the 108 curriculum was launched, we have only found one paper that interviewed 41 high school students. Most of these students believed that the main reasons for not deleting classical Chinese include that they are used to it, learning classical Chinese can improve Chinese , and they should learn more in high school. It’s better to read difficult classical Chinese texts and simple vernacular texts by yourself . At that time, there were actually quite a lot of voices among students demanding that classical Chinese texts be deleted. Literary clubs in schools such as Kaohsiung High School and Hsinchu High School once collectively issued an open letter expressing their hope that the proportion of classical Chinese texts could be reduced. They said that the proportion of classical Chinese has been too high for a long time, seriously crowding out other literary forms. Class time is still spent explaining the meaning of words , and many ideas in ancient Chinese are far from modern values and far away from Taiwanese students . As a result, Chinese classes have become just a necessity in the minds of students. A subject that requires constant memorization of notes by dictation . The EdYouth platform, founded by the first class of students after the 108 curriculum was launched, conducted a survey and collected questionnaire responses from more than 500 students across Taiwan . The results showed that "selection of articles or materials" in the Chinese liberal arts department " More than 60% of the students chose "agree and strongly agree" on the " textbook layout" and "overall subject arrangement". After the "shameless curriculum" incident broke out, EdYouth also stated that these criticisms of the curriculum were not in line with the majority. The feelings of front-line students believe that deleting ancient texts may not necessarily affect students' moral development, but most students do think that the 108 curriculum has flaws , but these flaws are not the same as those criticized by public opinion [Students' views: What's wrong with the new curriculum? 】 In the EdYouth survey report, students pointed out many problems with the new Chinese curriculum in the free feedback section . First of all, the most common criticism from students about the 108 curriculum is that the gap between the textbook and the test content is too large. Most students mentioned The academic test did not adjust the classical Chinese exam questions along with the curriculum. Therefore, although there are only 15 classical Chinese essays in the main text of the textbook , the other deleted works were actually included in the so-called "A-level selected essays." They are included in supplementary textbooks and will also appear in academic test questions . In this case, students will have to spend extra time to buy textbooks and tutor to supplement classical Chinese knowledge. Many teachers will also use quizzes, homework, etc. to let students read these A. Level-level text selections or even skipping vernacular texts and spending time on A-level text selections. The report concluded that in this way, Chinese language education in high schools is not only unable to "really break away from the shackles of classical Chinese" and the textbooks that should be the main teaching materials are "reduced to "Weak ribs" make students feel that they are being played with and feel at a loss. At the same time, this situation will also make students need to rely more on "extracurricular tutoring and reading." As a result, students with more resources are more likely to get high scores in college entrance exams , which is a disguised form of deepening the gap between urban and rural areas. Gap in cultural capital In addition, some students mentioned that the quality of text selection and arrangement in the textbooks needs to be improved. In the classical Chinese section, in addition to reducing ancient Chinese texts, some ancient Taiwanese works have also been added. However, they believe that these new selections are generally better than those that have been deleted. Several students specifically pointed out that the exposition of "On Persuading Peace" was flawed and emphasized that if the selected text was to be replaced, it should be replaced by a work of equal value to the old selected text. As for the vernacular text , there was a problem of confusing arrangement. Chinese classical Chinese literature has a strict temporal context [Our point of view] After seeing EdYouth’s report this time, our first thought is that today’s high school students are very strong! Not only do they have the ability to create a platform to conduct large-scale surveys , integrate data, and publish reports, but they also have the ability to think and discuss comments and feedback . Looking back on my high school days... I really feel that the feedback from these students is not as insightful as ours. It is also very important. After all, the main body of education is students , so in addition to expert opinions, we feel that these frontline voices should also receive more attention. From the opinions compiled by EdYouth, it seems that students think the biggest problem should be the gap between textbooks and exams. This also echoes the problems caused by the "enthusiastic culture" mentioned by teachers . In other words, "big test scores" are still a major learning motivation for students , and therefore will affect their expectations and opinions on textbook classroom teaching . Then we I feel that at this stage , it may still be difficult to completely eliminate the academic system . At least when adjusting the syllabus, the test questions should also be adjusted. This does not just refer to the proportion of classical Chinese. Perhaps in the design of test questions, we can also try to include classical Chinese. If it is more integrated with contemporary culture and daily life, students should have more opportunities even for exams. Let’s increase our ability to utilize Chinese knowledge and make Chinese education more practical! Finally, I want to ask everyone, did you like reading classical Chinese when you were taking Chinese classes in high school ? Finally, if you like today's video, please share it to let more people know about "High School Classical Chinese Controversy"! In addition, you can also click here to read "Why do you need to memorize notes in Chinese language classes" and "Why do college students need to take Chinese language courses?" So, today's Zhiqi Qiqi comes to an end here . See you tomorrow night!
