Chinese teaching is divorced from reality and rote learning. What harm will it bring?

In the past two years, especially since teacher Lv Shuxiang put forward the problems in Chinese teaching in March 1978, Chinese teaching has been highly valued by all walks of life, of course, Chinese educators are the first. Since then, there have been extensive and heated discussions on all aspects of Chinese teaching. It can be said that the discussion involves almost all aspects of Chinese teaching, from the purpose and task of teaching to teaching materials and teaching methods, and so on. There are different views on some issues, most of which have been exchanged, discussed and even debated. After this extensive and in-depth discussion, many achievements have been made. Some problems are clear; Although some problems are not clear enough, they are still clear. Many places, schools and teachers have carried out various experiments and investigations, which have played a very good role in improving Chinese teaching.

Now, to further explore and study the improvement of Chinese teaching, it seems that we should take a step forward and improve on the basis of previous achievements. I don't have a mature opinion on how to advance and improve, but I just think of a few questions that I want to discuss with you and ask for advice.

First, about the past, present and future.

To move forward, we must look back and learn from the past in order to move forward better. When I say the past, I mean the recent past, that is, 30 years after the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC); It also refers to the relatively long past, that is, from the abolition of the imperial examination and the establishment of schools in the late Qing Dynasty to the period before liberation; It also refers to the more distant past, that is, the feudal society of two thousand years.

In my opinion, looking back, it is very important to make a realistic analysis. Think that everything in the past is good and flawless, and can be used as it is; Or think that everything in the past is very bad and useless, both of which are inappropriate. We have learned this lesson in the past, and we all know that we have suffered. I don't need to say more. However, is it enough to look back on the past and seek truth from facts now, and is it enough to analyze boron research in depth? I'm afraid not.

For example, speaking of the recent past, 30 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Is it that in the past 30 years, our Chinese teaching has achieved nothing and we have no experience to learn? To improve efficiency and be scientific today, should we "start from scratch" or "build a platform from scratch" I don't think so. In the past 30 years, we have made a lot of achievements and accumulated a lot of experience. Without the interference and sabotage of the Gang of Four, our achievements would be much greater and our experience would be much richer.

Let's give a few examples. Like the literacy problem in primary schools, this is a problem that has been tried to solve since 2000 but has not been solved well. Because Chinese characters are not pinyin characters, they need to be learned one by one, with complicated strokes and difficult word formation, so it is very difficult for children to learn at first, and Chinese characters have become an obstacle to further learning Chinese. The predecessors have taken some measures and accumulated some experience on this issue, but they have never fundamentally solved the problem. In the past 30 years, we have at least three experiences on this issue. One is the so-called centralized literacy method, which allows primary school students to know more words in a relatively short period of time at the beginning of primary school, so as to further develop speaking, reading and writing training. The present centralized literacy method is very different from the "three books, one hundred books and one thousand books" centralized literacy method in history. It makes use of historical experience, according to some laws of Chinese characters and learning, to make centralized literacy more scientific, rather than unscientific like "three, one hundred and one thousand". Another kind of experience is called decentralized literacy, which is also different from decentralized literacy after the establishment of the school in the late Qing Dynasty. It is manifested in the so-called decentralized literacy in a planned and step-by-step manner, rather than completely laissez-faire decentralized literacy. The third experience is called the combination of centralization and decentralization, or small centralization, trying to combine the advantages of centralized literacy and decentralized literacy. Literacy is not a small problem. These experiences are very important and are achievements that cannot be ignored in the past 30 years. Although these experiences are not perfect, further experimental research is needed. On this issue, I personally have another idea, which I have said on many occasions, and many comrades agree or echo; However, this is still an idea after all. No field test anywhere can be said to be an experience, so I won't say it here.

For another example, we now unanimously realize that it is impossible to ignore language education in Chinese teaching, and it is unrealistic and incomplete to completely ignore other tasks that Chinese teaching should and can undertake. Although how to combine language education with other aspects of education remains to be explored and studied, at least our understanding is the same. It is not a simple matter to establish such an understanding, which should be regarded as valuable experience gained after many twists and turns on this issue in the past 30 years.

For another example, we carried out a substantial experiment of Chinese teaching reform-Chinese and literature division. Although the practice itself has shortcomings, and it is difficult to make a comprehensive summary today because of the short trial period, it still plays a role in our teaching today in some aspects. Many people regard the practice of dividing subjects as a reference for studying Chinese teaching and textbook reform in the future. This is also a great event in Chinese teaching in middle schools in the past 30 years.

Broadly speaking, although it is not entirely a problem of Chinese teaching, it is closely related to Chinese teaching, that is, the promotion of Putonghua. Many far-sighted workers and educators in China began to launch the so-called Putonghua Movement around the May 4th Movement, but after more than 30 years, little effect was achieved. However, we put forward the idea of popularizing Putonghua from the 1950s, and soon achieved remarkable results. Of course, the situation is not satisfactory, because there was a period of relaxation, especially the interference of the Gang of Four. However, Putonghua has been accepted as homophonic by the whole people in China, and it is quite popular in society. It has become one of the teaching contents and requirements in Chinese teaching and has played a great role in social life. This is unprecedented in history. At this point, we can almost say that we are ahead of the advanced countries in the modern world. Due to the development of modern science and technology, many countries didn't pay attention to the so-called standard language until the 1960s, but our country with a large population and very complicated dialects started this work in the 1950s and made great achievements.

In addition, all brothers in our country not only learn their own language and writing, but also learn the spoken and written Mandarin, which is an unprecedented event in history. This is of great significance to the great unity of all ethnic groups in the country and to our socialist revolution and socialist construction. On this issue, the Gang of Four did serious damage. However, even so, China's national language teaching has surpassed the development of any period in history, and the extensive exchange of national languages has shown a picture of national unity, which is still a great achievement in the past 30 years. The foundation of this work exists. Last year, the National Chinese Teaching and Research Association was established in universities for nationalities. At present, many ethnic areas have carried out research and taken measures to strengthen their own Chinese teaching and Chinese teaching, and some areas have also published publications. This work is booming.

You can give a few examples. From these points, we should see that in the past 30 years, under the leadership of the Party and with the joint efforts of Chinese language workers and Chinese educators all over the country, Chinese teaching has made great achievements. It is wrong not to see this.

On the other hand, in the past 30 years, there have been some lessons worth remembering in Chinese teaching. For example, in many cases, our ideological and political education in Chinese teaching is inappropriate both in theory and in practice. I always believe that Chinese teaching can and should attach importance to ideological education. The problems are: what is ideological education, what ideological education should and can be carried out in Chinese teaching, how to carry out this education, and how to correctly combine it with the unshirkable responsibility that Chinese teaching must accomplish-cultivating and improving students' Chinese ability. These problems must be handled well, and they have not been handled well for quite a few times in the past 30 years.

For another example, Chinese teaching, like other subjects, involves political and policy issues and is more academic. In the past, political issues, policy issues and academic issues were not correctly distinguished, and some thoughts and practices belonging to academic issues were often treated as political issues: sometimes it affected the experimental work of Chinese teaching, and sometimes it even hurt people and dampened the enthusiasm of many people.

For another example, Chinese teaching, like other subjects, needs constant research, experiment and improvement. However, there are not many experimental practices in Chinese teaching, almost all of which have only been carried out for a short time, and they have been abolished without gaining experience and drawing conclusions. This makes it difficult for us to sum up past experiences and lessons today.

If we say that in the farther or farther past, predecessors did a lot of work and gained a lot of valuable experience, but because it was an old time, those experiences undoubtedly had more or less limitations. It is a pity to correctly analyze those experiences and lessons, and it is necessary to study them in depth. A few years ago, there seems to be a new trend in the last two years-it seems that all the practices in the past, including rote learning, are good, and today the problems can be solved by using them as they are. This attitude is as undesirable as historical nihilism, that is, denying all experiences in history. This point will be mentioned below, and I will briefly mention it here.

To study further improvement, of course, we can't just look back at the past, but it is very important to base ourselves on the present, including the reality of our economic development, the reality of scientific and technological development, the reality of teaching materials, the reality of teachers' level, the reality of students' level and so on. Without these realities or a vague understanding of them, it is impossible to find an effective way to improve them. Leaving the historical development and current reality, putting forward some ideas may be well-intentioned and reasonable, but it often becomes or approaches a beautiful "fantasy". To fully grasp the reality, it is necessary to carry out serious investigation and study.

It is not enough for those who do educational work to base themselves on the present. It is very important not to focus on the future. Education work is not like planting crops, it can be planted in spring and harvested in autumn, and it will be effective that year. Education is to train talents for the future. Today, it has entered the world of the electronic age, and its development and changes are faster than at any time in history. In ancient times, only a little progress was made in tens of thousands and thousands of years. Later, that little progress took hundreds of years, at least decades. It's very different now. We have an old idiom called "changing with each passing day". This idiom originally had the meaning of exaggeration in rhetoric. Today, if it is exaggerated, it has at least been reduced a lot. For example, not long ago, could we imagine color TV sets? Can we imagine that people can talk to machines? A safe, without a key, will open as long as I say "open" to it; I said "off" and it turned off. However, it only listens to me, but it doesn't listen when you say it. I speak here, thousands of miles away, not only to hear, but also to publish and print. Could we have imagined it a few years ago? These, because we are backward in science and technology at present, may sound like science fiction, but this is not a novel, this is reality. When we do educational work, we can't help thinking that it will take at least three to five years, or eight years or even ten or twenty years after 10 for students who are still sitting in our classroom today to play a role in society. What kind of society, world and technological situation will they face? What will be required of us in terms of language? What kind of language ability should you have to meet the needs of life and work at that time? Of course, existence determines consciousness, and living in today's reality, it is impossible to accurately imagine the distant future. However, three years and five years, eight years after 10, we are not unimaginable. Don't even think about it, it will be very sad and I will be sorry for the next generation. People who do educational work, whether making plans, compiling teaching materials or doing teaching work, can't leave a "future" in their minds. If the eyes only see the present, only see our surroundings-short time and narrow world, that is not enough.

My superficial understanding is that to further improve Chinese teaching, we should correctly review the past, base ourselves on the present and focus on the future.

Second, about knowledge and skills.

Cultivating Chinese skills, that is, listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, is not just teaching students some Chinese knowledge. Knowledge is not equal to skill. I think this understanding is correct. As everyone knows, I won't say more.

So, is there a relationship between skills and knowledge? The answer is yes. Mastering some knowledge, as long as we properly handle the quantity, depth and opportunity of providing this knowledge, is of great benefit to cultivating skills and accelerating the cultivation of skills.

Furthermore, the relationship between knowledge and skills is not so simple. Once some knowledge is known, it can be immediately or quickly transformed into skills and used; Some knowledge is not so fast and needs to interact with other related knowledge (for example, numbers can be divided into rational numbers and irrational numbers, animals and plants can be divided into cadres, families, classes, orders, families, genera and species, and words can be divided into verbs, nouns and other categories; Use the same standard in the same classification; There are obvious differences between this category and that category, and there are also some overlapping situations; After each classification, it can be further divided, thus forming many different levels of classes and so on. These knowledge about classification will interact in learners' minds, and each knowledge will become clearer, more vivid and more useful), and interact with related practices, which will take quite a while to gradually transform into skills, from unskilled to more skilled, and then to very skilled; Some knowledge can't even be directly related to skills for a long time. Knowledge is knowledge. However, this kind of knowledge is necessary, and whether or not this kind of knowledge has a great influence on people's thinking. I have given examples elsewhere, so I might as well repeat them here. Copernicus pointed out that the earth goes around the sun, not the sun goes around the earth. Isn't this just a kind of knowledge at that time? What skills can you associate? However, for the establishment of this knowledge, the scientists who insisted on the truth at that time gave their lives; At that time, the church burned people to kill this knowledge. This fact itself tells us the importance of knowledge, otherwise, why should we fight so cruelly for such a kind of knowledge? Whether a person believes in this kind of knowledge shows the contrast between scientific factors and superstitious factors in his mind in quantity and intensity. As far as two people are concerned, whether they believe this knowledge or not shows that the heads of these two people are centuries apart. Can you say such knowledge is useless? Therefore, it is one-sided to simply ask to learn some knowledge and immediately turn it into skills, otherwise knowledge will not be needed. Now, as far as I know, it seems that the trend of denying China's knowledge, unilaterally emphasizing skills, and separating knowledge and skills or even opposing them has become popular again. Today, many people still invite Cao Xueqin, saying that Cao Xueqin has not studied grammar, rhetoric and logic, and can write novels with good content and good language, thus denying the necessity of language knowledge.

This is really no longer convincing. Because, according to this reasoning, according to the exquisite buildings built by our ancient craftsmen, and according to the fact that graduates of the civil engineering department of the university may not be able to design Zhao Zhouqiao or Tiger Hill, we can draw the conclusion that modern architecture should be abolished; According to the fact that Li Shizhen wrote Compendium of Materia Medica, graduates of pharmacy department of medical college may not be able to write a China Pharmacopoeia, it can be concluded that pharmacy department of medical college should be abolished today, and pharmacology should be abolished. Is this logical reasoning acceptable to everyone? Ignoring the amazing achievements made by our ancestors with the experience accumulated by their hard practice and thinking that we are inferior to others everywhere and others are superior to us in everything is to forget our ancestors and give up on ourselves. However, it is obviously wrong to eat these old books of our ancestors and ask them to come out and deny the necessity of modern science. It is one-sided to despise or even deny China's knowledge. The reason for this understanding may be that our language science is still immature and incomplete, which has failed to solve the problems in practical application, thus resulting in an idea close to "giving up eating because of choking"; Perhaps it is a deep habit that cannot be reversed for a while; Maybe it's thoughtless. If this is not the case, then what kind of mentality this reflects will be seriously considered.

What knowledge should be taught at which teaching stage and how? We haven't studied these problems enough and are still unclear. It should be noted that this is also a reason why Chinese teaching can't be improved faster, modernized and scientific. We should try our best to do this and deal with the relationship between knowledge and skills, which is one of the important topics to study and improve Chinese teaching.

Third, about theory and practice.

Theory should be combined with practice. It is not advisable for theory to be divorced from practice, or to practice blindly without theoretical guidance. In retrospect, there have been times when we divorced from practice for the sake of theory. It should be quoted as Yin Jian, and it will never be repeated. And ignore the theory, especially in Chinese teaching, that there is no theory in learning and teaching Chinese, just saying, just reading, just writing. I'm afraid it's more this time. As we all know, in recent twenty or thirty years, several influential teaching theories have appeared in many countries in the world, and they have been proved to be quite effective by practice. As we all know, the so-called "applied linguistics" is a new and highly respected "marginal science" in many countries in the world, and an important part of applied linguistics is the study of language education. Teaching theory and applied linguistics are quite systematic, and there are some new contents, which are almost blank here. Even Bruner, Piaget, zankov and other names. It has been unknown to most of us for a long time, and people's research and experiments have been going on for quite a long time. Up to today, if there are several theoretical and principled experiences or practices in Chinese teaching, how many can we cite? We should invite our ancestors to come: "Reading a book a hundred times (or a thousand times) will make you understand yourself", "Reading thousands of books makes you write like a god", "There are three things in writing", "Mastering reading", "Never leaving your fist, never leaving your mouth", "Reading more and writing more" and so on. Besides the theories left by our ancestors, how many new theories can we come up with ourselves? These articles are valuable experiences left by predecessors, and practice has proved that these articles are really effective. However, is it enough to put forward these projects today to meet the requirements of the four modernizations for our teaching work? Do we primary and secondary school students have so much time to read an article a hundred times or a thousand times? Our students also want to "break thousands of books" in reading, but they are just eight masters in Tang and Song Dynasties, just Yuan Qu in Tang and Song Dynasties? No, they have more books to read and more things to do. "Monks push the moon down the door", "Monks knock on the moon down the door"; Riding on the back of a donkey, remembering a poem, writing it down quickly and putting it in your pocket, etc. are all good materials as anecdotes to encourage students to think hard. But we should do today's Chinese teaching on the basis of these, so that it can catch up with the urgent requirements of the four modernizations at a fast speed, ok? Not enough. Our task should be to fully understand the present situation, properly analyze and study the past, objectively and realistically analyze and judge other people's experiences and practices, form a set or more theories suitable for Chinese and China students to learn their own languages through discussion, research and experiments, and test these theories with practice to find out the most suitable and effective methods for China.

Fourth, about intellectual development and academic performance.

There used to be a saying: "points, points and points are the lifeblood of students." This is a joke. It's ironic. Unfortunately, today, the actual situation is worse than that joke. In fact, scores are not enough to reflect students' academic performance in some cases, and more importantly, scores are not enough to reflect a student's intelligence level in many cases. I take singing and singing as an example. Two people sing a song separately. Generally speaking, A sounds good, and B is not as good as A. However, experts sometimes think that B has a bright future, while A has a limited future. The same is true of singing opera. What is the reason? That is, although B didn't perform well in this concert, or reflected his lack of training, he has the quality and ability in this field and has great potential for progress. And A just imitates other people's singing methods and sings rigidly. He can't use his intelligence to develop his singing ability. We are always satisfied that students can cope with my problems and recite what I have taught him. If he fails, he will fail. I have no intention of denying the role of tests and examinations, and I will never completely deny that scores reflect students' academic performance and intelligence to a certain extent. But if we only pay attention to grades, I am afraid it is not enough in teaching. In Chinese teaching, this problem is quite prominent. Two students also wrote other words and deducted the same score. In fact, the essence reflected by this other word is not exactly the same. Two students mispronounced the same word, which reflected different essence. A student knows that words prefixed with grass are all related to flowers and plants, words next to words with wood are all related to trees, and words next to words with food are all related to agriculture or crops. Based on this knowledge, he infers the meanings of some words, which are sometimes wrong; Another student can't use this knowledge to infer new words at all, or just make mistakes in writing and reading because he can't remember how the teacher taught him. Is there no difference in intelligence between the two children? As long as you write or read the same typo, will you be deducted the same score? We often say that composition is not easy to grade. Why is it not easy to grade? The reason is that the judges have different likes and dislikes and different standard requirements. But this standard does not include looking at a student's intelligence from the composition, that is, looking at his mind. If you add this factor and take it as an important factor to minimize personal likes and dislikes, it should not be so difficult to grade the composition. I gave an example in one place: Kong Rong went to see one of his elders when he was young, and an old man was present. After a few words, the elders he visited praised him for being good at answering questions and speaking in an orderly way. Another old man said, "It's hours, but it's not necessarily good." Kong Rong immediately replied: "If you want to work, you have to do it." This, of course, is just a legend, and it may be mixed with boasting about Kong Rong's cleverness. Don't consider it from other angles first, just from the angle of intelligence. When Kong Rong was a child, he was quick-witted, and he would use the logical debate method of "spear belt, shield belt attack". He has a high intelligence. If the person who wrote this story is bragging about Kong Rong, then this person knows something. We really need to get some inspiration from such stories: what to cultivate children, what to encourage children, and what to ask children. If a person's ideological quality, knowledge and ability, family, society, life experience and other aspects have many factors affecting this point, so his life has also changed a lot, then, as far as intellectual development is concerned, childhood and primary education play a much greater role. If a child's mind is filled in a rigid way from an early age, he is only required to remember something, and his naive but energetic thinking ability and imagination ability are not allowed to be fully developed. This is a kind of harm to his mind from an early age, just like keeping a bird in a cage, not letting it fly, and only feeding it good food. After such a period of time, its muscles will shrink. How teenagers and young people teach, how to ask, how to take exams and how to take exams is a question asked by universities. It is short-sighted, which is extremely unfavorable to the future of education and the growth of the next generation. It is only for the sake of getting good grades, promotion and further education, and it does not pay attention to cultivating and developing one's own intelligence. This problem needs to be carefully studied in Chinese teaching.

The four points mentioned above are interrelated, which roughly means that on the basis of what we have today, we should study the improvement of Chinese teaching more and more deeply. Those old questions that have been told over and over again for many times, such as "the relationship between literature and Taoism" and "practicing more", do not mean that we don't need to continue to consider and discuss, but that at that level, it is not enough for you to say what you say and what I say. What I said is only inspired by my own listening to many comrades' speeches and watching many teachers' teaching. I just asked as a question. If there are still a few questions worth considering, the answer is up to you. Ask these questions, on the one hand, for reference when further studying Chinese teaching, and on the other hand, ask comrades who care about Chinese teaching.