The Curriculum Provision And Implementation For Musical(Undergraduates) In China’s Higher Education Institutions

In1980s, some opera troupes in China started to compose and rehearse musicals, which received wide popularity in the society, the Central Academy of Drama set up China’s first class majoring in musical in1995. In the same year, Beijing Dance Academy set up China’s first BA program in musical. In2002, Beijing Dance Academy and Shanghai Conservatory of Music founded their departments of musical successively; and in2007, the Specialized Teaching Academy of China Society for Musical Studies was inaugurated, providing a good opportunity for improving the discipline construction of musical, enlivening the communication and cooperation in musical teaching and practice at home and abroad, and optimizing studies in musical theories. In the next decade, courses relevant to musical started to boom in the undergraduate program of Chinese higher education institutions. Data show that over20higher education institutions in China have musical department or direction targeted at undergraduates and most of them are self-governed art colleges or art schools in universities.Despite China’s booming musical education, problems still surfaced in the last two decades, including the lack of studies in basic musical theories; the discordance between previous art education mode for undergraduates and the actual demands for musical education; the quality deviation in musical education; and higher education institutions’ ignorance of talent cultivation in musical creation, directing, stage and theatrical design, market operation&development. These problems led to many worrisome facts in education, like the gradual deviation of talent cultivation from the actual demands in China’s musical market. For a long time, researchers in musical education industry did not pay much attention to basic theories in courses designed for musical talents, leading to inadvertent ignorance of the global picture of China’s musical industry and the actual market demand as well as the lack of basic theories in musical education as the support and guide. Therefore, the curriculum provision and implementation for musical undergraduates are the top priorities if we want to effectively improve the cultivation quality of musical talents and develop proper curriculum that can reflect the development trend of musical in China.By combining field study and theoretical arguments, this thesis presents a clear picture of the overall landscape as well as the achievements and demerits of the curriculum provision and implementation for undergraduates majoring in musical during the past two decades. Based on these comprehensive, in-depth, and systematic analyses and studies, this thesis proposes a practical and maneuverable design scheme for musical talent cultivation, which is compatible with current development demands of musical and its teaching. The thesis mainly consists of the following seven parts.The Introduction part basically sketches the outlines of the thesis, including study origin, significance, and key words; literature review on relevant previous study results; the selection of proper methodology in terms of the study content and thought of line as well as prediction on the innovative points of this thesis.Chapter One systematically summarizes the development history of the curriculum provision for musical undergraduates in higher education institutions and presents a panoramic picture of it, including its birth, development history and China’s musical mode; the development and evolution of musical talent cultivation in China’s higher education institutions as well as the course system construction.As the empirical study part of this thesis, Chapter Two investigates the status quo of the curriculum for musical undergraduates and analyzes its features. During May2013-June2014, the writer carried out research and empirical study in Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Beijing Dance Academy, Central Academy of Drama, and Sichuan Normal University. By interviewing teachers and students there, observing some classes as well as collecting the syllabus, training programs, and curriculum schedules, the writer explored the status quo of musical talent cultivation in China’s higher education institutions in terms of course objective, curriculum provision, curriculum implementation, and course assessment, and also summarized the features of the cultivation program of musical talent in different types of higher education institutions.Chapter Three carries out reflections on the curriculum provision and implementation for musical talent cultivation in China’s higher education institutions. Based on the survey and feature analysis in Chapter Two, this part summarizes the major problems in the curriculum provision and implementation for musical undergraduates, attempts to present a detailed exploration and analysis of the cause of these problems, and expects to find out proper optimizing strategies and implementation channels to solve these problems.Chapter Four discusses the detailed optimization scheme for the curriculum provision for musical undergraduates. First, it discusses the basic principles in the curriculum provision for musical talents theoretically, and then specifies the objective and requirements of each course in the overall curriculum provision, their position and property in the course structure, the regulation of course content, and the arrangement of class hours and credits in order to construct an ideal talent cultivation mode that has overall course values and functions.Chapter Five is devoted to the reflection and planning of curriculum implementation&supporting strategies for musical undergraduates. In addition, it also proposes a series of reference measures to improve the curriculum implementation for musical talents from the following four aspects:making innovations and improving course assessment, exploring and integrating course resources, regulating and perfecting curriculum system, building and optimizing teaching staff, and ensuring investment and material input.The conclusion part summarizes the whole thesis, extracts the study basis, study focus, study process, study values of the curriculum provision and implementation for musical undergraduates in China’s higher education institutions, and proposes expectations for further studies.