A Comparative Study Of English Curriculum Standards In China And Standards For Foreign Language Learning In America

Since the 21^st century, in order to meet the requirement of times development, countries all over the world are engaged in the nation-wide educational reform, especially the pilot basic education, the core among which is the curriculum reform. With the development of international situation and new demands for talents, foreign language curriculum reform has become a key topic. Countries like America, Britain, Germany, France and Australia reformed a lot on the rationale, content, implementation of curriculum and the curriculum assessment so as to improve students' competency of using language flexibly and actively (Gao Yongting, 2003).In the worldwide new trend of foreign language educational reform, facing opportunities and challenges of the new century, China as a big developing country, while America as a super power in the world, both accelerate their reform in foreign language education. English Curriculum Standards for Nine-Year Compulsory Education on Full-Time Junior Secondary Schools (English Curriculum Standards in China or ECSC for short) was proclaimed in July 2001 by China's Ministry of Education. English Curriculum Standards in China reflects the tendency of foreign language education and reforms in fields of teaching rationale, curriculum goal, content, strategy, measure and assessment by absorbing new achievements of foreign language education research over recent years. At the same time, America also carried out the educational reform characterized as standards movement or standard-based reform. In 1993, a coalition of four national language organizations (the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, the American Association of Teachers of French, the American Association of Teachers of German, and the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese) received funding to develop standards for foreign language education, grades K-12. With the wide investigation made by experts and the guide of up-to-date linguistics and teaching theories, it was three years later that a collaborative effort brought the nation the principle documents: Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21st Century, and it was emended in 1999. In 2006, the third version was issued; meanwhile it was renamed as Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century {Standards for Foreign Language Learning in America or SFLLA for short).Based on the careful learning on theoretical foundation, main content and characteristics of English Curriculum Standards in China and Standards for Foreign Language Learning in America, the research aims to integrate Chinese and American foreign language educational reform background, and to make a comparative study of similarities and differences between the two standards. Their similarities are as follows: "outline"; facing all students; communicative competence of foreign languages; multi-cultural awareness; Task-based Language Teaching; utilization of learning resources. Analyses of their differences are specified on these aspects: classifying mode of goals, requirements on content standards, implementation ways of curriculum standards, views on foreign language curriculum, regulations on value-orientation, and connotations of "humanism". Then it points out the advantage of English Curriculum Standards in China: paying attention to students' emotional needs. Disadvantages lie in: insufficient emphasis on the application of English outside class; little connection between English courses and other subjects; inadequate consideration of actual situation in different districts; lacking correspondence in different learning stages. Meanwhile, the thesis analyzed English Curriculum Standards in China from the view of practice as the extension of literature research. As a research member of the Project of National Elementary Education and Foreign Language Research (2006-2007) "A Comparison between the Curriculum Standards for English in Foreign Language Teaching in China and the Similar Documents at Home and Abroad" by the author's advisor, the author investigated the implementation condition on English Curriculum Standards in China with other members. The research chose Junior 2 (Grade 8) students in ten schools in Sichuan Province as investigation subjects by applying questionnaire approach and analyzed students' development situation and existing problems of their comprehensive language competence through the urban and rural comparison. The conclusion was: Only pay enough attention to English teaching in countryside can curriculum standards reform succeed. Lastly, some tentative suggestions were put forward for improving English Curriculum Standards in China. Through the research on theory and practice, with studying the successful teaching experience abroad on the account of China's national situation and features, the key of the reform lies in improving the teaching method and quality, perfecting the education system from the actual condition of English teaching in China.