| Cultural philosophy is a basic formation of contemporary philosophy. From one of its points, culture essentially means life to be and the activities of human beings. Thus, curriculum, as a special culture that enters the field of education, can be virtually considered as the students' life to be and their activities. Moreover, the nature of English syllabi, which is also a special culture , reflects the relationship between English and the students, can be regarded as a blueprint that draws the future development of English curriculum in primary schools. The purpose of its development is to make students gain a thorough understanding of culture through mastery of both Chinese and Western culture. In this paper, based on cultural philosophy, the author reviews the historical development of English syllabi home and abroad, then makes a comparative study and an analysis from the viewpoint of cultural philosophy among the newest English syllabi for primary schools in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Mainland, and finally describes the prospects for English syllabi for primary schools in the 21st century.There are altogether three chapters in this paper. Chapter One is a summary of the development of English syllabi for primary schools in China and some foreign countries. From the study on the main connotation of syllabi, we find that modern system of syllabi is just set up and is not perfect enough. In addition, this paper reflects that itstarts mainly from the angle of English teaching and that most of the researches on their theoretical basic stress on linguistics, but neglect other theories, such as curriculum theory and the theories of cultural development. As a result, the design of English syllabi is limited to some degree, which lands English teaching in a predicament.Chapter Two is an analysis of the newest English syllabi for primary schools among Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Mainland in the perspective of cultural philosophy. After revealing the nature of curriculum, the author makes a thorough comparative study and an analysis of each component of English syllabi for primary schools among these three places in order to develop into the inner connection between English syllabi and cultural philosophy. In view of the background of curriculum reform, the global cultural crisis touched off the English curriculum reform in these three places. All of them have begun to realize the importance of culture in the development of English syllabi for primary schools, but the starting point of reform still focuses on economic repayment and social efficiency, which bears a pronounced color of utilitarianism, frittering away the scientific and ideal feature of the syllabi to some extend. In view of curriculum goals, on the one hand, they reflect the quintessence of cultural philosophy, which is the harmonious integration of man and culture. All of the syllabi stress on the comprehensive English learning and focus on developing students' capability to use English to communicate. On the other hand, all of them still have marks of overemphasizing on the instrumental use of English. In view of curriculum content, the three syllabi all express modern curriculum ideas. For example, they emphasize that knowledge is made by learners and learning should be carried out in an all-round way, which means contents of English curriculum should not be limited in language knowledge and language skills, but should be extended to the values and cultures that English contains and the active attitude of learning English. Furthermore, they follow the coherence and integration of English curriculum with great interest. In view of curriculum implementation, the three syllabi hold a developing idea that curriculum content should be changed into students' learning experience during the phase of curriculumimplementation, and the media of curriculum implementation should also be expanded as possible as they can. And in view of curriculum evaluation, they advocate a variety of evaluation system, and pay close attention to the overall f...
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