Investigation Into Junior Chinese For China (Trial Version) (Znu Edition)

Teaching materials have always been the focal point of educational reforms. The Chinese academic world has long laid stress upon compiling textbooks. Nowadays, the compilation is not in confinement or under constraint but open to many possibilities. Any breakthrough may make it a paradigm for textbook compilation, or provide researchers with multiple research perspectivesThe former State Education Commission set up the Inspection and Approval Committee of Secondary School and Elementary School Textbooks for China in September, 1986. Since then the textbooks for secondary and elementary schools have been no longer issued under the State's administrative orders, but adopted after the whole inspection and approval procedure. Several sets of Chinese textbooks were compiled and published in succession, including Junior Chinese for China (Trial Version) (Zhejiang Normal University Version). This ZNU version was compiled under the guideline of raising students' Chinese qualities. It clearly states that the core of Chinese qualities is language sense. Other qualities are internalizing works, building up knowledge of Chinese, the language, developing Chinese thinking, cultivating Chinese sentiment and cumulating Chinese potentials. This version initially achieved the transition from knowledge-centered textbooks to language-sense-centered ones, from training-focused to practice-focused, and from teacher-centered to learner-centered. It is featured in construction and contents. The ZNU version occupies a position of prestige in the history of Chinese teaching materials. It also provides some implications for textbook compilation today: teaching materials must stick to Chinese standards and value humanism; textbooks are not means of training but guides of dialogues; and the language adopted in textbooks should be refined and unassailable.The textbook compilation is a complex and systematic project. This dissertation draws some conclusions that are of personal opinions and hopes these crude remarks may be drawn forth by abler people in future further researches.