A Comparative Study On Standards Of National Language Curriculum In Compulsory Education Of China And Japan

In recent years, it has become an increasingly important strategy forcountries across the world to develop and reform their educational systemsand improve the educational quality so as to participate in the internationalcompetition. Countries such as US, UK, Russia, Japan, South Korea, andSingapore are deepening their reforms of elementary educational curriculaand have laid down new syllabi or new standards for elementaryeducational curricula. As statutory documents and guidance on elementaryeducation, curriculum standards mainly reflect the innovative educationalideas and educational situations of the countries concerned.Curriculum of its national language has always been an importantcomponent of curriculum reforms for every country. It is a very significantand urgent undertaking in the reform of the Chinese language educationand Chinese teaching to understand and absorb the theory and practice ofnational language education in other countries, to analyze and compare thedifferences and similarities in national language education between Chinaand westem countries, to grasp the common underlying laws as well astheir unique features, and to draw upon critically the good experience fromother countries.The success Japan has achieved in elementary education has beenuniversally acknowledged. As is known to all, China and Japan belong tothe same cultural circle of the Chinese characters and are profoundlyrelated culturally and historically. Besides the similar educational traditionand the identical educational system, China and Japan even have launchedthe latest elementary educational curriculum reforms at the same time and revised and published the new standards of language curriculum. Judgingfrom what has been mentioned above, my thesis attempts to make acomparative study of the language curriculum standards between Japan andChina in the stage of full-time compulsory education.From the development and the evolution of the Chinese and Japanesecurriculum standards, I comb out the sequence of the reforms, and analyzethe curriculum standards in terms of their stability, continuation, andrationale. Aiming at the language education standards in the prevalentcompulsory education systems, I have made a comparative study about thetheories, structures, objectives and contents of the curriculum standards.Besides, in my thesis I hold that education of international situations anddevelopment of speaking, listening and other communicative skills shouldbe incorporated into the new standards; and that more attention should begiven to fostering students, creative thinking and the integrated teachingof listening, speaking, reading and writing. My exploration is to extractsome essence from the analysis to be used as a reference in the futurewhen our country is going to revise the Chinese language curriculum andamend the policies or guidance of Chinese education.