Tao "to Teach Is To Reach Not Need To Teach" Language Education Thought

The theory named "Educating is for not needing to be taught" is a great masterpiece that summarizes Ye Shengtao's teaching practice for more than 70 years. With rich contents, the theory does not only promote a teaching principle, but it also discloses the ultimate goal of Chinese education. The study of the principle "Educating is for not needing to be taught"will help us to understand that it does play a core role in the whole theoretical system by Ye Shengtao. Therefore, the paper will do some related research and discussion about this thought.The paper includes three chapters besides the preface part and the conclusion.In the part of the introduction, why this subject was chosen is explained. Besides, several influential works are employed to introduce what has already been achieved in this area.The first chapter is about the background and the process of how this principal is formed. This chapter is divided into two parts. In the first part, the forming background is introduced from two aspects of internal and external causes. The internal cause includes his early growing experiences as well as his later teaching practice; while the external cause is the influence of John Dewey pragmatism and the deep discussions with his contemporary friends. In the second part, three developing stages are listed one by one. They are the germination period (1912-1949), the forming period (1949-1976), and the perfecting stage (1977-1988).The second chapter is about the methods to achieve "Educating is for not needing to be taught". Two key questions are discussed. One is "What should a teacher teach" and the other is "how'no need to teach' can be really reached by teaching". What should be taught? To answer this question, we must first understand how Ye Shengtao identifies the function of Chinese subject. In his opinion, the main function of Chinese language teaching is to develop students'good habits in self-learning, reading, writing and so on. In the part about how to teach, a discussion is made from the textbook's perspective, the students'perspective as well as the teacher's perspective. Ye Shengtao regards textbooks "no more than an example". This definition explains the nature and function of the Chinese textbooks, and it also sets higher standards for Chinese textbooks, and it also sets higher standers for the editors. To make textbooks become better examples, the editor needs to choose texts carefully, to notice the acceptance of the structure, and to pursue the most scientific way to offer examples. About the teacher-student relationship, Ye Shengtao insists the centre role of students and disapproves the traditional way which treats students as negative learner. He also promotes the reading pattern which contains three steps:preview-discuss and practice. In the field of writing, he suggests teachers choose the writing topics that students physical and spiritual features best. Besides, teachers had better write an article of the chosen topic before they tell students what they are going to write. All these suggestions have set a higher standards for teachers. In Ye Shengtao's opinion, to achieve "Educating is for not needing to be taught", a teacher is supposed to have a solid professional bases, flexible and various teaching methods as well as high competence in doing scientific research.The main point of the third chapter is about the influence of the principle "Educating is for not needing to be taught" in the field of Chinese language teaching,which is illustrated by the influence on the Chinese curriculum standard and Chinese language education workers. Given different realities in different times, we design different Chinese curriculum standard accordingly. This article will take the "the Chinese curriculum standard (experimental draft)" as the subject to elaborate on the impact. When it comes to the influence on our Chinese education workers, we choose teachers in different times who are hong Zhigong, Qian Menglong and Wei Shusheng as representatives,to explore the connections between their education thought and the thought of "Educating is for not needing to be taught" by Ye, also reflect their inheritance and development of the original thoughts.