A Comparative Study On English Curriculum Standards Of Compulsory Education Period Between Chinese Mainland And Taiwan

Facing to the world curriculum reform in the information age, the Ministry of National Education issued the experimental version of Chinese English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education and Senior Second Education. After ten years English curriculum reform, the State Ministry of Education drafted Compulsory Education English Curriculum Standards in2011. It was further revised and improved, and so far it has been in current use. With the change of society and economy, school education needs to be further reformed. To improve the English Curriculum Standards, it requires more comparative study to find the gap and provide suggestions for the scientific amendment of Chinese mainland’s English Curriculum Standards. Chinese mainland and Taiwan share the same root and ancestry and they have similar cultural background. English is a core subject in Taiwan and it has always been in an important position in Taiwan’s education. Meanwhile, Chinese mainland is also strengthening the English education. Therefore, the comparison of Chinese mainland’s English Curriculum Standards and Taiwan’s English Curriculum Outline has great practical significance in improving Chinese mainland’s English Curriculum Standards. This paper first introduces the educational backgrounds of the two places, then it compares the Curriculum Standards of Chinese mainland and Taiwan in framework, objectives and implementation proposals. Literature review method and comparative method are used in this thesis.The results show that both of the English Curriculum Standards of Chinese mainland and Taiwan reflect the world tendency in English development, their similarities are:high valuing on the students’capacity goals and the instrumental nature of English; stressing to learn about the cultural differences of different countries through English learning; valuing on the scientific and interesting pinciples of the compilation of the English textbooks; attaching importance to the diversity of teaching resources and evaluation models; the requirements on teachers to understand students’ differences and individualization. However, because of the differences of cultural backgroud and economic development, there are many differences between the two standards, their differences are:Taiwan emphasizes on the basic English communication ability and the "appropriateness" of the language expression, while Chinese mainland pays more attention to the mastery of the language knowledge, and Chinese mainland has higher requirements on grammar and vocabulary; for the aspect of the textbook written, Taiwan still pays attention to the content that should reflect English communication function, while Chinese mainland values on the ideological and flexibility principles; Taiwan focuses on creating rich English learning environment for students, which is a natural way to learn English, and it emphasizes the role of the "portfolio" in the learning process, while Chinese mainland concerns the students cross-cultural communication awareness and the development of cross-cultural communicative competence, and it values the students learning strategies and their dominant position in the evaluation.The English Curriculum Standards of Chinese mainland has improved a lot, but comparing with other Curriculum Standards in the world, it still needs to be amended. The suggestions for the amendment of the English Curriculum Standards of Chinese mainland are: Firstly, the "quantity" criteria is questionable. Communication is the absolute principle. Secondly, more actual context should be written into the English textbooks. Thirdly, it should be paid more attention to the connection of the primary to the secondary on the textbook content and teaching methods. Fourthly, we should play the role of "portfolio" in the primary and junior high education.