The Publication Of The Commercial Press In The Republic Of China Promoted The Development Of English Education In Middle Schools

In China,the history of English,as a language,can be tracked back to several centuries ago.However,it has been included into school curriculum system for only about a hundred years.In 1902,the Qing government issued a regulation called Qinding Middle School Constitution.It stipulated that English was formally included into school curriculum system.After the establishment of the Republic of China,the new government abolished the old educational system,but English curriculum was kept and regarded as a complosary course which plays an important role in middle school.This paper takes the relationship between publishing of the Commercial Press and the development of middle school education during the Republic of China era as its research object.Its basic structure and main content is shown as follows:In order to promote the development of English education in middle school and train more English talents,schools paid their attention on choosing textbooks.Textbook is a vital part in English classes because it plays the guiding role in teaching activities.It helped middle school students to build a quite integrated English intelletual system in their minds,no matter they will contiune their studies in the future or find jobs after graduation. Although Ministry of Education issued the standards of English curriculum which includes teaching target and teaching outline at that time,it did not have an uniform regulation about textbooks'versions.This phenomenon gave the educational publishing a decent oppotuninty to develop,so the competition among publishing companies became increaingly fierce.The Commercial Press,as a quite renowned publishing company during the late Qing Dynasty era,defeated its competitors with the abundant resourses of human talents,unique management aims and high-quality publications.These factors made the Commercial Press become the leader and indicator in this area.The Commercial Press took educational aid as its duty.In 1902,editorial department was established and the English department was set up as its branch as well.It recruited lots of talents and scholars to edit English textbooks and magazines.Those outstanding editors paid close attention on the developmental trend of English education around the world and then edited more suitable and trendy textbooks for Chinese.With taking textbook edit as the main work,the Commercial Press published magazines aboutEnglish learning.After that,an English correspondence school was established not only to help middle school students with their English,but also to magnify the amount of English learners and serve the society.With the wide spread of pragmatism in China,the form of English education in middle school had been changed.By means of analyzing the English textbooks published by the Commercial Press during the Republic of China era,we can get the following results.The first result is that the key point of teaching content changed frome words and grammar to pronunciation.The practicability of language in daily life was valued by the public.Another result is that teaching form varied from translation method to direct method,which requires more higher-level English teachers.The developmental process of English education in middle school was tough.The fact of Enlish education was non-ideal because of several reasons,such as the lack of teaching resourses,the improper teaching methods,the ignorance by the public,ect.In order to solve these problems,the educational circle started to have heated debates about English education on The Education Magazine which was issued by the Commercial Press.Scholars mainly focused on three aspects.The first question is that if English should be a compulosary course in middle school. What's more,the reform of English teaching method and the training of English teachers were also talked a lot.The Education Magazine provided scholars with a wide platform to announce their own opinions and thoughs,no matter they are well-known English experts or unknown English teachers.The fierce debates among scholars made a great contribution to English education in middle school during that special era.The success of the Commercial Press has built a role model in today's educaitional publishing area.It is believed that every press can be the first and contribute to schooling only if it enhances the quality of editors,adjusts to the teaching reforms,satisfies the social needs and find more creative ways.