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Although the Chinese textbooks have changed, teachers and parents do not need to change their stance or panic. As long as they follow the basic Chinese learning methods, they can cope with all kinds of changes.

Wen Rumin (Professor of the Chinese Department of Peking University, First-Class Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences of Shandong University, Chief Editor of the Ministry of Education's Unified Chinese Textbooks for Primary and Secondary Schools)

New textbooks for the new semester? That's true, but not for all grades.

Recently, the Ministry of Education officially announced that the textbooks revised according to the 2022 version of the compulsory education curriculum standards will be put into use in the fall semester of 2024, and various regions are advancing steadily and orderly. In addition, the review procedures for the newly revised textbooks for compulsory education have been completed, and the unified textbooks for the three subjects of morality and law, Chinese, and history have passed the review of the National Textbook Committee.

But please note that not all grades will change their Chinese textbooks in September this year. According to the announcement of the Ministry of Education,This fall semester, only the first grade of primary school and the first grade of junior high school will use the new unified Chinese textbooks. Other grades and high schools will still use the previous unified textbooks. Next year and the year after, primary and junior high schools will gradually roll out the new textbooks.

Are there big changes in the new textbooks? In fact, the revised version has not changed much. The so-called "new textbooks" are actually revisions and improvements based on the original version. They are revised versions.

On August 7, Wen Rumin publicly stated that this revision is to better reflect the requirements of the 2022 version of the curriculum standards, rather than a re-edit.The new textbooks mainly involve two aspects of changes: a few additions and deletions to the texts to enhance the timeliness, a reduction in columns, and a proper reduction in the difficulty of pinyin literacy; and a "Comprehensive Reading Practice" is added to each unit in junior high school.

Wen Rumin also emphasized: "Before, there were many people on the Internet who used my name to make up stories and hype things. This time, I have clarified it.There is no "new trick" or "big change", "big language", "big task" or the like. Teachers and parents can use the unified textbooks well if they can rest assured and follow the spirit of the curriculum standards and respect the actual teaching.”

An earlier comprehensive response was in December 2021, when Wen Rumin directly criticized some media for rehashing old news from a few years ago and publishing fake news, and mentioned that it had been hyped more than thirty times at that time.

Wen Ruomin responded to the two major accusations that "the number of ancient poems and essays to be memorized in the Chinese textbooks has increased sharply from 14 to 72" and "the textbooks are becoming more and more difficult with each revision."

On the one hand, the discussion about the "sudden increase in the number of ancient poems and essays to be recited from 14 to 72" is mainly focused on high schools. Wen Rumin explained that in 2018, the Ministry of Education issued a new high school Chinese curriculum standard, which clearly specified that the recommended number of ancient poems and essays to be recited was 72, and this was not a "sudden increase". For many years, the college entrance examination requirements (previously there were examination guidelines) have always been around 50 to 60 ancient poems and essays to be recited. For example, the Ministry of Education issued a document stipulating that the number of ancient poems and essays to be recited in the third batch of new high school entrance examinations is 64.In fact, the increase in the proportion of junior high school and high school textbooks is not large, and the number of ancient poems and essays has increased significantly in primary school Chinese textbooks, because it is necessary to increase the content of ancient poems and essays."Primary school students have good memory, so they can recite more and lay a good foundation."

On the other hand, some self-media outlets often accuse "textbooks of becoming increasingly difficult". Wen Rumin also directly criticized these self-media outlets for simply "talking nonsense". Because textbook design requires a certain degree of difficulty, it must go through a lot of investigation and multiple levels of review. Moreover, the country is so large that it is difficult to satisfy everyone, so it is not easy to find the right level of difficulty."We also considered reducing the burden at every turn when compiling textbooks. Many front-line teachers were directly involved and made repeated revisions. (Now) the content that requires rote memorization has been reduced, and the amount of homework has also been reduced."

So what principles does the Chinese textbook reform follow?

At the beginning of this year, Wen Rumin publicly emphasized:The curriculum must be reformed, but it does not mean a revolution that overthrows everything. We cannot adopt a "one-size-fits-all" approach. The country is so large that we still need to take into account the different academic conditions of schools in different regions. We must improve and innovate on the basis of reality.

At the same time, Wen Rumin said that the quality education and Chinese language core literacy proposed in the new curriculum standards are aimed at cultivating people with ideals, abilities and responsibilities.We must overcome the conservative approach of doing things our own way and responding to ever-changing circumstances with the same approach, and we must also avoid the extravagant hope of using one teaching method (such as task-driven, group teaching, or large contexts, large units) to cover the overall situation and "one size fits all."

Perhaps many people still have this question: What is the point of learning Chinese if you don’t need to write essays after adulthood? Is it meaningful for primary school students to "memorize" so many ancient poems and essays? Wen Rumin also gave suggestions to parents and teachers on the issue of children learning Chinese.

First of all, in terms of learning Chinese and writing essays, Wen Rumin specifically explained that learning Chinese is not only to improve language and writing skills, but also to improve language skills.Thinking training achieved through language learning"The Chinese language test questions in the college entrance examination are also moving in this direction. They not only test the complete proficiency of knowledge, but also whether the mind is flexible."

Secondly, regarding the teaching of ancient poetry, Wen Rumin's advice to teachers isRead repeatedly, so that students can read it thoroughly. Moreover, he also asked teachers not to arrange recitation for all classes, but to haveFree Recitation. Because these are two different ways of reading, the former is often performative and is read to others, which can easily become a fixed "tone", also known as "language accent", while the latter is a self-indulgent reading, which is more conducive to immersing oneself in the work.

In Wen Ruomin's opinion, ancient poetry has a strong musicality and is easy to read. It is important to let students feel the beauty of the rhyme of poetry and the beauty of the Chinese language. Maybe they can't tell where the beauty lies at the moment, but after it accumulates and they feel it, it plays a role of edification.

Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the number of ancient poems and essays in primary school textbooks has increased, and Wen Rumin also specifically reminded that it is not necessary to set too high a standard for primary school students - meaning,It is not necessary to tell primary school students too much about the so-called theme, meaning, value, artistic techniques, etc., but you can introduce some interesting background materials to the children based on the content of the poem.For example, the story of how the poet wrote this poem: "Primary school students have relatively low comprehension abilities, but their imaginations may be richer than adults. They should be more careful not to give rigid and standardized interpretations of the aesthetic meanings of poetry."

In summary, when primary school students study ancient poetry, they should be taught to roughly understand the content of the poem, and not to carefully interpret each word and sentence separately. For middle and high school students, we should gradually guide them to "understand the meaning" of the poem, so that they can have some understanding, although it may not be very clear.

Wen Ruomin believes that it is inappropriate to ask students to explain the meaning of poetry "very clearly". Even if they have to master the so-called "standard answers" for exams, they should be told that this is just a "statement". "As teachers, we should leave a relatively flexible space for 'poetry teaching' and not let it be completely crowded by exam-oriented education."

So, to sum up, although the Chinese textbooks have changed, teachers and parents do not need to change their stance or panic. As long as they follow the basic way of learning Chinese, they can cope with all kinds of changes.