A great leap forward : EFL curriculum, globalization and reconstructionism - a case study in North East China
- Authors: Zhang, Xiaohong
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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- Description: I have used the name, The Great Leap Forward in relation to my study of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum reform as I have linked economic, political and social developments of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in China with education developments that have occurred at the same time as the reform has been implemented.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy
Children as the future of China : Lu Xun's contribution to the development of modern Chinese children's and young adult literature
- Authors: Zeegers, Margaret , Zhang, Xiaohong
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Paper presented at Children's literature and social development 2006, Beijing, China : 21st September, 2006
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper focuses on the unique contribution by Lu Xun in the development of Chinese Children’s Literature in the 20th Century, particularly as to ways in which Lu Xun’s ideas influenced the children of that period and its effects on the development of modern Chinese children’s literature. It examines a number of Lu Xun’s representative writings—about children, his essays, his novels, his poems, his scribbles—as not only his criticising the evils of constructs of childhood as feudalistic and inhumane, but also as his revealing the essence of such constructs as fostering children as obedient slaves in their adult years. This paper thus explores Lu Xun’s view of children developing as complete persons based on the twin aspects of spiritual and physical existence, which implies not only gaining freedom but also changing the social world so that this could happen.
- Description: E1
- Description: 2003001935
China and secondary school textbooks surface and deep learning approaches
- Authors: Zeegers, Margaret , Zhang, Xiaohong
- Date: 2004
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of the Book Vol. 2, no. (2004), p. 255-258
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- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper explores features of secondary school English as Second Language textbooks in use in China. It examines a number of textbooks in relation to surface and deep learning approaches,particularly as these relate to western constructs of Chinese learners.
- Description: C1
- Description: 2003001332
English as a foreign language curriculum reform in China : A Study in reconstructionism
- Authors: Zeegers, Margaret , Zhang, Xiaohong
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Spotlight on China changes in education under China's market economy Chapter 4 p. 53-66
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: China has experienced a number of reforms in EFL teaching and learning since 1949, when The People’s Republic of China was established after years of struggle between the losing Chiang Kai Shek Nationalists and the winning Mao Zedong Communist forces. Given the association of the English language with the western imperialism that China had just fought so hard against, competence in English was regarded as unpatriotic. A number of English-speaking countries, notably the United States of America (USA) insisting on a strong support of the Nationalist Party which had fled to Taiwan in 1949, did not recognise China. Indeed, the new Chinese government had its own concerns with illiteracy in mother tongues, at the time around 80% (Dietrich, 1986; Ministry of Education, 2002; Yang, 2010). English was hardly a priority for government then, although it had been in schools since the 19th century, the result of China’s encounters with the west at that time (Wang & Gao, 2008). Having eschewed all things western in 1949, the authorities took up Soviet models to inform their activities, receiving economic aid from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (Yang, 2010). After the enormous upheavals of the revolution itself, China was in a period of reconstruction. The strong political influence of the relationship with the USSR on China’s foreign language education meant that Russian became the dominant foreign language taught throughout the country, with English removed from the secondary curriculum (Hu, 2002). Turning its attention to education, China found itself faced with problems that could be addressed through reconstructionism.
Redefining the role of English as a foreign language in the curriculum in the global context
- Authors: Zhang, Xiaohong , Zeegers, Margaret
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Changing English Vol. 17, no. 2 (2010), p. 177-187
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The English language has become a global language, a development which has influenced English language teaching and learning throughout the world. This influence has occurred more impressively in China than in other parts of the world as a result of the breathtaking pace at which China has integrated with global economies. Increasing industrial, economic and multicultural development has spurred language educators in China to question the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum in relation to the role of English, particularly in secondary schools. In this paper we present a brief review of the role of English as a global language in the Chinese context, a context which is now to be seen as a global one. The new curriculum has been progressively rolled out in Chinese schools since 2001. We highlight the redefinition of the role of English in the new EFL curriculum in Chinese secondary schools in particular and the significance of this as it presents new features of the new EFL curriculum as part of a developing research field, based on a comparison with the 1993 EFL curriculum. In this study, we focus on policy statements and curriculum documents as well as published previous research in order to understand the redefining of the role of English as a foreign language in the new EFL curriculum.