LEARNING TO READ IN THE CHINESE PRIMARY SCHOOL: AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY by KAREN KAY RAYLE A THESIS Presented to the Division of Teacher Education and the Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts August 1990 approved: Dr. Henry Dizney An Abstract of the Thesis of Karen Kay Rayle for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Division of Teacher Education to be taken March 1991 Title: LEARNING TO READ IN THE CHINESE PRIMARY SCHOOL: AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY Approved: Dr. Henry Dizney This is a study of beginning reading instruction in the Chinese primary school, which examines the environment, learning tasks, teaching methods, content, and attitudes in early literacy learning in that setting. The inquiry, based on review of research, classroom observations, translation of texts, and interviews with Chinese teachers, parents, and students, explores the effect of the Chinese linguistic, cultural, and political context on reading instruction there. The direct teaching methods seen are primarily the outgrowth of the character-based orthography and cultural factors. The content reflects the current goals of the Chinese leadership. Implications were found for beginning reading instruction in the United States. ACKNOWLE DGEMENTS iv I would like to express my sincere appreciation to several persons on both sides of the Pacific for their assistance in my completion of this thesis. On the U.S. side, I would like to thank my advisers, Henry Dizney and Jan Jipson, for coping with my manic work style, and particularly Dr. Dizney for his solicited and unsolicited advice and opinions on many topics besides the thesis. I would also like to thank my parents, Richard and Lucille Rayle, to whom my China explorations have no doubt caused considerable financial strain and anxiety. On the Chinese side of the ’’lake", I am deeply indebted to several individuals, especially my adviser Yang Cuan Li. Mr. Yang helped me translate my interview questions into Chinese and obtain several books, made the crucial connections allowing me to visit the schools, and was always there to break the ice with nervous teachers and clear up language snafus. Special thanks also to the teachers and administrators at Fu Hua Primary School in Harbin, especially to my "star" interviewee for putting up with 105 questions in strangely accented Chinese and showing me that beneath their politics, teachers everywhere have a lot in common. Finally, thanks to all the Chinese teachers, students, parents, and friends who shared with me through interviews, questionnaires, and informal conversations. To all the children, I send best wishes. "Hao hao xuexi, tian tian xiang shang!" V TABLE OF CONTENTS Page FOREWORD.............................................. viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.............................. 1 Past Research................................... 1 Methodology: General Comments................... 6 Background Research............................. 9 Translation of Texts............................ 10 Classroom Observations.......................... 10 Teacher Interviews.............................. 12 Parent Interviews............................... 13 Student Questionnaires and Interviews........... 14 CHAPTER 2: ENVIRONMENT............................... 17 The Chinese Educational System.................. 17 Government Schools, "People-Run" Schools and Key Schools..................................... 20 Fu Hua Primary School........................... 22 CHAPTER 3: THE NATURE OF THE LEARNING TASK........... 31 Objectives for Primary School Language Instruction................................. 31 Spoken Chinese: Regionalects, Dialects, and "Common Speech".............................. 3 3 Spoken Chinese: Tones, Syllables, and Words..... 37 Pinyin Romanization............................. 38 Chinese Characters: A Brief Introduction........ 44 CHAPTER 4: CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT AND TEACHING METHODS.. 56 Classroom Management............................ 56 Teaching Methods: General Comments.............. 60 Teaching Methods in Reading Instruction......... 65 CHAPTER 5: CONTENT................................... 87 Political Socialization and the Role of the Textbook.................................... 87 Historical Changes in the Chinese Readers....... 90 Goals and Methodology of Textbook Analysis...... 92 Political Themes................................ 98 Behavioral Themes................................ 102 Informational Themes............................ 106 vi Other Themes.................................... 107 Comparison to Ridley, Godwin, and Doolin........ 108 Concluding Remarks.............................. 110 CHAPTER 6: ATTITUDES................................. 115 General Comments................................ 115 Teachers........................................ 116 Parents......................................... 119 Students........................................ 126 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION................................ 130 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY............................... 145 vii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Themes of Selections at Each Grade Level....... 99 2. Percent of Themes Occurring at Each Grade Level 99 FOREWORD viii I chose the topic of beginning reading instruction in the Chinese primary school mainly because I saw it as an ideal way to integrate longstanding interests in elementary education, particularly beginning reading instruction, and Chinese language and culture. I have been pulled between these two fields for a long time, and finally decided to combine them in my studies and hopefully in my future career. I have always been fascinated by foreign lands, languages, and cultures. As a high school senior, I was invited to run in a friendship race in Guangzhou (Canton), People’s Republic of China. I spent only 48 hours there, but was so intrigued by the country that I decided to study Chinese in college, and return for an extended period of time when I could speak the language. Therefore, in addition to my education courses, a large portion of my college career has been spent in the effort to become fluent and literate in Chinese. Like the children in my study, I have grappled with those 3000 characters required for functional literacy in Chinese. I have also been interested in education, especially beginning reading instruction, for many years. I see teaching someone to read as one of the most precious gifts one can give, and developing literacy and enjoyment of reading in my students will be one of my primary responsibilities as an elementary school teacher. ix My goal in doing the research for this thesis was to observe how my counterparts in China deal with a task which will be an important part of my future career. I felt that an understanding of the environment, learning tasks, student-teacher interactions, content, and attitudes involved in beginning reading in another culture would help me to reflect upon and clarify those same aspects in my own culture. In addition, I sought to gain a deeper understanding of how the beginning reading process functions as a microcosm of the cultural goals and attitudes of a society. I completed the observational end of my research while studying in a Chinese language program at Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, P.R.C. from September to December of 1989. The bulk of my observations and interviews were of students and teachers at the nearby Fu Hua Primary School. I will describe my observational methodology in detail in Chapter 1, and the school environment in Chapter 2. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Past Research In his book, Comparative Reading, published in 1973, John Downing, a leading researcher in the field, laments, Because theory and research on reading developed earliest in countries where alphabetic systems of writing prevail (particularly in the U.S.), non- alphabetic systems have received scant attention. When they are looked at it is usually through ethnocentric alphabetic blinkers. Actually, at the present time a considerable volume of material, both research and descriptive in nature, is available on beginning reading instruction in the Chinese primary school. However, it must be carefully and critically evaluated. Owing to the linguistic and logistical difficulties for Western researchers seeking to conduct studies or extended observations in China, some sources are simply reports of very brief visits made to selected schools, often as a member of an educational tour group, with the aid of an interpreter. While I have occasionally made use of such sources, I have taken as my main sources my own observations, and research carried out by Chinese speakers. Most research in the field focuses on a very specific aspect of learning to read Chinese. One group of scholars is concerned with the cognitive and linguistic demands of acquiring literacy in different orthographies (writing systems), and examining the possible relationship of the orthography to reading achievement and disability. 2Hong Kong researcher Che Kan Leong has focuses on Chinese linguistics, and compares information processing in reading Chinese and English. He concludes that somewhat different cognitive processes may be involved in reading and learning to read in the two languages. American researcher Marcia E. Sheridan addresses the question of whether it is easier to learn to read in Chinese or English. She compares the information processing involved in reading the two scripts, and concludes that both orthographies and cultural factors play a role in the development of reading disabilities. Chinese educator Zhang Zhigong provides an excellent inside view of the Chinese writing system as it affects beginning readers, and examines the features of the language which make learning to read difficult for Chinese children, as well as the developmental stages of beginning reading in Chinese. Harold Stevenson and his colleagues at the University of Michigan have been conducting a large-scale, long-term comparative study of the reading and mathematics achievement of American, Chinese, and Japanese children. In their research, which includes extensive observation by native speakers as well as cross-national testing, they address the nature of the Chinese and English orthographies, the cognitive skills related to acquiring literacy in them, teaching methods, attitudes, and comparative measures of reading achievement and disability. They conclude that the 3 incidence of reading disability in Chinese and American children is approximately the same, and that cultural factors such as teaching methods, attitudes, and homework are responsible for observed discrepancies in average achievement level in favor of the Asian students. Other researchers have analyzed the content of the primary readers at various times, focusing mainly on how they reflect the adult society’s political goals. The earliest work I found in this area is Ridley, Godwin, and Doolin's book, The Making of a Model Citizen in Communist China, published in 1971. These researchers, who worked with texts in use in the late 1950's through early 1960's, viewed the texts as an outline of qualities which the Chinese leadership considered important in developing its children into "model citizens". While there is some treatment of teaching methods, based on an examination of teacher materials and Chinese writings on educational theory, the main focus is on deducing the political goals of the leadership. At that time, the United States did not have diplomatic relations with China, so the authors' lack of firsthand observations and their narrow focus is certainly understandable. In 1977, Jonathan Unger translated and analyzed selections from primary school readers in use in Guangzhou, (Canton) immediately after the Cultural Revolution. He identifies political and moral themes in the readers, and examines the use of heroes as models. He includes an 4 examination of teacher materials, and information on teacher training, teaching methods, and classroom management based on interviews with Hong Kong refugees. He also considers the relationship between memorization and creativity in Chinese language education, and some of the problems of becoming literate in Chinese, especially for speakers of dialects other than Mandarin, the national standard dialect. Of all the research discussed in this section, Unger's comes closest to a comprehensive examination of Chinese reading instruction in its own right. However, texts and teaching methods, as well as the whole of Chinese society, have undergone drastic changes since the end of the Cultural Revolution. More recently, Chinese-American Julia Kwong examined the revised textbooks of the late 1970's, and found that compared to the Cultural Revolution era texts Unger had translated, they reflected a new emphasis on science, technology, and modernization, and much less stress on class struggle and worship of leaders such as Mao Zedong. A small amount of material on Chinese teaching methods exists in English. American educator Lillie Pope provides an insightful overview of the Chinese language, problems faced by Chinese children in learning to read, and new teaching methods being experimentally implemented in the P.R.C. The most detailed information on teaching methods comes from Chinese educational researchers. Most of these sources were found in the English-language edition of Chinese 5 Education, which publishes translated selections of articles from various Chinese educational journals. Chinese educators Jiang Shangye and Li Bo describe problems faced by children in learning to read Chinese, and provide an overview of several recent steps toward reform in teaching methods. Ding Yicheng, Li Nan, and Bao Quan'en report on experiments in using phonetically annotated characters, and Mae Chuchang describes another approach, the concentrated character recognition method, also being experimentally implemented in the P.R.C. Finally, a few researchers, rather than focusing on a specific aspect of beginning reading instruction, have included it as part of a more broadly based inquiry into the socialization of Chinese children. One of the books which most influenced the portion of this study dealing with textbook content was Edward Wilson's Learning to be Chinese: The Political Socialization of Children in Taiwan, which explores the political and moral socialization of Taiwanese children from a variety of angles. Wilson, who has done work in other areas of Asian studies as well, speaks and reads Chinese, and uses this to great advantage in his research. He analyzed the nationally-adopted readers in use on Taiwan in the mid 1960's, and conducted extensive observations at three Taipei-area primary schools in 1965-6. His research focuses on the development of children's attitudes toward authority in the family, school, and political context. Many 6of his findings deal with deeply ingrained Chinese cultural patterns, and apply to the mainland as well. Rather than focus on a specific area such as political socialization, Chinese-American Ann-Ping Chin, through the use of semi-structured interviews, allowed Chinese children to tell their own stories. These are recorded in her book, Children of China: Voices From Recent Years. Some of the responses reveal children's attitudes towards primary education and reading instruction which are relevant to my work. Because of shyness, unfamiliarity with foreigners, and wary parents and school officials, Chinese children are often difficult to interview, and Chin's book provides a valuable look into their world from their own point of view. Methodology: General Comments Rather than taking the narrowly focused approach chosen by many of the above researchers, I have chosen to present a more comprehensive view of the process of beginning reading instruction in China as a phenomenon worthy of description in its own right. My study has less in common with empirical studies such as those by Stevenson and his colleagues, than with the technique of ethnographic description, often used in cultural anthropology. Ethnographic description concerns itself with describing phenomena as they fit into their cultural context. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz explains: Believing that man is an animal suspended in webs of 7 significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning. In conducting my study, I have resisted the tendency of other researchers to focus narrowly on a single aspect of the subject, as I feel that some essential meaning is lost when one narrows one's focus to a single variable one wishes to observe. Geertz writes: If anthropological interpretation is constructing a reading of what happens, then to divorce it from what happens-from what, in this time or that place, specific people say, what they do, what is done to them, from the whole vast business of the world-is to divorce it from its applications and render it vacant. A good interpretation of anything...takes us into the heart of that of which it is the interpretation. In this paper, I hope to delve into the "heart” of the process of beginning reading in the Chinese primary school, from the point of view of all the participants. I am unusually suited as an observer to undertake this task. Because I am not Chinese, I am not a part of the system I observe, and thus can stand back at an objective distance from it. However, I can speak, understand, and read Chinese, which allowed me to talk to parents, teachers, and children, read texts in their original language, and observe classroom interactions without the aid of an interpreter. Thus I am truly "on the outside looking in"; outside the Chinese culture, and looking in on it through the window of spoken and written language. 8 Geertz writes of the nature of ethnographic description: It is interpretive, and what it is interpretive of is the flow of social discourse, and the interpreting consists of trying to rescue the "said" of such talk from its perishing occasions... in addition...it is microscopic. I have applied the approach outlined by Geertz to my subject. The "flow of social discourse" I have attempted to interpret concerns what has been said by a variety of participants in the process of learning to read in the Chinese primary school: teachers, students, parents, textbooks, and educational experts. I have "rescued" this discourse through notes, tapes, questionnaires, and translations. In my interpretation of this "flow of discourse", I have made use of all of these sources, as well as what others have written on the subject. I have undertaken such a detailed study of this small slice of Chinese culture because I believe that in observing the teaching of beginning reading in China, there is something important to be learned both about beginning reading and about China. My goals in doing this study were twofold. First, I wanted to gain added insight into the essential nature of beginning reading instruction by looking at how a process with which I was familiar in my native language and culture was approached in a very different environment. I was curious as to what commonalties I might find, and how the cultural, political, and linguistic context would affect the 9 beginning reading process in another culture. I felt that observing these effects would help me to better understand the influence of these factors on the beginning reading process for the American children I will teach. My second goal was to gain insight into Chinese culture as a whole through a detailed look at a small slice of it. Primary education is an especially rich source of information about a culture, because it embodies the knowledge and beliefs a society deems important enough to inculcate in the next generation from an early age. Gaining insight into the knowledge and beliefs a society views as important allows us to better understand and more effectively communicate with its members. Geertz writes that '•The aim of anthropology is the enlargement of human discourse.1,5 I believe that by examining these beliefs as they are expressed in the primary readers, I have in some way opened up a new window on Chinese culture so we might better understand it. Background Research This project began in spring, 1989 with a review of available literature on the subject. To the greatest extent possible, I utilized sources by Chinese speaking researchers who were Chinese natives or who had spent extensive time in the country. Much of my research was done in the journal Chinese Education. This background research continued to a lesser extent while I was in Harbin, as I found several 10 relevant articles in English and Chinese-language newspapers available there. Translation of Texts In spring, 1989, I obtained through a Chinese friend the Chinese textbooks used nationally in the P.R.C. for grades one, two, and three, and spent the spring and summer translating them. As there are large differences between Chinese and English grammar and writing style, my translations focused on preserving the meaning of the stories as opposed to a word-for-word rendering. When I encountered difficulty, which was rare, I consulted my Chinese professor, Lucia Yang. I was also able to check some of my translations against those of the same stories in Ridley, Godwin, and Doolin’s book, and found that they matched up very well. I attained copies of the teacher materials corresponding to these texts at the Educational Bookstore in Harbin, and translated the instructional objectives and a sampling of lesson plans for each book. Classroom Observations My observations were conducted while I was a student in the China Exchange Travel (C.E.T.) Chinese Language Training Program at Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, P.R.C. I studied in Harbin from late August to mid-December, 1989. Program participants lived with a Chinese roommate, and attended a variety of language classes, including twice-weekly meetings on a one-to-one basis with a professor who aided us in pursuing an independent study project of our own choosing. I worked on my thesis research with Yang Cuan Li, an English instructor at H.I.T. Mr Yang speaks excellent English, and is a professional translator. I had prepared interview questions for teachers, parents, and students over the summer, and Mr. Yang helped me translate these into Chinese. He then arranged for me to visit a nearby kindergarten and primary school. We visited the kindergarten attached to the Institute four times over a two-week period in October. Mr. Yang was very insistent that I be allowed to see simply the everyday activities at the kindergarten, not the special performances that are usually put on for foreigners, and so I was. Most of the time I sat at the back of the classroom for five and six year olds, taking notes and the occasional photograph. I conducted one interview with a kindergarten teacher. We visited the nearby Fu Hua primary school eight times over a four-week period in November and December. Five of these visits were for conducting classroom observations of one to three hours in length, and three for conducting teacher interviews of two to four hours in length. During classroom observations, Mr. Yang and I sat on a bench with the students in the back of the classroom. I carried the textbook used by the students, and occasionally chimed in as they read aloud in unison. Most of the time, I took very rapid notes. If there was something I didn't understand, I whispered to Mr. Yang or wrote him a note. Mr. Yang never actually "interpreted" in the traditional sense of the word. I audiotaped the final lesson I observed, and translated and transcribed the tape with the help of my Chinese roommate in Eugene, Chen Xingping. I also briefly visited a rural school in Acheng township about an hour's drive from Harbin along with the other American students. Teacher Interviews I interviewed one teacher at the kindergarten and four teachers at Fu Hua Primary School. Interviewing several teachers was necessary both to get a broad range of input and to get the 105 interview questions answered. An experienced teacher who is now an administrator at Fu Hua was instrumental in coordinating the teachers' schedules and mine to allow me to conduct the interviews, as well as serving as an interviewee herself. The bulk of my observations and interview time was with a very candid first-grade teacher who was undoubtedly selected because she is one of the most experienced teachers at Fu Hua and has won many awards. None of the teachers spoke English, so interviews were conducted entirely in Chinese. I read the question or asked it conversationally, and the teachers answered orally. I did not tape the interviews as I felt this would make my subjects uncomfortable. Instead, I took rapid notes in a sort of bilingual shorthand. In the event that the teacher did not understand my oral question, she could look at the question sheet, and if I didn't understand her answer, Mr. Yang would rephrase it in simpler Chinese or occasionally English. He also watched my notes to make sure I had understood the teacher's answer. I did not generally record which teacher answered which question, as I often talked with a series coming in to be interviewed on their respective breaks, although I made note of some of the questions answered by the first grade teacher. While our discussions dealt only with teaching, I have omitted their names as a precautionary measure. My interviewees at Fu Hua included the administrator, and one teacher each at the first, second, and third grade levels. I also interviewed at her home a former Fu Hua teacher who now teaches English at the junior middle school level, in Chinese and English at her request. I did not conduct any interviews at the rural school. Parent Interviews While the main focus of my research was observing what went on in the classroom, I was also curious as to parental attitudes and contributions to the beginning reading process. Therefore, I conducted five parent interviews. The number of interviews I conducted was limited by the small number of parents of school-aged children with whom I felt familiar enough to interview. Three of my parent sources were teachers in the language program. I also interviewed a , . 14clerical worker who was a professor's neighbor, and a cadre (official) I met on the train. Interviews were conducted in a mix of Chinese and English with the professors (typically I asked the question in Chinese and they answered in English), and in Chinese with the worker and the cadre. One of the professors was available to help me interview his neighbor, the worker, and I handled the cadre interview by myself. Responses were recorded in written notes. In the sections in which these parents are profiled, I will refer to them as Professors A, B, and C, the worker, and the cadre. Student Questionnaires and Interviews I also gave questionnaires to five primary school students, and interviewed two in person. All but one of these students attended Fu Hua Primary School. Five first grade students at Fu Hua were given a written questionnaire, which was written in both characters and pinyin, the phonetic spelling system that Chinese students are taught in kindergarten and in the first weeks of first grade. The teacher who administered the questionnaire was asked to select a representative sample of students and not to assist them in filling out the form. Students were told they could respond in pinyin or characters, and tended to use a mixture of the two. The Fu Hua sample included three girls and two boys, whose parents were cadres (2), teachers, workers, and meteorologists. I also gave a questionnaire to Professor B, 15 who took it home for his son to complete. Additionally, I interviewed two students, the son of Professor A and the daughter of the worker, his neighbor, in person. These interviews were, of course, in Chinese, and were conducted at their homes. My total student sample included four males and four females, with an age range from seven to eleven. 16 NOTES 1 John Downing, Comparative Reading; Cross-National Studies of Behavior and Processes in Reading and Writing (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1973), p. 148. 2 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 5. 3 Ibid., p. 18. 4 Ibid., p. 20. 5 Ibid., p. 14. CHAPTER 2: ENVIRONMENT 17 The Chinese Educational System Most Chinese children begin their formal education at a very early age. At the age of three, the boundary is crossed between the "tuoersuo" or nursery, which provides primarily custodial care, and the ’’youeryuan” or kindergarten, which offers some educational activities. Kindergartens may be run by local educational authorities, townships, work units, or private individuals, who are often retired teachers. Attendance at kindergarten is not compulsory, but a matter of convenience, since both parents work in nearly all families. Fees for kindergarten are generally taken from the parents’ salaries. The availability and guality of kindergartens varies widely, with the best facilities usually found in urban ones run by universities and teacher­ training schools. Children typically enter primary school at age seven, although many urban schools admit "bright” six year olds. Whether a child is considered "bright” may be judged by admissions tests, interviews, or parental influence. Primary school encompasses six years. Attendance is compulsory, and is full-time for urban students. Nationwide, primary schools enroll about 92% of children in the 7 to 12 age group.1 In the countryside, students usually attend part-time schools Many do not complete primary school, and most of those who do do not continue beyond that level. In urban areas, most students continue on to junior middle school. Sixth year primary students take a battery of tests, the scores determining which, if any, junior middle school they will attend. Junior middle school encompasses three years, usually from ages thirteen to fifteen. In the last year of junior middle school, students take tests to determine whether and what kind of senior middle school they will attend. Nationally, approximately half of the population aged 15 to 18 attends senior middle school.2 Depending on test scores and career goals, they may enroll in a variety of specialized senior middle schools. ’’Regular" senior middle schools focus on preparing students for the highly competitive college entrance examinations. Teacher training schools prepare students to teach at the kindergarten or primary school level. There are also a wide variety of vocational, technical, and agricultural schools which aim to give students specific job skills they can use immediately upon graduation. These specialized or "zhongzhuan" schools also include schools for financial administration and athletics. They are very popular because graduates, although they can rarely enter colleges, are virtually guaranteed good city jobs after graduation. Most recruit from an entire city, county, or province, and provide boarding. They are being promoted as a good way to dampen the demand for higher education, and channel ability into areas crucial to China's economic development. 19Graduates of the "regular” senior middle schools take the grueling college entrance examinations, whose scores determine which college, if any, they will attend. Only four percent of test—takers will be able to attend college at government expense.^ Some colleges are beginning to accept self-supporting students with scores that approach their cutoffs on a trial basis, and thousands of students study through radio, TV, or correspondence courses. Of the four percent who are accepted, most will attend local or provincial colleges, with only a tiny handful testing into the most prestigious national institutions, such as Beijing and Qinghua Universities. The general picture of the Chinese educational system, then, is one of a progressive funnelling process in which students must prevail over increasingly tough competition in order to continue their schooling. This situation is primarily a result of China's huge population and limited resources. Primary school, while it may be the first and only exposure to formal education for rural children, is for urban students such as those at Fu Hua the first entry into a ruthless competition which will involve them for the remainder of their childhood. A Chinese university student interviewed by Ann—Ping Chin explained it this way: Kids are given more and more tests all the time...So the kind of life they lead is quite rigid. They face entrance exams for junior high and high schools, and there is pressure to get into a "key school". On every level there is an elevator, and you have to get on. It's very hard on them. 20Government—Schools ,_ "People—Run" Schools, and Key Schools In both urban and rural areas, schools may be of two types. Government-run schools are financed by government funds, and their instructional schedules and curriculum are regulated by the National Ministry of Education. These are the co—ed neighborhood day schools that most urban children attend. Some operate as boarding schools for rural students and are located in county towns. Admission to government-run junior and senior middle schools is by competitive examination. Government-run schools may charge tuitions, but it is usually quite low, about 1/4 of an average worker's monthly salary per year. There also exists a second-tier schooling system known as "minban" or "people-run" schools. In urban areas, some of these schools date from pre-Revolutionary times, or originated after the failure of the Great Leap Forward program of rapid industrialization in the early 1960's, which caused severe cutbacks in government funding for education. These schools handle overflows of students from the government-run schools at the primary level, and admit those who did not test into government-run junior and senior middle schools. They have separate exams after the government exams, and most of their students are from fairly affluent families who can afford the higher fees. It is almost impossible for minban school graduates to compete successfully for college admission or good city jobs. Most Chinese children live in rural villages, and receive their schooling at minban schools financed by local funds and student tuition. The fees may consume a considerable proportion of a peasant family's income, decreasing the motivation to keep children in school. Rural minban schools follow a pared-down curriculum (in some cases only Chinese and math), are generally attended only part- time to allow children to help with farm work, and emphasize preparation for agricultural work rather than further education after leaving primary school. There are many horror stories in the Chinese press of primitive facilities, untrained teachers, and local officials appropriating school funds for their own use. Susan Shirk writes, after observing the rural minban schools: "Because these schools were obviously inferior to full-time schools, it was almost impossible for students to compete successfully with graduates of full-time schools for admission on to the next level."5 A special case of the government-run school is the "zhongdian" or "keypoint" school. Keypoint schools (often referred to in English as "key" schools) offer the highest quality of education available in China. They are selected at each level of government (national, provincial, county, city, and district), as a function of the proportion of students they send on to the next level of schooling. Key schools receive preferential funding, and usually have more experienced, better qualified teachers, better facilities, and audiovisual equipment unavailable in most other schools. They also make more use of new and experimental teaching methods. Criteria for entrance vary, but usually involve a combination of competitive examinations and parental influence. They are seen by the government as the vanguard in the overall development of Chinese education. Shirk writes: During the Cultural Revolution key schools were condemned as 'little treasure pagodas' which cultivated spiritual aristocrats rather than revolutionary successors. Today, they are praised for fostering talent and helping achieve the modernization of the Chinese economy. Key schools exist at all educational levels from kindergarten to university, and on scales from local to national. Fu Hua Primary School, where the classroom observations described in this thesis were conducted, is a city key primary school. Fu Hua Primary School Fu Hua Primary School is located next to the campus of the Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, a city of approximately 3 million and the capitol of the northernmost Chinese province, Heilongjiang. Harbin is primarily an industrial city, not as developed economically as Beijing, Guangzhou, or Shanghai, but better off than most smaller and interior cities in China. The school is surrounded by university buildings on one side, and apartment complexes housing university professors and workers on the other. The neighborhood seems somewhat above the average standard for Harbin; apartments are fairly new, and many have indoor plumbing. Slightly more than half of the students at Fu Hua come from homes where at least one parent has graduated from senior middle school or higher. Many of them are children of teachers at Harbin Institute of Technology. The rest come from homes where neither parent has an education higher than the junior middle school level. A total of 1769 students attend the school, with 977 boys and 792 girls. There are five to six classes at each grade level. The average class size is 65 to 70 students. Class sizes tend to be slightly smaller, 50 to 60 students, in the early grades. Some teachers feel that the class sizes are just right; others indicated to me that they would like smaller classes of 30 to 40 students, so they could make more home visits and better meet students' emotional needs. Within grades, students are assigned to the class of a particular teacher arbitrarily, although it appears that parental requests may be granted occasionally via the "back door" method of bribes and personal connections. Classes are so large, in part, because Fu Hua is a key school. All students from the surrounding neighborhood are theoretically eligible to attend, although they may be "pushed out" by extra students from other parts of Harbin whose parents can go through the back door. Work has begun on developing an entrance test to rectify this situation. 24The physical facilities at Fu Hua are quite adequate, and appear comparable to a typical school in a lower middle­ class area in the United States. The office for the principal and vice principals is furnished with a carpet, comfortable chairs, desks, and telephones. Administrators work at desks in the same room rather than separate offices or cubicles. There is also a teacher's room with chairs, tables, and educational journals, as well as several meeting rooms of various sizes. Most of my interviews were conducted in these areas. Classroom size is comparable to that in the U.S., although they are more tightly packed because of large class sizes. Students sit at desks on wooden benches nailed to the floor. The desks are connected horizontally in groups of two or four. There are usually 7 to 9 rows of desks, at which students sit boy-girl-boy-girl. Desks in some classrooms have blue cloth covers, and appear old although the school building is very new. Students keep a pencil box, textbooks, and a water bottle or canteen at their desks. The teacher has a desk, and there are one or two large filing cabinets for storage. The classrooms appear less visually "cluttered" than U.S. classrooms, but not sterile or uninviting. Those I visited all had some inspirational message in cut-out characters above the chalkboard. A favorite is "Study Hard, Be Ambitious, Be Honest, Observe Rules". There are blackboards at the front and back of each classroom. The front board is the one used for teaching, and in some rooms is equipped with a ladder-like holder for flash cards and a large abacus. The back board is decorated with colored-chalk pictures made by the teacher and/or students, and is used for announcements and (at third grade and up) a class newspaper. These boards, often elaborately prepared, may be seen in nearly all Chinese work and residential units. Some classrooms have posters showing proper study and health habits, and "Little Red Flowers" displays. (Children earn these for academic effort and good behavior.) Most are decorated with teacher- and commercially-made pictures (The Gate of Heavenly Peace and the Great Hall of the People were favorites), calligraphy scrolls, and potted plants. I saw no pictures of Mao or other political figures displayed. The building as a whole is clean, well-ventilated, and lit by florescent lighting. Classrooms are cool, but not cold in winter, and students keep warm by wearing their coats or heavy sweaters. The playground is a large dirt expanse behind the school, and is bare except for two fiberglass soccer goals and a tree swing. In the winter, part of the field was flooded to make a skating rink. There was an asphalt basketball court and swings at the rural school and the local high school, so the lack of playground facilities at Fu Hua may be due to the newness of the building, completed in 1988. Students attend 216 days per year, in two terms of 18 weeks each. School is in session six full days per week. There is a winter break from mid-January to the beginning of March (centered around Chinese New Year), and a summer break from mid-July to late August. Teachers report that these breaks do not affect student progress because extensive review homework is assigned at this time. Before vacations, students get a packet or booklet for most academic subjects. All students, even first-graders, have vacation homework for Chinese and math. Upper grade students also have history and geography homework. This homework may include reading selections and answering questions, solving problems and puzzles, reading supplementary books, and writing diaries and compositions. In addition, the school and the Young Pioneer organization often host movies, presentations, and field trips during vacations. During the school year, the daily schedule for the school as a whole is as follows: Students report for their first class at 8:00 AM. Class periods are 45 minutes long, with ten-minute breaks between classes. Morning classes are usually the "primary" subjects, Chinese and math. There are four morning classes. Students have a lunch break from 11:30 to 12:30. During this time, a few who live nearby return home for lunch. Others carry their lunch to school and eat there, or buy bread, peanuts, and fruit from a nearby store. During lunch hour, students can eat, play outside, or read or watch TV in the school until 12:30, when school resumes with a 25 minute schoolwide calisthenics session. There are three afternoon classes, with one of the class breaks being devoted to eye exercises which are believed to prevent nearsightedness. At 3:35, school is technically out and students are free to go home, but most stay at school for sports or clubs, Young Pioneer activities, tutorial classes, or to do homework with friends. Most parents don't get home from work until 5 PM or later, and don't want children home alone. Teachers appear to rotate after-school duty. Some children and teachers don't leave school until 7:30 PM. First graders study Chinese and math daily, music, art, and physical education twice a week, and conduct, common sense, and labor once a week. "Chinese" encompasses several classes at each grade level, including textbook reading, supplementary reading, speech, composition, and calligraphy. "Common Sense" incorporates elements of health and basic natural science, focusing on personal hygiene and observation of natural phenomena such as plants and insects. "Labor" in the early grades focuses on self-sufficiency and helping parents at home, teaching skills such as washing socks, cooking rice, and making covers for textbooks. In later grades, children do simple assembly tasks, and in rural areas may raise animals or grow a vegetable garden. "Conduct" includes some political content, but focuses mainly on study habits and social skills. Students at the second year level and above do not have Common Sense class, and instead study Natural Science, History, Geography, and Politics. Sixth- graders begin to study English. Each class at every grade level has a homeroom teacher, who instructs them for Chinese and math, and is responsible for home visits, class meetings, Young Pioneer activities, etc. for that group. For art, music, P.E., history, geography, science, and politics, there is one teacher for every one to two grades. Students remain in the same group throughout the day, but are taught by different teachers. Each teacher has twelve to fifteen classes per week. The manner in which teachers are assigned to classes (self- contained, departmental, moving teacher or moving class) varies from place to place in China as it does in the United States. However, ability grouping is rarely, if ever, seen at the primary level. It is not used at Fu Hua. The teachers at Fu Hua come from a wide variety of educational backgrounds, reflecting the changes in the field in recent years. The first grade teacher I interviewed most extensively has been teaching for 32 years. She entered the teaching profession in a time of desperate shortages. After graduating from junior middle school, she attended an accelerated teacher training program in which she observed and worked with experienced teachers for several months. She and the other teachers have periodically returned to school for continuing education courses, and most are now at a senior middle school graduate level. Many of the older teachers at Fu Hua had similar preparation. Today, the typical preparation for an urban primary school teacher consists of three years in a special teacher-training senior 29 middle school. A few of the younger teachers at Fu Hua are college graduates, although this is much more common at the middle school level than the primary level. All the administrators and teachers I encountered at Fu Hua, except for the P.E. teacher, are women. This chapter has introduced the context of the Chinese educational system of which Fu Hua Primary School is a part, and drawn the reader into the environment in which the teaching of reading takes place. The next chapter will examine the nature of the learning tasks which face children as they begin to acquire literacy within that environment. 30 NOTES John N. Hawkins, Education and Social Chancre in the People's Republic of China (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1983), p. 45. (Statistic from World Bank estimate, 1982) 2 Ibid., p. 43. (Statistic from World Bank estimate, 1982) 3 Ibid., p. 39. (Statistic from interview with Minister of Education Jiang Nanxiang, 1980) 4 Ann-Ping Chin, Children of China: Voices from Recent Years (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 29. 5 Susan Shirk, Competitive Comrades: Career Incentives and Student Strategies in China (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982), p. 34. 6 Ibid., p. 33. CHAPTER 3 : THE NATURE OF THE LEARNING TASK 31 Objectives for Primary School Language Instruction Goals and objectives for all levels of education in China are determined centrally by the National Ministry of Education. Specific programs and materials are developed by various groups working under the Ministry's direction. From the quote below, taken from the 1985 proposal for the revised edition of primary school texts currently in use in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Zhejiang Province, it is clear that primary school language instruction is intended to serve the dual purpose of ideological education and literacy development: Elementary school language teaching must take on the responsibility of molding a new generation of young people and utilizing the spirit, thought, and morality of communism to educate the new generation. Because of this, we emphasize ideological education in our teaching..... The goal of elementary school language instruction is to develop in the children the ability to recognize characters, read, and write compositions, and to begin to develop at a very elementary level a fresh, lively, and accurate style of writing. In other words, the task facing the Chinese primary student is not merely to acquire literacy but to receive a firm ideological and moral grounding in those qualities which the Communist Party leadership desires in its citizens. This emphasis on ideology and morality is not unique to the communist era, but has characterized Chinese education since ancient times when education consisted largely of memorizing the Confucian classics. What is new is the content which, in typical Chinese fashion, is expressed in a series of lists. Ideological goals for primary education focus on the inculcation of the "Five Loves”, ’’Four Stresses", and "Four Beauties". The "Five Loves" are love for the motherland, people, labor, public property, and science and technology. The latter reflects the current "Four Modernizations" drive. The "Five Stresses" are decorum, manners, hygiene, discipline, and morals. The "Four Beauties" are beauty of mind, language, behavior, and the , 9environment. An detailed analysis of how the goals of the leadership are reflected in the current Chinese primary school readers will be presented in Chapter 5. Literacy is of course also an important goal of language instruction. Upon completion of primary school, students are to be able to 1) use pinyin (a phonetic spelling system described later in this chapter) as an aid to the learning of characters and the study of the standard national language; 2) read, write, and understand the meaning of approximately 3 000 characters and many of the words formed by those characters; 3) write skillfully with pencil, pen, and brush; 4) use a dictionary ; 5) understand and tell the main ideas of broadcasts and speeches, and verbally express their own ideas and narrate events sequentially; 6) read, understand, and analyze at an appropriate developmental level children's books and puhli catinns; 7) write a smooth and complete sentence; and 8) write short, simple narratives and common practical 33writing with sound thought, a clear central focus, specific content, a clear sequence of development, and correct use of ten common types of punctuation.3 A true understanding of the tasks Chinese children face in becoming literate requires some elementary knowledge of the nature of the Chinese language. Following is an introduction to the principal features of spoken and written Chinese, and an examination of the challenges these characteristics present to children as they acquire literacy. The discussion is intended to provide non-Chinese speakers with the background needed to understand the chapters that follow. Readers familiar with Chinese linguistics may wish to skip over some sections. Spoken Chinese: Reqionalects, Dialects, and "Common Speech" Many foreigners are unaware that the term "Chinese", when used broadly to refer to the language spoken by majority nationality citizens of China, encompasses at least eight mutually unintelligible regionalects. These regionalects are different enough from one another to be considered languages in their own right by some scholars. One such regionalect, that native to a large region of North China, including Beijing, and historically the language of government affairs, was originally called Mandarin. Today it is being promoted as the national language of the P.R.C. under the name of Putonghua, or "Common Speech". There are approximately 715 million native speakers of Mandarin in the P.R.C. today, and millions more who have learned it as a second language to varying degrees of proficiency. Another major regionalect is Wu, spoken by 85 million in Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang along the central coast. Cantonese or Yue is spoken by 50 million in Guangzhou (Canton) and the surrounding Guangdong province, as well as by many Chinese in Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and North America. The Hunanese or Xiang regionalect is spoken by 48 million in and around Hunan Province in Central China. Hakka is spoken by 37 million, mainly highland dwellers in South China. Gan is spoken by 24 million in Jiangxi Province in South China. Finally, the Southern Min regionalect claims 28 million speakers in southern Fujian Province, Hainan Island, and Taiwan, and the Northern Min another 13 million in northern Fujian Province.4 These regionalects differ from one another as much as French, Spanish, and Italian.5 Recent estimates suggest that among the various regionalects there are variations of 20% in gvammar, 40% in vocabulary, and 80% in pronunciation.6 In other words, it is possible for speakers who have not learned another regionalect to catch the occasional word or phrase in it, but nearly impossible to converse with a speaker of the regionalect. In addition to speakers of the eight major regionalects, 50 to 60 million Chinese citizens are members of minority nationalities which speak non-Chinese languages. These include Tibetan, Mongolian, Uighur and the other 35Altaic languages of Central Asia, and tribal languages related to Khmer, Vietnamese, and Tai.7 Even within the major regionalect groups, there exist many local dialects which often make mutual intelligibility difficult. These differences reflect the limited opportunities for most people to travel and communicate with people outside their village or city, a situation which is only beginning to change. Such differences are particularly strong today among older people, and in rural areas. For example, a different form of the Wu regionalect is spoken in Shanghai and Suzhou, a 90 minute train ride apart. Given this linguistic diversity, it is not surprising that the development of a unified system of oral and written communication, through promotion of Putonghua and literacy, has been a major educational goal for the Chinese. The Mandarin regionalect, since it claims the greatest number of speakers, was a natural choice for a national language, and the Beijing dialect, the traditional language of state affairs, was selected as the standard for the new national language, Putonghua. National television and radio broadcasts are in Putonghua and, officially, all children are taught to understand, speak, read, and write it in school. As of 1958, all teachers were to conduct their classes in Putonghua. Linguist John DeFrancis writes of the results: To date, more than a quarter of a century later, this 36 objective is so far from being achieved that one can only marvel at the obtuseness displayed in regard to the obvious difficulties involved in achieving such unrealistic goals. This is often due to the unavailability of local teachers who can provide good models of Putonghua. In short, for nearly one in three Chinese children, the literacy learning task requires that they simultaneously acquire a second language. The obstacles to literacy learning faced by such students are well known to both Chinese and American teachers. The Fu Hua students observed in this study are fortunate in being native speakers of a Mandarin dialect very close to that of Beijing, on which the language of the readers is based. Harbin residents are so well known for their clear Putonghua that many of China’s television and radio announcers are drawn from there, and it is considered a good place for foreigners to learn Chinese. The differences between the Harbin and Beijing dialects are quite minor, about like those between Boston and Chicago accents in American English. Differences I observed included a tendency to add an "r" to the end of certain words, a blurring of the distinction between z, c, s and zh, ch, sh, and some distinctive local terminology and slang. Although I observed a few instances of teachers trying to standardize children's pronunciation, and one case in which a teacher had to identify a farm implement using a local term, the dialect differences didn't seem to pose more serious 37obstacles to literacy learning than they do for white, middle-class children in various regions of the United States. Spoken Chinese: Tones, Syllables, and Words Putonghua, like other forms of Chinese, is a tonal language in which the meaning of a syllable varies according to the tone in which it is pronounced. These tones are not absolute, but vary according to the voice range of individual speakers. Tones in Putonghua are high level (first tone), high rising (second tone), low dipping (third tone), and high falling (fourth tone). Neutral tones may also occur in the second syllable of words. Tones present the most difficult challenge for foreigners learning to speak Chinese, and may present problems for Chinese children as well. Parents correct young children's tones like American parents correct grammar, and a teacher told me that many children can't accurately discriminate tones until they are nine or ten years old. Tones are an essential part of the Chinese language because they distinguish what would otherwise be an enormous number of homonyms. Compared to over 8000 syllables in English, there are only about 400 in Mandarin Chinese, the exact number depending on whether exclamations are counted and which dialect is examined. The Chinese syllable, minus tone, contains a maximum of four phonemes as opposed to seven phonemes in English.$ There are 21 initial consonant 38phonemes, including 18 represented by single letters and 3 by two letters, zh, ch, and sh. There are no consonant clusters such as the ”st" in '’states". Most syllables in Mandarin end in vowels, with n and ng being used as final consonants. There are six simple vowels and 13 compound ones. Chinese grammar would seem to pose fewer obstacles to beginning readers than that of English. Verbs do not undergo internal change to indicate tense, as in "has" and "had" in English, nor do nouns undergo internal change to become plural, as in "house" and "houses". There are a limited number of grammatical particles which may be added to indicate tense, possession, passive voice, or adjectival or adverbial phrases.10 The grammar of written Chinese, especially literary works, is somewhat more formal than that of the spoken language. The reading textbooks begin with very colloquial language, and gradually introduce more complex constructions, culminating with the study of classical Chinese in middle school. The relatively small number of grammatical particles needed to read colloquial Chinese allows initial reading vocabulary to consist largely of meaningful nouns and verbs. Pinyin Romanization The information about the phonetics of spoken Mandarin implies that it can be and is represented by letters of the Roman alphabet, as well as by the traditional characters. 39 This is indeed the case. Since the vernacular writing movement in China beginning in 1917, several romanization schemes have been designed and implemented on various scales. The one currently in use in the P.R.C. is pinyin, a phonetic spelling system based on Putonghua. Pinyin uses all the letters used in English except for v, and with the addition of u with an umlaut. Sound values for most consonants are quite similar to those of English, while those for the consonants q, x, z, c, and r and for the vowels are different. Tones are indicated with marks above the vowel sounds which mimic their contours in speech (- ,/,v,\). The current uses of pinyin include indicating character pronunciation in dictionaries and textbooks for Chinese and foreign students, labelling of commercial and industrial products, signs for streets, post offices, railway stations, and some stores, inputting Chinese into computers, and official transcriptions of Chinese person and place names overseas. ’’Beijing" and" Mao Zedong" are pinyin spellings, replacing the spellings "Peking" and "Mao Tse Tung", which resulted from earlier romanization systems. (All personal and place names from the P.R.C. in this thesis are in pinyin, and other Chinese names, such as those of Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas Chinese, are spelled according to their spelling in the source.) Pinyin also plays a role, the extent of which has been a subject of considerable dispute, in teaching children to read Chinese. Urban children often learn pinyin even before first grade, from parents, in kindergarten, and from a television show called "Children Learn Pinyin". Books and magazines aimed at young children which are written in pinyin-annotated characters or pinyin only are readily available at state-run bookstores and private stalls on the street. In first grade, the first six weeks of reading instruction are devoted to pinyin before instruction in characters is begun. Pinyin is much more phonetically regular than English, and teachers report that few children have difficulty mastering it in the allotted time, although it is difficult to teach in an interesting manner because it is abstract. The task is simplified in that most pinyin reading materials for children are printed with syllables separated from each other, because each syllable is represented by a character. This limits the need for blending and facilitates eventual sight recognition of the syllables, of which, as noted previously, there are only about 400. After mastering pinyin, children are able to read and write any word in their oral Putonghua vocabulary. Early mastery of pinyin allows children to begin putting speech into writing through dictation exercises and keeping diaries. As they learn characters, they may use pinyin when they have not yet learned the character for a word they wish to write in their diaries. (The questionnaires I gave to the primary students were written in both characters and pinyin, 41and students were asked to respond as they felt most comfortable. Most of the first-graders used a combination of the two. While their pinyin spelling was not flawless, none had trouble clearly conveying their meaning with it.) Throughout primary school, pinyin is used to indicate the pronunciation of new characters in textbooks. In the first and second grade readers, it is printed directly above the new character the first time it is introduced, and in subsequent readers is paired with the new character in a reference list at the end of the selection. It is also used to a limited extent to indicate the pronunciation for characters students have not yet learned. This allows stories to be more interesting and less restrained by rigid vocabulary control, and avoids burdening children with learning characters of limited use, such as those used to indicate the sounds of foreign names. In addition, the first and second year readers contain several stories written entirely in pinyin-annotated characters, and students at some schools, including Fu Hua, study supplementary texts in which pinyin is printed beneath each character. These classes, of which I observed two, focus on comprehension skills rather than character recognition. Given the ease of learning pinyin, the obvious question that arises is why Chinese characters have not been abandoned, or at least relegated to a more limited role, in favor of using pinyin as a means to mass literacy in China, a largely rural developing country in desperate need of an educated work force. This has in fact been a subject of periodic discussion ever since 1917, and one which has waxed and waned with the political climate. An argument often advanced by conservatives is that the characters play an important role in giving cultural unity to a large, ethnically and linguistically diverse nation. After all, they argue, Chinese speaking mutually unintelligible dialects can communicate with each other in writing, and the works which are the backbones of ancient and modern Chinese culture, such as the Confucian classics and Mao's works, are written in characters. Additionally, poetry and calligraphy based on characters have been highly regarded art forms for thousands of years. There is also considerable nationalistic sentiment against replacing a writing system developed in China with one from the West. As Mao Zedong, who at one point was actually in favor of doing so, pointed out perceptively, "If the Latin alphabet had been invented by the Chinese, probably there would not be any problem. The problem stems from the fact that the foreigners did the inventing and the Chinese did the copying."11 Not only the leadership but much of the populace would probably oppose such reform as well. For thousands of years, literacy has been equated with mastery of several thousand characters. John Downing quotes Cheng Chiao, a Song dynasty encyclopedist: "The world is of the opinion that those who know characters are wise and worthy, whereas those who do not know characters are ignorant and stupid. Combined with the traditional Chinese reverence for education, this has led to a situation in which "The general feeling that only literacy in characters is real literacy has led parents to object to their children learning pinyin."11 DeFrancis cites evidence suggesting that this is the case even for peasants, among whom there is a high rate of illiteracy.14 Perhaps the greatest barrier to expanding the use of pinyin today lies in the attitudes toward reform of both leaders and much of the populace. In 1984, DeFrancis wrote: The prevailing mood appears to be one of widespread cynicism, battle fatigue, and me-firstism that has diminished the interest of many who are already literate in supporting language reform along the lines of earlier years.15 The events of 1989 no doubt strengthened a growing concern with stability rather than potentially destabilizing reforms on the part of the leaders, and possibly many citizens as well. In contrast to the renewal of the language-reform debate during the early 1980's, the quote below from the October 22, 1989 Harbin Daily newspaper succinctly expresses the Chinese government1s current attitude toward language reform: A few days ago, the Society for Research on the Modernization of Chinese Characters, the Beijing Xiaoyuan Institute for Language and Cultural Science and Technology, and other units met for a discussion meeting in the capitol. The experts at the meeting pointed out that "The era of the theory that Chinese characters are backward has passed; the 21st century will be an age in which Chinese characters will be a powerful force." Mr. Yuan Xiaoyuan, a dedicated who has made great contributions to research on China's language and script, feels that the view that "Chinese is backward and difficult to learn; the Latin alphabet is universal" has no foot to stand on. 44Since the Chinese press is essentially a spokespiece for government opinions, it is apparent that any move away from characters and toward increased use of pinyin is, for the moment at least, a dead issue. In other words, for the time being, the literacy learning task will continue to be seen, as it has always been seen, as a matter of mastering the Chinese character-based writing system. Chinese Characters: A Brief Introduction Given that learning to read in China today consists largely of learning to recognize and write characters, important considerations for literacy education include how many characters must be learned for functional literacy, and how those characters convey meaning. The most complete listing of characters in existence, the Kangxi Dictionary from the 1700’s, contains about 47,000. Most of these are no longer used today, and many were rare at the time the dictionary was compiled. Most dictionaries today contain about 8500, with 63 00 being the top number of characters employed in a current publication. Of these, 2400 make up 90% of the characters, and the standard for functional literacy is usually set at 2500-3000 characters.x At this level, at which I am currently, one can get the gist of most articles in a general-interest newspaper or magazine such as People's Daily or the Chinese edition of Reader's Digest and light fiction. However, reading technical, scholarly, . 45or literary works is a laborious task requiring frequent reference to a dictionary. Chinese students are expected to be able to have attained this level of functional literacy upon graduation from primary school, and secondary graduates to be able to read 4,000 to 5,000 characters. The current, nationally adopted reading textbooks introduce a total of 571 characters in first year, 767 in second, 535 in third, 295 in fourth, 231 in fifth, and 173 in sixth, for a total 1 o ,of 2,572. As children reach the upper grades, they must also acquire recognition knowledge of many characters introduced in their content-area textbooks, bringing their total reading vocabulary to around 3,000 characters. From these figures, though, it can clearly be seen that the most intensive instruction in character recognition and writing takes place during the first three years of school. Not surprisingly, the teachers I interviewed uniformly said that these years were the most difficult for children in Chinese class. It is a common misconception that a character is analogous to an English word, and that because each character represents one syllable, Chinese is a monosyllabic language. This misconception contains a grain of truth, as written Chinese is overwhelmingly morphosyllabic. This means that each character is pronounced as a single syllable and represents a single morpheme, a morpheme being the smallest meaningful unit of speech. A morpheme in any language, however, is not necessarily a "word" representing an object or idea. About 44% of Chinese characters represent unbound morphemes, which are meaningful in isolation and may be considered words although they are often combined with other characters to form more words. An example in English would be "work”. Another 45% represent semibound morphemes, which always occur in combination with other morphemes, but can be used with a variety of them. An example in English would be grammatical endings such as "ing". Finally, 11% of characters represent completely bound morphemes which are meaningless in isolation and always occur as part of an expression of two or more characters.19 (For example, "pur" and "pie" in the English word "purple".) "Words" in Chinese may be composed of one to four characters, although all characters are spaced at egual distances in text. Because so many characters are unbound or semibound, it is possible to create many words with a relatively small number of characters. The manner in which Chinese words are composed has a number of implications for the process of learning to read in that language. In modern Chinese, two-character words predominate, so that a reader who recognizes one character may be able to use context cues and draw upon spoken vocabulary to guess the other character. Research has shown that readers can use this strategy to comprehend material containing up to 150% of the characters they recognize by sight.20 This process may be quite difficult for beginning readers, however, as most characters have no single, absolute meaning, but a variety of classical and modern meanings. Which meaning applies varies from word to word. In addition, finding where the word boundaries lie may be a problem, as there are no indicators of this in Chinese script. Lee, Stigler, and Stevenson write: Segmentation is clearly a problem for the novice trying to decode Chinese characters. In English, segmentation is of phonemes within a word; in Chinese, it is segmentation of strings of characters into words.2! Teachers I interviewed said that this characteristic of the written language contributes to a tendency for children to "call characters" and read in an unnatural sing-song, rather than read for meaning. The basic unit of all Chinese characters is the "stroke", a mark made with a continuous motion of pen or brush. Traditional Chinese characters contain from one to 64 strokes, with an average of 9.15 strokes per character. Some of the traditional complex characters were simplified in the P.R.C. by government decree in 1950, reducing the average number of strokes to 7.67.22 Whether this actually simplified the task of character recognition for young readers is debatable. Studies by Hong Kong linguist Che Kan Leong found that the optimum stroke number for character retention was eleven or twelve, plus or minus four strokes. Children had more difficulty remembering characters with fewer than seven strokes, possibly because the number of contrastive elements had been reduced.22 Strokes include various kinds of dots, lines, and hooks. There is a proper 48order and direction in which to write the strokes of a character, and a way to balance and position the various elements of a character within uniform spaces. A single stroke often changes the meaning of a character, or renders it meaningless. Correct writing of characters demands a strong visual memory, attention to detail, spatial sense, and visual-motor coordination. Teachers note that children's ability to recognize characters is often far in advance of their ability to write them correctly from memory. Another popular misconception about Chinese characters is that the shape of each of the several thousand which students must learn is completely arbitrary and bears no discernible relationship to its sound or meaning, or that all Chinese characters are "pictographs" or "ideographs". This is not, in fact, the case for the vast majority of characters. Approximately 1.3% of characters may be classified as pictographic. Pictographs are based on pictures of objects which have become stylized over time. The meaning of such characters can sometimes be guessed without prior study, but still needs to be memorized. Another 0.4% are classified as "simple indicative" characters. These use conventionalized designs to convey an abstract idea such as "one" or "up", and are sometimes called "ideographs". Another category is the "compound indicatives", which comprise 1.3% of characters. The meanings of these characters are derived from the 49combination of their constituent parts. For example, the pictographs for "sun" and "moon" combine to form the character for "bright". A very small number of characters are derived from the phonetic loan principle, in which a word is represented by a picture of an object whose name resembles the word when spoken. Most significantly, 97% of modern characters are phonetic compounds, which contain both a phonetic element based on the phonetic loan principle which provides a key to the character's pronunciation, and a pictographic or ideographic semantic element, which provides a clue to the character's meaning.24 Neither of these elements usually provides more than a helpful hint to the character's modern pronunciation or meaning. DeFrancis judges the relationship between the semantic component and the meaning of the character as a whole to be identical in 1% of phonetic compound characters, "clear but imprecise" in 22.3%, "less clear and even less precise" in 27.1%, and "none or obscure" in 46.6%. He judges the relationship between the clue provided by the phonetic component and the actual pronunciation of the character to be identical 24.2% of the time, "identical except possibly for tones" 16.5%, "useful similarity for segmental phonemes" (syllables disregarding tones) 23.3% and "no useful similarity" 33%.25 Once one understands how most Chinese characters represent sound and meaning, it becomes easier to view reading Chinese as a psycholinguistic guessing game much like reading English. The skilled reader identifies most characters on sight, and uses syntactic, semantic, and graphophonic clues to guess unknown ones. The process, as I've experienced it, is as follows: The first strategy is to guess the meaning from the context of the word, sentence or text. If context cues are insufficient, the reader goes to the phonetic and identifies it, asking "Do I know a word that sounds like ”" that would make sense here?" The reader can also make use of the radical and ask "Do I know a word that has something to do with and sounds like "” that would make sense here?" Chinese college students told me that this was the strategy they used in guessing unknown characters, but it is a difficult one to use until one has a strong grasp of the structure of the written language and a large oral vocabulary. DeFrancis concurs: Skilled native speakers and readers of a language will naturally enjoy a huge advantage in this elaborate guessing game in comparison to unskilled native readers and struggling foreign students, whose limited knowledge of vocabulary, structures, content, and other aspects of written matter means that for them redundancy may be minimal or nonexistent. The ability to play this game, crucial to becoming an independent reader in any language, develops gradually during the primary years. Several studies, such as that conducted by Rozin, Poritsky and Sotsky in 1971, have suggested that initial learning of Chinese characters may be easier for young children than English words or letter 2 ysounds. This is particularly true if the characters are visually distinct and highly meaningful. An advantage of Chinese for young learners is that each written symbol maps to a spoken syllable rather than a single phoneme as it does in English. Sheridan cites studies which indicate that although five and six year olds can easily count the number of syllables in a word, many cannot count the number of phonemes in a word, or identify rhyming words. This is significant for those interested in reading instruction in English: The emphasis on phonics as a means of beginning reading instruction requires a metalinguistic ability to reflect on the isolated sounds of a language apparently beyond the developmental or conceptual abilities of some young learners.28 Chinese parents show an intuitive grasp of this. None of those I interviewed indicated that they began home instruction of their preschoolers with pinyin, but with simple characters representing concrete objects from their daily lives. The advantages of Chinese for the young learner break down as the child is required to learn an ever-increasing number of characters, including those with confusing visual and phonetic similarities. The following are responses given by the Fu Hua teachers in response to the question: What is the most difficult aspect of Chinese for beginning readers? The same character may be pronounced in different ways and have different meanings depending on the context. A character with a single pronunciation may have several . 52meanings, the relevant one of which must be deduced from the context. Different characters may have the same pronunciation but different meanings. Characters may differ visually from each other in ways difficult for young children to distinguish. Confronted with increasing character loads and the abstract nature of the Chinese writing system, children can no longer rely on rote memory, but must develop new learning strategies which depend on an awareness of the structure of the language. It is not surprising that this is difficult for some children. Stevenson’s cross-cultural comparison of reading achievement found that similar percentages of fifth­ graders in Taiwan, Japan, and the United States were at least two years behind grade level (7.5%, 5.4%, and 6.3%, • 9 Qrespectively). Until children have grasped these new strategies, their rate of character acquisition is quite slow, usually three or four characters a day for first graders and five or six thereafter. This necessitates material written with tight vocabulary control. Zhang Zhigong comments poignantly on this situation: Before they surpass the 500 character threshold, children have to read materials that are very poorly written and far below their language ability, their intelligence, their desire to learn. The content of this reading is not only uninteresting to children, but a disaster... During this period, the frustration experienced by the poor children.in terms of their psychological, personality, and intellectual development is both difficult to observe and beyond measure.30 Many of the teaching methods described in the following chapter, particularly the increased use of pinyin in beginning reading, are attempts to resolve this problem. Ultimately, however, the only way to attain full literacy in any language is to gain a working knowledge of the structure of the written language. As will be seen in the next chapter, primary school language instruction is explicitly directed towards familiarizing children with the "vocabulary, structures, content, and other aspects of written matter" needed for them to become skilled players of the psycholinguistic guessing game of reading for meaning. 54 NOTES 1 Shanghai, Zhejiang, Beijing, and Tianjin Joint Writing Group for the Design of Educational Materials, "Six-Year Elementary School Language Program: Character, Word, Sentence, Article; Listen, Speak, Read, Write," Chinese Education 18 (1985):87. 2 Jan L. Tucker and Eugene Gilliom, "Education in China Today: Social and Moral Preparation for the Year 2000," Social Education 48 (May 1984):314. o . . . .Shanghai, Zhejiang, Beijing, and Tianjin Joint Writing Group for the Design of Educational Materials, "Six-Year Elementary School Language Program," p. 88. 4 John DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984), pp. 34, 67. 5 Ibid., p. 66. 6 Ibid., p. 63. 7 Ibid., p. 65. 8 Ibid., p. 211. 9 Ibid., p. 42. 10 Zhang Zhigong, "Chinese Characters and Reading: An Outline," Chinese Education 18 (1985):45. 11 DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, p. 263. I2 Downing, Comparative Reading, p. 105. 13 DeFrancis, The Chinese Language:_ Fact and Fantasy , p. 273. 14 Ibid., 15 Ibid., 16 "Hanyu [Chinese Language and Chinese CharactersForce in the 21st century], Harbin Ribao [Harbin Daily], 22 October 1989. p. 273. p. 274. Hanzi Jiang Zai Ershiyi Shiji Fahui Wuli," Shanye Jiang and Bo Li, "A Glimpse at Reading Instruction55 m China, Reading Teacher 38 (March 1982):764. 18 Obtained from the new character lists at the back of each reader. 19 •DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, p. 185. 9 0 •Zhang, ’’Chinese Characters and Reading: An Outline,’’ p. 49. 91 • •Shm-ying Lee, James W. Stigler, and Harold W. Stevenson, ’’Beginning Reading in Chinese and English,” in Orthographies and Reading: Perspectives from Cognitive Psychology, Neuropsychology, and Linguistics, ed. Leslie Henderson (London and Hillsdale, N.J.:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1984.), p. 126. 22 DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasty, p. 260. 23 Che Kan Leong, "Chapter 18: Hong Kong," in Comparative Reading, ed. John Downing, p. 203. 24 Figures from DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, p. 129. 25 Ibid., p. 129. 26 Ibid., p. 130. 27 Paul Rozin, Susan Poritsky, and Raina Sotsky, "American Children with Reading Problems Can Easily Learn to Read English Represented by Chinese Characters," Science 171 (March 1971):1262-1267. 28 Marcia E. Sheridan, "Reading Disabilities: Can We Blame the Written Language?" Journal of Learning Disabilities 16 (February 1983):83. 29 Harold W. Stevenson et al., "Reading Disabilities: The Case of Chinese, Japanese, and English," Child—Deve1opment 53 (October 1982):1173. 30 Zhang, "Chinese Characters and Reading: An Outline," p. 51. CHAPTER 4: CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT AND TEACHING METHODS 56 Classroom Management One of the most striking aspects of a Chinese primary classroom to the Western visitor is the apparent rarity of serious discipline problems and the disciplined and businesslike but cheerful atmosphere which pervades the classrooms of skilled teachers there. A well-managed classroom in which both teachers and students can focus their energies on learning rather than discipline and procedural matters is crucial to the success of any teaching strategy. I was curious as to how my Chinese counterparts viewed classroom management, so several of my interview questions dealt with this topic. The physical setup of the room often gives a clue to a teacher’s attitudes about learning and management. All of the classrooms I saw in China featured minimal, simple decorations, in contrast to the multiplicity of bulletin boards, posters, maps, shelves, and learning centers commonly seen in U.S. classrooms. It was clear that the visual focus of the room was the front, where the teacher stood. Teachers make extensive use of the peer group for reinforcement and management purposes. Two children are selected as class leaders during the weekly class meetings, and they are responsible for leading greetings and farewells to the teacher, and quieting the class at the beginning of a lesson. There are also row leaders who are responsible for seeing that their group is ready to begin the lesson. Class leaders meet with the teacher to discuss any problems perceived by teacher or students, and these are resolved through a discussion with the leaders and the students involved, or at a class meeting. The primary use of the peer group in management, however, is to provide reinforcement for appropriate behavior and academic achievement. Teachers often ask their class to respond in unison to the question, ’’Did he/she answer correctly/well?” This is almost always used to reinforce correct answers, rather than draw undue attention to incorrect ones. Teachers also encourage students to praise peers who have made academic or social progress. Catherine C.S. Lewis, writing about the similar use of peer- group management in Japanese schools, theorizes that peer reinforcement reduces the need for teachers to make behavioral demands on students, allowing them to appear as more benevolent figures, and acts as a ’’natural consequence" to facilitate positive behavior change, while peer criticism poses less of a threat to a child's identity as a good child, thus enhancing the child's willingness to obey rules.1 Teachers themselves deliver a lot of praise as well. The first grade teacher told me: Praise is much more effective than criticism. I give . praise, to the whole class as well as individuals. Praising very good answers makes students happy, more willing to think hard and volunteer to answer questions. I give them Little Red Flowers for the best characters they write in their homework. I especially praise progress. Children who have made progress in schoolwork or behavior are praised during class meetings. I also write notes to parents. The whole family and often the neighbors know that the child is making progress, so he feels very good about himself. When praise fails, teachers have a variety of techniques to fall back on. Some inappropriate, nondisruptive behavior is simply ignored. Teachers may call upon, walk in front of, or give "the look" to an inattentive or disruptive student. Songs and clapping games are used to focus restless classes. Students who fight on the playground are separated, often by the P.E. teacher, then must discuss their problems with a teacher and be, as a teacher told me, "reeducated". Teachers also make some use of competition to motivate children academically and behaviorally. A standard item in the Chinese school is the Little Red Flowers chart. These are awarded to individual children in a classroom for academic effort and good behavior, and to classes for cleaning duties, enthusiastic participation in activities, and other desirable group behaviors. Formal and informal competition over Little Red Flowers takes place. Membership in the Young Pioneers is also a motivation for children to behave well and progress academically. Members are chosen for working hard at their studies, having a positive attitude, and helping others. About half of the students in a class are selected by the end of first grade, and nearly all by the end of third grade. There are small group, class, and schoolwide Young Pioneer activities. In small groups and classes, Young Pioneers study revolutionary history and traditions, and contribute their own abilities through service projects. Groups also prepare songs, dances, and decorations for holidays such as National Day and Teacher's Day. The whole school participates in activities such as Art Day, Calligraphy Day, Games and Sports Day, field trips, and labor projects like sweeping snow or moving cabbages. Competition is used to varying degrees to motivate academic achievement. In all the classrooms I visited, a common exhortation was, "Let's see who can read/write/speak the best!" In only one case did I see this followed up by a judgement on who had actually been the best. At the rural school, achievement charts with students' marks for each subject were prominently displayed in each classroom, as well as in the teachers' room. The first grade teacher told me that this was formerly done at Fu Hua, but it discouraged the poor students and the practice was discontinued. Sometimes, though, she writes the names of students who get 100% on their homework on the board. Percentage-based grades for academics, behavior, and "thought", as well as class rankings are computed twice each term and given to parents. All the children I talked to knew theirs well, so there is 6 0 no doubt competition in this sphere, whether or not teachers directly encourage it in their classroom. The use of competition as a motivator is in contrast to more cooperative techniques also used, such as peer tutoring and group reinforcement for correct answers. Because students are required to cover curriculum at a uniform rate, there is some sense that everyone is "in it together". However, cooperative activities such as those typical of Japanese primary schools were not observed. With the renewed interest in science, technology, and economic development, and the opening of new opportunities for a limited number of students in these fields, the cooperation is only a thin veneer over the ruthless competition which prompted one Chinese child to tell Ann-Ping Chin: "I don't really have any good friend. I feel the competition in our school has an effect on friendship.'"6 Teaching Methods: General Comments Teaching methods for reading and other subjects in the Chinese primary school are strongly influenced by traditional views of education, centrally determined standards for curriculum, and large class sizes. As a result of the need to move through a set curriculum at a prescribed pace, Chinese students spend much more time than U.S. students do in teacher-led activities, especially receiving information from the teacher. In Stevenson's study, Chinese students were engaged in teacher-led activities more than 6190% of the time, and spent 2 6 hours per week receiving information from a teacher, compared to less than 50% and 6 hours for American students.3 Despite having less input into curricular decisions than their American counterparts, some Chinese teachers do push themselves to present the material imaginatively in ways relevant to the students' lives and interests. Teachers are free to follow the detailed teacher's guide provided with each textbook, modify the lesson plans presented there, or devise their own methods and activities, as long as the specified objectives are accomplished. The first grade teacher explained that teachers can also create objectives to extend children beyond the basic requirements listed in the teacher's guide. She likes to encourage children to express their thoughts, and incorporates opportunities for this into her teaching. She also makes her own supplementary materials, such as pictures, slides, flash cards, math manipulatives, and transparencies. I watched one day as she taught a masterful reading lesson on the sun, moon, and earth, showing their rotation on an overhead, calling students up to the front of the room to "rotate" around her, and asking students to share their questions on the solar system. However, I also observed less imaginative teachers who stuck closely to the teacher's guide and traditional methods of memorization and recitation. Despite her obvious talents, the first grade teacher, like all the others I observed, directed her instruction toward the group as a whole rather than individuals. This is because all students are expected to master the material prescribed for the grade level. Chinese education has, from ancient times, stressed the mastery of a set body of content rather than the needs of the individual learner or the creative expression of the student's own ideas. The teachers I observed overwhelmingly favored what, in the U.S., would be called whole—class direct instruction. When translated, a lesson plan from the teacher's guide, or even a transcript of the highly creative lesson I observed, would be readily comprehensible to an American educator trained in the direct instruction or Instructional Theory Into Practice (ITIP) model. Objectives, teaching time, and materials are clearly stated. Lessons follow a highly structured format of daily review, statement of the objective (often, in classic ITIP style, the lesson topic is written on the board), motivational set, modelling, guided practice with feedback, and closure. Very little class time is devoted to independent or cooperative student work. Instruction is a continuous dialogue, with the teacher rarely speaking for more than 30 seconds before stopping to check understanding by reguiring a response. Responses are made in unison unless a teacher calls on an individual student, and students are trained from kindergarten in oral responding. The lesson pace is fast, and students can afford few lapses in attention. If it becomes apparent that students are having difficulty, the teacher reteaches or provides more cues, often through a fading process. She may read a passage loudly with the class the first time, then more softly, then let the class read on its own. At times, individual children are called upon to read or answer questions, usually several per question, even if all give the same answer. Students appear to enjoy participating (loudly) in unison response, and vie for the chance to stand and answer individually. In the classes I observed, students who gave incorrect answers were asked to sit down, and another student called upon to give the correct answer. The teacher then returned to the original student and asked him to give the correct answer in his own words. Nearly all students sounded confident, even when they were wrong, and throughout the lesson the atmosphere remained businesslike and upbeat. The lack of independent practice in class is made up for by homework assigned on a daily basis. In reading, this may consist of writing new characters, exercises in the book, or compositions. The amount assigned by teachers is usually quite minimal in the primary grades, although all students have homework over school vacations. Homework is intended to be done unaided by the child, although some receive help from parents or complete it after school with peers or in a tutoring class. It is checked on a daily basis. Contrary to the popular image of Chinese education, homework at the primary level appears to be mainly parent- 64inflicted. Teachers at Fu Hua reported that the official policy is to assign a few minutes of work for first and second graders, thirty minutes to third and fourth graders, and an hour to fifth and sixth graders. However, only one student I questioned indicated that he did very little homework (ten min.). The others gave responses ranging from 45 minutes to two hours per night, with an average of 71 minutes. These initially baffling discrepancies were also reported in studies by Stevenson and his colleagues.4 They in fact occur because many parents give their children large amounts of homework. Home workbooks are a booming industry in urban China, with parents spending hard-earned money on tomes such as One Story a Dav, Teach Your Child to Write Prize-Winning Compositions, and Chinese Review for First-Graders. Tutoring by parents is only one of several options available for children to receive individualized academic attention outside the regular classroom. Most classes at Fu Hua have an after-school tutorial class for pupils in need of extra assistance. Teachers may recommend that a child attend, but the decision is left up to child and parent. Many good students attend the class as a matter of course, since their parents can't pick them up from school until 5 or 6 PM, and don't want them home alone. In the tutorial class, students can get help with homework, and reteaching is given to individuals or groups as needed. During class, 65students are paired in a ’’buddy system”, and expected to help each other academically and behaviorally. Students in need of enrichment can partake of the offerings at Children's Palaces in most major cities. These offer advanced instruction in subjects such as math, science, art, drama, music, athletics, and languages to those who qualify through tests, auditions, and parental connections. Some children also take private lessons in music, art, or languages, often from coll