On the Essence of Literature Education in Primary and Secondary Schools

Analysis on the orientation of literature education in primary and secondary schools 1. "Chinese" should refer to "language", "literature", "language" and "literature" should include all kinds of works composed of language and words, and literary works are naturally included. However, some people think that the vast majority of primary and secondary school students learn Chinese to meet the needs of communication, and it is enough to write narrative, practical, explanatory and argumentative essays. Of course, this opinion is also reasonable. The content of Chinese course should be simple, the goal should be clear, and it should not be too complicated. According to this design, if the content of Chinese class is limited to language reading and writing, writing and practical writing, it is necessary for us to set up another literature class to meet the needs of literature education. Literature is not a luxury, and its educational function cannot be ignored. So my point is that Chinese mainly refers to language and literature, which is more appropriate. It takes language as the carrier, mainly takes excellent literary works at all times and all over the world as model essays, and extends to non-literary articles in style and culture in connotation. This orientation of Chinese is in line with the general trend of attaching importance to literature education and humanistic quality education at home and abroad.

2. The content of Chinese education includes language education and literature education.

We believe that the content of Chinese education includes two parts: language education and literature education, which cannot replace each other. The task of literature education is to make students understand life, feel fate, experience pain and happiness from literary works, and stimulate their interest and love for literature. Literature classes should focus on domestic literature and give consideration to foreign literature. Teachers should guide students to read and appreciate Chinese and foreign literary works, make students love literary works, have a full evaluation and correct understanding of Chinese and foreign literature, and make students be influenced by the descriptions of characters, environment, their lives and struggles in the works, and develop noble personality. The task of language education is to make students understand the law of language, correctly master and use this law, and speak and write correctly. Through language teaching, students can love the language of their motherland and strive for perfection.

Language and literature should be classified.

During the period of 1956- 1958, China briefly implemented the teaching of Chinese education in different subjects. At that time, the reason of teaching in different subjects originated from the discussion on the poor quality of Chinese education in practice. Although the attempt of subject teaching failed for various reasons, this idea of subject teaching still has practical significance today.

First of all, the current teaching methods and teaching organization forms of Chinese subject are specially designed for Chinese education. At present, the basic method of Chinese teaching organization in China is unit teaching method. The biggest feature of unit teaching method is that it realizes the stage and order of teaching and can gradually realize the established teaching objectives in a planned way. Unit teaching method is a more suitable method for traditional classroom teaching, and it is most suitable for discipline teaching with relatively complete discipline system structure, knowledge accumulation and skill requirements from shallow to deep, and a clearly established quantitative target system, just like language teaching. However, middle school literature education is not completely suitable for unit teaching method. The goals of literary education, such as improving the ability of literary appreciation and cultivating humanistic spirit, can only be qualitative goals, and it is impossible to quantify the target system in terms of vocabulary and grammar like language teaching. Unit teaching method emphasizes standardization, unity and high efficiency, which is very suitable for language teaching. Literature education emphasizes students' subjectivity and individuality, students' comprehension and teachers' guidance. One of its main goals is to lay a foundation for the formation of students' literary literacy and humanistic literacy, and it is impossible to achieve any goal immediately through teaching. In this case, it is not appropriate to take a step back with the unit teaching method. Even if the teaching organization form of Chinese subject education is perfect and effective, the content and methods of Chinese education can not fully meet the requirements of literature education, because Chinese education focuses on the basic requirements of Chinese teaching. Therefore, the author believes that literature education and Chinese education in middle schools should maintain their relative independence.

Secondly, "the new concept of language makes literature education no longer rely solely on language education." Literature is the art of language. Traditional literature studies understand the relationship between language and literature from rhetoric, expression, skills and means. It is believed that the significance of language to literature is mainly reflected in its conveying function, and language is the medium and material used by literature to shape artistic images and convey aesthetic consciousness. With the development of linguistics in the 20th century, people began to re-recognize and evaluate the position of language in literary activities. Once language is produced, it is advanced for later individuals. Individuals must learn the language before using it. However, language is not a simple accumulation of words, nor a meaningless symbol, nor a reference code of things. Language is the precipitation of national culture and history, and the accumulation of predecessors' experience and psychology. The process of people learning and accepting a language is actually the process of learning and being assimilated by a culture. People's feelings, understanding and knowledge of things are inevitably influenced by language and cultural connotations. Language becomes the intermediary between man and the world, and human understanding of reality is often formed with the participation of language and culture. Therefore, language must not be used as a tool. The significance of language lies in its influence on people's understanding of the world.

Modern literary theory transcends the "instrumentalism" category of language, studies language in the category of "literary ontology", pays attention to the role of language in the composition of literary ontology, and emphasizes that language does not appear at the stage of conveying thoughts and feelings, but restricts the writer's feelings and understanding of life from the beginning, and restricts his cultivation and shaping of images. Therefore, modern literary theory regards clarifying language as a necessary prerequisite for discussing the existence, development, nature and characteristics of literature. The new view of language has greatly deepened the understanding of the relationship between literature and language in the study of literary theory. The study of Russian formalism, British and American new criticism, structuralist poetics and narratology has brought us a series of new terms, concepts and theories, such as "defamiliarization" theory, new formalism, ambiguity, irony, context, "literature's meaningless false statement" and "poetry is a systematic deviation from grammatical rules". All these reveal the relationship between language and literature from one side. From the perspective of language communication, the contradiction between words and meanings runs through the whole literary creation and literary acceptance. The writer's creation is not only using language, but also constantly resisting the bondage and shielding of language. In this kind of confrontation, new languages will be created, or everyday languages will be artistically treated, resulting in brand-new effects. Language education is to let the educated accept the established vocabulary, grammar rules and language habits, and learn to use them to express and communicate. A fundamental requirement of literature is to break through their bondage and coverage in established vocabulary, grammatical rules and language habits.

In addition, although language research is an important part of literary research, in fact, the scope of literary research is far more than that, such as psychoanalytic criticism and cultural criticism, which are often not directly related to language, or just take language analysis as a means, and the core and focus of research are not here. Moreover, in the current literary theory research, although language research is important, it is by no means in the most important position. Even if we study literary language, we seldom simply study language forms, but most of them permeate, intersperse and carry rich ideological and cultural connotations.

Second, the connotation of literature education in primary and secondary schools

There are many understandings of the connotation of literature education in primary and secondary schools, and there are roughly the following viewpoints, which are necessary to be analyzed.

1. thinks that literature education is China's aesthetic education.

Zhang Yonghao and Zhou Junping, in their book Induction and Shaping ―― On Chinese Aesthetic Education, believe that Chinese aesthetic education is a kind of cultural and visualized emotional education, which is mainly carried out through literature education, ignoring literature education and fundamentally denying Chinese aesthetic education. This is understood by taking literature education as the main body of Chinese aesthetic education. This idea of combining literature education with China's aesthetic education is undoubtedly enlightening, but due to the lack of scientific definition of the connotation of literature education at first, this kind of research lacks the depth it deserves, and sometimes even blurs the relationship between them. In "Induction and Shaping ―― On Chinese Aesthetic Education", Zhang and Zhou also distinguished the difference between Chinese aesthetic education and literary education from the aspects of implementation means, scope and nature of aesthetic education, and thought that Chinese aesthetic education is richer than literary education and can be implemented through non-literary images other than literary images. Besides literature, the scope of implementation also includes language and articles. Literature education is purely aesthetic in essence, but it is difficult for China's aesthetic education to completely surpass practicality. However, as mentioned above, because there is no scientific definition of the connotation of literature education as a reference, all this analysis is still somewhat hazy. For example, literary education is a purely aesthetic theory, which is debatable. From the overall system of Chinese education, the basic functional characteristics of literature education are integration, integration of all kinds of knowledge, integration of basic knowledge and skills, and integration of the harmonious development of cultural literacy and personality construction.

2. Think that literature education is literature teaching practice.

In most of the articles I have seen discussing literature education, there is indeed a phenomenon that these two concepts are not strictly distinguished or even replaced each other. However, if we think that literature education is literature teaching, I am afraid it is not simple. First of all, "education" and "teaching" are concepts of superiors and subordinates, which are related but more different. Advocate literature education, emphasize the educational purpose and effectiveness of literature education, and highlight the basic characteristics of literature education that pay attention to the development of non-intellectual factors and the integration of personality construction, and the main way to achieve this goal is literature education. Secondly, the concept of literature education, as an educational thought, can enrich and supplement the Chinese educational thought at a higher level, play a role in backwashing, adjusting and integrating the traditional "two-basic" teaching, and create an ideal implementation space for the good development of quality education and innovative education in the new period. To realize this function, literature teaching will not cancel the traditional "double-base" teaching, but will comprehensively optimize the Chinese teaching system with its integration and promote the good state of the whole education system.

3. Think that literature education is the education of literature appreciation ability.

Some commentators take "cultivating students' preliminary literary appreciation ability" in the Chinese syllabus as an argument, and think that literature education is the education of literary appreciation ability. It is true that cultivating students' literary appreciation ability is definitely an important goal of literary education, but the important goal is not the only goal, let alone the ultimate goal. Literature education centers on language learning and aims to integrate students' ability development and personality construction. We can't simply think that literature education is the education of literature appreciation ability, which contains much more content than this. Like aesthetic education, it is actually an education of world outlook and outlook on life, not just a skill education. 1956' s literature syllabus divides the teaching objectives of literature education into two categories when Chinese and literature are divided into subjects: "one is the education task, that is, the education of literature and language literacy, and the other is the education of ideology and morality". This is also the implementation and embodiment of the traditional teaching principle of the integration of Chinese and Taoism in Chinese teaching in China.

(Editor Ren Hongyu)