New curriculum, text books as Chinese schools start academic year

More Chinese

The Chinese textbooks for primary schools have added more traditional Chinese articles and poems, 129 in total. In three-year junior high schools, students will learn 132 ancient Chinese articles.

The articles were selected from classic prose, essays, historical records and poetry dating back to the Han, Tang and Song dynasties. Students are required to learn how to make rhyming couplets.

Some parents questioned the added emphasis on classical Chinese, which is no longer in use. Others welcomed it as a wise decision.

"At a time of fast pace, many people, with a mind to utilitarianism, seem to have lost the ability to enjoy the aesthetics of language, literature and life," said Wei Jing, mother of a first-grader.

"I think it is pretty clear that the revised textbooks on Chinese, ethics and law, and history in primary and middle school embody China's national consciousness, legal awareness and the passing on of Chinese traditional culture," said Shen Lin, a textbook researcher with the Guangdong Academy of Education.

He said the more students were be immersed in Chinese classics and history, the better that they could understand how peace was restored in China through revolutionary history.

Although the topics are serious, contents are presented in a simple and lively way.

"The new illustrated Chinese textbooks are very lovely and favored by both teachers and students," said Du Bei, a Chinese teacher in No. 2 Fruit Lake Primary School in Hubei. She said that her school had launched several rounds of teacher training to help them prepare for the new textbooks.