Liu Yirong holds the view that Chinese culture is educable. Learning culture can be realized in the process of learning language, so that the education of Chinese language is vital and important. Through understanding the ancient Chinese language, the traditional values will be digested by learners at the same time. The process of culture study is as well the process of establishing cultural identification (Liu Yirong, 2009: 253).文献综述
With the above-mentioned views and thoughts, it can be concluded that the process of establishing cultural identification is the process of culture learning, and because of the close relationship between culture learning and language learning, we can say that the practical way of establishing cultural identification is to accept a systematic education of the target language. As a result, in this paper, the research and study about Chinese traditional culture identification is carried out practically by researching the situation of Chinese education in current primary and secondary schools.
2 Research Design And Methodology
2.1 Research Questions
As has been mentioned above, Chinese traditional culture have experienced a tough time in modern times. It is a fact that the restructuring work of Chinese traditional culture never stops, but the crisis and challenges never disappear either. Although an increasing number of Chinese people start to realize the importance of Chinese traditional culture and cultural identification, what the reality of Chinese primary and secondary school education is like and what the current students’ and parents’ thoughts towards traditions is like are worth investigating. Also, whether those students who are or have been experiencing the contemporary Chinese culture education can understand and master the essence of Chinese classical thoughts is also worthy of investigation. As a result, this paper is to explore and research the following questions:
1 What is the current situation of traditional cultural education (represented by Chinese education) in primary schools?
2 What is the Chinese primary and middle school students’ perception of traditional Chinese thoughts?
3 How is the situation of Chinese primary and middle school students’ cultural identification?
Based on the three above-mentioned questions, an empirical investigation is carried out to find answers. The process of finding answers to the three questions is possibly the correct way leading to the improvement of Chinese traditional culture education.
2.2 Methodology
2.2.1 Sample Selection
The empirical investigation is developed in Nanjing Confucius Temple Primary School. The school was chosen for several reasons. First of all, the environment and traditional atmosphere of the school is unique. The primary school is located at the central part of Confucius Temple area, and is just next to the Great Hall of Confucius Temple. The Confucius Temple area has been the main humanist and cultural centre of the city for hundreds of years, and is also one of the centres of Confucianism. The unique location and 100-year history of the primary school influence the students a lot so that they should have better understandings towards Confucianism and other typical Chinese traditional cultures. Secondly, every grade one student in Confucius Temple Primary School will attend a special opening ceremony on their first school day. The ceremony is hold in front of the Great Hall of Confucius Temple. On the ceremony, students learn to write Chinese character “人”, which means people, and read sentences from the Analects together. There is also a traditional rite on which the teachers dot cinnabar on each student’s brow to show that the students’ learning careers have already begun. Last but not least, Confucius Temple Primary School is one of the top elementary schools in Nanjing, whose teaching level and quality of students are suitable enough to be the sample of the investigation.来~自^751论+文.网www.751com.cn/