论文总字数：44201字

摘 要

高中英语教学的成败在很大程度上取决于阅读课堂教学是否成功。可是当前英语阅读教学的模式化，使得学生被动地局限于文本知识的浅层学习，缺少自主探索的机会，缺乏创新精神。因此，将博雅教育理念引进英语课堂来培育具有良好人文素养的受教育者成为当务之急。为了促进我国高中英语教学的可持续发展，本文基于博雅教育视野，从文本细读、批判性阅读以及探索性写作三方面分析在高中英语阅读教学中育培育学生人文素养的可能性。所以，在高中英语阅读教学中运用博雅教育，有利于教师促进学生对文本的深层次解读，最终为社会培养“完整的人”。

关键词：博雅教育; 细读；批判性思维；探索性写作；人文素养

Contents

1. Introduction....................................................................................................1
2. Literature Review...........................................................................................2

2.1 Related studies on liberal education abroad....................................................2

2.2 Related studies on liberal education at home..................................................3

2.3 Comments on the previous studies..................................................................5

3. Liberal Education and English Reading Teaching.......................................5

3.1 An introduction to liberal education................................................................6

3.2 An introduction to English reading teaching...................................................7

3.3 An introduction to senior high school English reading teaching based on the perspective of liberal education............................................................................8

4. Reasons for Conducting Liberal Education in Senior High School English Reading Teaching.................................................................................................9

4.1 Development features of senior high school students.....................................9

4.2 On English reading materials........................................................................12

5. Application of Liberal Education in Senior High School English Reading Teaching..............................................................................................................12

5.1 Close reading.................................................................................................13

5.2 Critical thinking.............................................................................................13

5.3 Exploratory writing.......................................................................................14

6. Conclusion......................................................................................................15

Works Cited.......................................................................................................17

1. Introduction

It is well known that, reading teaching is an important part of English teaching in senior high schools. English reading is not only an important way for students to store up English knowledge, but also the essential prerequisite for students to output language. However, in this era of information explosion, in order to comply with the higher requirements of the society for talents, the English Curriculum Standard of General High School has been constantly reformed, and the teaching tasks are gradually centering on "strengthening morality education" and "key competences in subjects". In the standard (Version 2017 ) drafted by Ministry of Education in China, it explicitly indicates that “The overall goal of English curriculum in high schools is to fully implement the party’s education policy, cultivate and practise the socialist core values and carry out the fundamental task of strengthening morality education. On the basis of Compulsory Education, teachers should further promote the development of English core literacy and cultivate socialist builders and successors with Chinese feelings, international perspective and cross-culture communication ability.”(Minister 5) According to this, we can see that pure textual knowledge learning can’t satisfy students’ own development needs and also the requirements of society for talents. Great attention of English teaching should be devoted to the cultivation of students’ mental ability and morality education to lighten the phenomenon of excessive pursuit of examination-oriented education.

But at present, the English reading teaching situation in high schools is not optimistic, which mainly is reflected in that a few teachers still follow a traditional teaching mode. Although the new English teaching materials are equipped with so many advantages such as abundant contents, distinct features of our time and reasonable designs in line with the characteristics of students’ reading psychology and interests. But in the actual English teaching, most teachers fail to take full advantage of the reading materials. They just stop their teaching at the level of explaining the vocabulary, grammar and sentences in the text and devote much time to emphasizing the importance and necessity of reading skill training and strategy guide. In the contemporary society, what’s more important is that teachers should promote in-depth analysis of text to cultivate students’ mental ability.

Based on this background, our nation should introduce a more strong and effective educational idea to change the status quo. Thus, I highly recommend liberal education for its numerous successful application in foreign countries and our home. “The training goal of liberal education is to let educatees possess enriched knowledge and outstanding humanities manners, to a certain extent, humanistic quality is more important.”(Li 151) Humanistic quality in English teaching mainly refers to that “English teachers introduce humanistic customs and humanistic literacy and quality students need to have in the process of teaching, so that students can shape a correct outlook on life and values.”(Xiao 143) Actually, the research about liberal education has a very long history. We can trace it back to Aristotle’s discussion on liberal education in ancient Greece, while the educational thought “seven arts” in the mediaeval West is the inheritance of liberal education. During Spring and Autumn Warring States period in China, the educational contents of “erudition and tenacity” and “six arts” advocated by Confucianism also have the connotation of liberal education. The information above shows clearly that the educational concept about human nature should be perfected.

This paper analyzes the possibility of cultivating students’ humanistic quality through three aspects: close reading, critical reading and exploratory writing.

1. Literature Review

As early as ancient Greece, Plato, Aristotle and other scholars brought up some ideas similar with the concept of liberal education. In the West, liberal education has a very long history and numerous schools; In China, although the concept of liberal education is not raised clearly, there is no lack of practice of liberal education. However, with a large number of successful application in European countries and the United States, more and more domestic scholars and educators have been attracted to this educational idea, and also written a lot of articles about liberal education.

2.1 Related studies on liberal education abroad

The idea of liberal education can date back to the ancient Greek period over two thousand years ago. In their pedagogical writings, ancient Greek scholars such as Cicero, guy, Seneca, and Tacitus used the term "artes liberals" or "ingenuae artes" to express the meaning of “free craftsmanship” or “free discipline”. But during this period, Aristotle was the person who described liberal education in the most details. His thoughts on liberal education are concentrated in his book The Politics.

In the Middle Ages, liberal education began to transform from idea to practice. At that time, “artes liberales” became the most popular educational term, meaning “free art” or “free discipline”. Among them, “seven arts of freedom” has become a classical curriculum model and an institutionalized form of education. The origin of seven arts can be originated to Plato in ancient Greece. “Seven arts, as the teaching content, highlights the educational idea that human nature should be improved and perfected. It enables students to abstain the vulgar, wake up outstanding. What it intends to promote is not a soulless professional, but a literate person. In the Renaissance, Erasmus, Bitterack and others still used the two terms “artes liberales” or “studia humanitatis” to express their humanistic educational ideas.”(Newman 262)

Liberal education reigned over secondary and higher education in Europe for 1,500 years. Although it lost many followers in the 20^th century in spite of the impact of progressive education. But after the 1950s, in order to fight against the disadvantages brought by early specialization and professionalism in secondary education,liberal education became active again in the West. This educational tradition makes western education emphasize rational education, rational training and the value of knowledge itself.

The study of liberal education in modern sense has rich history. In foreign countries, Jonathan Becker accounted for liberal education from its aspects such as the concept, meaning, procedures and arrangements in detail.

2.2 Related studies on liberal education at home

The idea of liberal education has not been come up with explicitly in China, but it can be seen from everywhere in the long-established and profound Chinese culture. Because Confucianism was the most influential school in ancient China and since then it has gradually become the mainstream of Chinese traditional culture. Its extensive and profound cultural character has an important influence in the history world culture. The most representative example is the Confucius institute. Therefore, in this part, I just mainly focus on talking about how liberal education is reflected in the ancient Confucian classics.

The Analects of Confucius is one of the Confucian classics. It mainly records the words and deeds of Confucius and his disciples and embodies his political propositions, ethical thoughts, moral concepts and educational principles. The Analects of Confucius is called The Four Books together with The Great learning, The Doctrine of the Mean and The Book of Mencius. The edition at present has 20 passages. In the second passage “Exercising Government”, it raises the purpose of education: “The master said: ‘The accomplished scholar is not a utensil’”. Simply speaking, it means that a gentleman of culture and morality cannot be limited to one area just like as a tool.

Meanwhile, one of The Four Books, The Great Learning is said to have been written by Confucius’ disciple Zeng Tzu. The first sentence of the book is as follows: “The main idea of The Great Learning is to carry forward the fair and upright character, to make people forsake the old for the new and to make people reach the most perfect realm.” The school motto of the University of Hong Kong “Sapientia et Virtus” comes from this sentence.

In Contemporary society, in China, some scholars have also studied liberal education. For example, Lian Jinjun and Xie Debo have stored out the connotation of liberal education from the perspective of philosophy. Zhu Taoxing et al. Compared the characteristics of liberal education at home and abroad and figured out some problems about the implementation of the system construction. Starting from the educational idea of cultivating well-rounded people, Wei Shanchuan discussed the model of liberal education focusing on “subjective cultivation”. Xu Zhanquan interpreted it from the perspective of the historical evolution of liberal education. What makes me admire most is Yang Fujia. He elaborated on liberal education from the perspective of the development history, content, education philosophy and education policy. Yang Fujia, a renowned Chinese nuclear physicist and former President of the university of Nottingham Ningbo, has classified liberal education into five elements: The first is "bo": Fusion of arts and sciences, interdisciplinary, on the basis of extensive depth; The second is "ya": Be a man first, study second; The third is student-centered: the school puts the cultivation of people in the first place of all work; The fourth is to encourage students to doubt: “I love my teacher but I love truth more”; The last is abundant small class-based first classes: Take part in the rich second class of associations, social practice and scientific research activities.(Yang 143-150)

2.3 Comments on the previous studies

From the above, we can see, the idea of liberal education does exist in our traditional Chinese culture. In the Confucian idea of personality, moral requirements (i.e., goodness) are placed at an important position. In Taoism, the setting of ideal personality surpasses goodness and has the implication of free subject combining truth, goodness and beauty. Therefore, in the pursuit of ideal personality, Chinese Confucianism and Taoism aim at truth, goodness and beauty, which is consistent with the overall development goal of liberal education.

In the last few years, many noted universities in China, such as East China Normal University, Peking University, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing Normal university, etc., have learned from the successful experience of foreign universities, such as the latest general education courses of Harvard University, etc., and started to vigorously promote liberal education.

It is obvious that more and more scholars and educators at home have written so many articles to advocate the application of liberal education in higher education. As expected, we have attained some achievements. However, with the development of society, it seems necessary to put the idea of liberal education in the earlier stage: senior high school. As we all know, senior high school is a critical stage for students to cultivate their morality and values and the ability to learn and so on. Therefore, in this paper, I would talk about how English teachers in high schools apply liberal education to English reading teaching in view of significant role of English reading.

1. Liberal Education and English Reading Teaching

In this chapter, I mainly concentrate on the concepts of liberal education and English reading teaching. At first, I will discuss the connotation of liberal education according to its history development. Then, I will say something about the connotation of English reading teaching and its situation in China.

3.1 An introduction to liberal education

The phrase “Liberal Education” in Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary is annotated with these words “concerned with increasing sb’s general knowledge and experience rather than particular skills”.(Hornbyamp;Zhao 1197) That is, to emphasize the expansion of the mind, rather than simply as a vocational or technical training and education. In terms of etymology, the word “liberal” comes from the Latin word “Liber”, which originally meant a certain class of “free men”. But at the beginning of the late 18 century, the meaning of “Liberal” gradually developed into “open-minded”, and then “non-traditional”. Since the 19^th century, “liberal” has also contained the meaning of “liberalism” and “progress and radicalization in politics”. From the corresponding change of part of speech, the noun form“liberty” of the adjective “liberal” has also the meaning of “free”.

Tracing the development history of liberal education, universities in the West used to pay much more attention to the cultivation of personal “artes liberales”. It covered the basis of modern humanities, including grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy. The educational design of “artes liberales” was not for specialized professions, but aimed to cultivate people’s mind through the learning process of “artes liberales”. Later, through the continuous development of universities, “liberal education” was evolved into “free-mind”,which mainly included teachers’ freedom of opening courses to discuss academic freedom and students’ freedom to complete elective courses and other than compulsory courses. But blindly “free” can’t effectively realize the goal of education as expected in universities. Therefore, the connotation of education further changed. As a result, it has gradually formed as it looks today. It contains general education curriculum and takes the educational form of classroom and non-classroom such as campus landscape, teacher-student relationship, administrative operation and community activities as the carrier, and the content includes important educational ideas of related ability cultivation.

In terms of understanding the connotation of liberal education, I can’t agree with Chen Jianhua any more. He generalizes its connotation from 3aspects: “First, liberal education is non-utilitarian. It is not used as an educational idea to prepare for profession or to train specialists. Second, shape the mind. Liberal education has the value of shaping the mind and improving the ability of rational thinking. Third, attach importance to humanistic knowledge. Liberal education pays special attention to the importance of knowledge learning in human life, especially the study and research of humanistic knowledge. It emphasizes the human spirit, namely the cultivation of humanistic spirit, and the return of freedom and authenticity.”(Chen 118)

General speaking, in current situation, liberal education is a kind of non-utilitarian education that cultivates students’ mental ability and promotes their development through knowledge leaning.

3.2 An introduction to English reading teaching

As we all know, In senior high school English teaching, reading teaching is the main part of teaching. The success of English teaching depends largely on reading teaching.

“At the request of the new English curriculum standard of high school, the cultivation of students’ English quality in the primary position of teaching should be raised by teachers, and in this way, it can change from the previous training of English knowledge and skills to the cultivation of English core literacy, which is another manifestation of the current social and cultural self-confidence.”(Wang 61) This demands English teachers in high schools to not only pay attention to the cultivation of students’ English language ability in reading teaching, but also focus on developing students’ mental quality in this society so that students can continuously improve their knowledge level and English quality in English reading.

However, the current teaching condition is not optimistic. Nevertheless, against the background of exam-oriented education in China, there are still many obstacles to the cultivation of humanistic literacy. High school English teachers still remain at the level of completing the established teaching materials and copying with the entrance examination in English reading teaching. They cannot take the initiative or even be good at thinking about how to dig into the humanistic materials in English teaching materials, which brings a lot of difficulties to the cultivation of students’ humanistic literacy. This has seriously hindered students to develop their humanistic literacy and physical and mental health.

Based on this, English teachers can’t just stop their English reading teaching at the level of textual knowledge. They should care more about students’ inner needs for their future further development.

3.3 An introduction to senior high school English reading teaching based on the perspective of liberal education

“Modern liberal education is originally a higher education system established to cultivate students’ learning desire, critical thinking, effective communication and civic duty. It features a flexible curriculum that allows students to choose, requires students to be as broad as they are deep. And its interactive student-centred approach makes students to use critical reading directly inside and outside the classroom. With the continuous improvement of social and economic level, people’s demand for cultural literacy is further enhanced, so the comprehensive return of liberal education is only a matter of time. People in the contemporary society play emphasis on humanistic quality, and have carried out attempts and explorations to pursue humanistic quality in the field of education such as the prosperity of general education in universities, “the love for leaning Chinese classics” in the whole society and the vigorous “reading classics” in primary and secondary schools.”(Ni 9) From this we can see, liberal education plays a critical role in reading.

In senior high school English reading teaching, if teachers teach English texts from the perspective of liberal education, students’ humanistic quality will make a great progress. As a result, they finally become a “man of integrity”, which is the most outstanding characteristic in liberal education. As we all know, the period of high school is the key stage for the formation and development of students" outlook on life and world. So it is a good opportunity to cultivate students" humanistic quality. Therefore, English teachers should pay attention to the cultivation of students" humanistic quality in teaching practice. Through the cultivation of humanistic quality, the inner feelings of high school students can be enriched, so that they can regulate their emotions well, be calm to setbacks, and master some interpersonal skills. Through the cultivation of humanistic quality, students can have a rational understanding of the world, society and life, enrich their spiritual world, enhance their internal drive, cultivate their national spirit and patriotic feelings, and enhance their sense of social responsibility.

Humanistic quality needs to be enriched and improved through continuous learning and practice. Teachers should make full use of text resources to explore their emotion materials, to achieve a personal physical and mental development, especially the healthy development of emotional world,improve their comprehensive humanistic quality. This is a very important requirement of liberal education at present.

1. Reasons for Conducting Liberal Education in Senior High School English Reading Teaching

Just as we all know, the period of high school is the key stage for the formation and development of students" outlook on life and world. It is the criytical stage for the development and promotion of mind, emotion, attitude and values in one’s life. In this chapter, I figure out several main reasons why English teachers should teach high school reading from the perspective of liberal education. These reasons are mainly analyzed from the 2 aspects: development features of high school students and English reading materials.

4.1 Development features of senior high school students

From my research topic, I propose that English teachers should adopt liberal education to English reading teaching. The subjects they teach are students. So it is necessary for the paper to analyze senior high school students’ development features. After much consideration, I decide to discuss from the two sides: the development of critical thinking and psychology, compared with primary school students and junior school students.

4.1.1 On the development of critical thinking

What is critical thinking? I like the very concise definition in the book Critical Thinking Concepts And Tools written by Richard Paul and Linda Elder from the USA. It is defined as “the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it”. That is to tell us that critical thinking is not the ability achieved in a short time just like we often say there is no end to art. Why should we must learn critical thinking? As human beings, we are often confronted with this problems: “Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or downright prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thoughts. Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life.Excellence in thought, however, must be systematically cultivated”. (Paulamp;Elder 1) From this, we can see critical thinking need to be improved through acquired study and training, and the cultivation of critical ability should also become the unremitting mission of education.

High school students are in the stage of formal operation, As they grow, their critical and creative thinking has reached a certain level. In senior high school English teaching, the cognitive features should be effectively utilized to cultivate students’ critical thinking skills, especially in English reading teaching. Of course, liberal education is a kind of non-utilitarian education that cultivates students" mental ability and promotes their development through knowledge learning. Critical thinking is consistent with connotation of liberal education. By the means of critical thinking, students can learn deeply from our English textbooks. What more important is that students can realize the art of critical thinking and form a more systematical thinking way when English teachers teach English in a in-depth way. Of course, English teachers should inspire students to ponder deeply about the text rather than devote much time to learning and memorizing language points. This is not beneficial to students’ lifelong development. When students learn text in a critical way, they will understand learning is just to improve ourselves to be a more better existence in the world with no any other complex or remunerative things.

Critical thinking is the prerequisite for adopting liberal education. Without critical thinking, there will be no significance to the existence of liberal education. Critical thinking is the soul of liberal education. If one has no ability to think critically and deeply, he can never become a person with “free mind”.

4.1.2 On the development of psychology and personality

Here, I talk about students’ development features of psychology and personality from the following aspects in senior high school at present.

1. Values

“With the awakening of self-awareness, senior school students begin to realize that the values of parents, elders, teachers and others have certain limitations. At this time, senior school students are more likely to be influenced by their peers and show the tendency to establish their own values. However, due to the influence of age, cognitive level and social experience, the established values of senior school students are not very mature and stable.” (Tang 129) So, senior high schools are a very important for teachers to establish the correct value. Or it will be harmful to students’ future development and safety of our society for bad or wrong values established in senior high school will be hard to be overcome and corrected.

1. Moral quality

At present, there are still some problems in the moral quality of middle school students, mainly in the aspects of study and life details. So, in English reading teaching, teachers should make full use of textbooks to convey correct values to students.

1. Individual psychology

Rousseau said: “Youth is a dangerous period of storms.” “High school students enter the early stage of youth are in the transition from infancy to maturity. At this time, the mood of high school students is characterized by strong emotion, emotional instability. There are obvious polarity and volatility. As a result, they easily from one extreme to the other extreme. When things go well, they seem particularly cheerful, full of all kinds of fantasy in life, study, work, power multiplier; But when they encounter setbacks, they will appear depressed, with frustrated mood. At the same time, high school students are prone to ambivalence. They don"t open their hearts as easily as they did in childhood. They want to have their own space, but they tend to feel lonely and have a strong desire to be understood. High school students" physiological development is rapid, but their psychological development is far behind the physiological development. Moreover, the level of intelligence, morality, emotion and social interaction is not enough. There is a lot of room for improvement. In short, many aspects of psychological problems in the growth and development of high school students are attributed to the asynchronous development of their physiology.

To sum up, it is indispensable and urgent for teachers to teach senior high school students how to think and learn rather than what to think and learn in current condition in English reading teaching. Liberal education can enable students transcend narrow utilitarian limitations, deeply understand and explore natural and social phenomena, master the essence of observation, analysis and expression ability, develop the love and worship for truth, and enable students to lead a rich, rationale and creative life, for which the society will also be developed and improved.

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