Academic literature on the topic 'Han yu yan wen xue xi'

The curtain rose. The howling of desert wind filled the performance hall in the Shanghai Grand Theatre. Into the center stage, where a scenic construction of a mountain cliff and a desert landscape was dimly lit, entered the character of the Daoist priest Wang Yuanlu (1849–1931), performed by Chen Yizong. Dressed in a worn and dusty outfit of dark blue cotton, characteristic of Daoist priests, Wang began to sweep the floor. After a few moments, he discovered a hidden chambre sealed inside one of the rock sanctuaries carved into the cliff.Signaled by the quick, crystalline, stirring wave of sound from the chimes, a melodious Chinese ocarina solo joined in slowly from the background. Astonished by thousands of Buddhist sūtra scrolls, wall paintings, and sculptures he had just accidentally discovered in the caves, Priest Wang set his broom aside and began to examine these treasures. Dawn had not yet arrived, and the desert sky was pitch-black. Priest Wang held his oil lamp high, strode rhythmically in excitement, sat crossed-legged in a meditative pose, and unfolded a scroll. The sound of the ocarina became fuller and richer and the texture of the music more complex, as several other instruments joined in.Below is the opening scene of the award-winning, theatrical dance-drama Dunhuang, My Dreamland, created by China’s state-sponsored Lanzhou Song and Dance Theatre in 2000. Figure 1a: Poster Side A of Dunhuang, My Dreamland Figure 1b: Poster Side B of Dunhuang, My DreamlandThe scene locates the dance-drama in the rock sanctuaries that today are known as the Dunhuang Mogao Caves, housing Buddhist art accumulated over a period of a thousand years, one of the best well-known UNESCO heritages on the Silk Road. Historically a frontier metropolis, Dunhuang was a strategic site along the Silk Road in northwestern China, a crossroads of trade, and a locus for religious, cultural, and intellectual influences since the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). Travellers, especially Buddhist monks from India and central Asia, passing through Dunhuang on their way to Chang’an (present day Xi’an), China’s ancient capital, would stop to meditate in the Mogao Caves and consult manuscripts in the monastery's library. At the same time, Chinese pilgrims would travel by foot from China through central Asia to Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, playing a key role in the exchanges between ancient China and the outside world. Travellers from China would stop to acquire provisions at Dunhuang before crossing the Gobi Desert to continue on their long journey abroad. Figure 2: Dunhuang Mogao CavesThis article approaches the idea of “abroad” by examining the present-day imagination of journeys along the Silk Road—specifically, staged performances of the various Silk Road journey-themed dance-dramas sponsored by the Chinese state for enhancing its cultural and foreign policies since the 1970s (Kuang).As ethnomusicologists have demonstrated, musicians, choreographers, and playwrights often utilise historical materials in their performances to construct connections between the past and the present (Bohlman; Herzfeld; Lam; Rees; Shelemay; Tuohy; Wade; Yung: Rawski; Watson). The ancient Silk Road, which linked the Mediterranean coast with central China and beyond, via oasis towns such as Samarkand, has long been associated with the concept of “journeying abroad.” Journeys to distant, foreign lands and encounters of unknown, mysterious cultures along the Silk Road have been documented in historical records, such as A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms (Faxian) and The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions (Xuanzang), and illustrated in classical literature, such as The Travels of Marco Polo (Polo) and the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West (Wu). These journeys—coming and going from multiple directions and to different destinations—have inspired contemporary staged performance for audiences around the globe.Home and Abroad: Dunhuang and the Silk RoadDunhuang, My Dreamland (2000), the contemporary dance-drama, staged the journey of a young pilgrim painter travelling from Chang’an to a land of the unfamiliar and beyond borders, in search for the arts that have inspired him. Figure 3: A scene from Dunhuang, My Dreamland showing the young pilgrim painter in the Gobi Desert on the ancient Silk RoadFar from his home, he ended his journey in Dunhuang, historically considered the northwestern periphery of China, well beyond Yangguan and Yumenguan, the bordering passes that separate China and foreign lands. Later scenes in Dunhuang, My Dreamland, portrayed through multiethnic music and dances, the dynamic interactions among merchants, cultural and religious envoys, warriors, and politicians that were making their own journey from abroad to China. The theatrical dance-drama presents a historically inspired, re-imagined vision of both “home” and “abroad” to its audiences as they watch the young painter travel along the Silk Road, across the Gobi Desert, arriving at his own ideal, artistic “homeland”, the Dunhuang Mogao Caves. Since his journey is ultimately a spiritual one, the conceptualisation of travelling “abroad” could also be perceived as “a journey home.”Staged more than four hundred times since it premiered in Beijing in April 2000, Dunhuang, My Dreamland is one of the top ten titles in China’s National Stage Project and one of the most successful theatrical dance-dramas ever produced in China. With revenue of more than thirty million renminbi (RMB), it ranks as the most profitable theatrical dance-drama ever produced in China, with a preproduction cost of six million RMB. The production team receives financial support from China’s Ministry of Culture for its “distinctive ethnic features,” and its “aim to promote traditional Chinese culture,” according to Xu Rong, an official in the Cultural Industry Department of the Ministry. Labeled an outstanding dance-drama of the Chinese nation, it aims to present domestic and international audiences with a vision of China as a historically multifaceted and cosmopolitan nation that has been in close contact with the outside world through the ancient Silk Road. Its production company has been on tour in selected cities throughout China and in countries abroad, including Austria, Spain, and France, literarily making the young pilgrim painter’s “journey along the Silk Road” a new journey abroad, off stage and in reality.Dunhuang, My Dreamland was not the first, nor is it the last, staged performances that portrays the Chinese re-imagination of “journeying abroad” along the ancient Silk Road. It was created as one of many versions of Dunhuang bihua yuewu, a genre of music, dance, and dramatic performances created in the early twentieth century and based primarily on artifacts excavated from the Mogao Caves (Kuang). “The Mogao Caves are the greatest repository of early Chinese art,” states Mimi Gates, who works to increase public awareness of the UNESCO site and raise funds toward its conservation. “Located on the Chinese end of the Silk Road, it also is the place where many cultures of the world intersected with one another, so you have Greek and Roman, Persian and Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese cultures, all interacting. Given the nature of our world today, it is all very relevant” (Pollack). As an expressive art form, this genre has been thriving since the late 1970s contributing to the global imagination of China’s “Silk Road journeys abroad” long before Dunhuang, My Dreamland achieved its domestic and international fame. For instance, in 2004, The Thousand-Handed and Thousand-Eyed Avalokiteśvara—one of the most representative (and well-known) Dunhuang bihua yuewu programs—was staged as a part of the cultural program during the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece. This performance, as well as other Dunhuang bihua yuewu dance programs was the perfect embodiment of a foreign religion that arrived in China from abroad and became Sinicized (Kuang). Figure 4: Mural from Dunhuang Mogao Cave No. 45A Brief History of Staging the Silk Road JourneysThe staging of the Silk Road journeys abroad began in the late 1970s. Historically, the Silk Road signifies a multiethnic, cosmopolitan frontier, which underwent incessant conflicts between Chinese sovereigns and nomadic peoples (as well as between other groups), but was strongly imbued with the customs and institutions of central China (Duan, Mair, Shi, Sima). In the twentieth century, when China was no longer an empire, but had become what the early 20th-century reformer Liang Qichao (1873–1929) called “a nation among nations,” the long history of the Silk Road and the colourful, legendary journeys abroad became instrumental in the formation of a modern Chinese nation of unified diversity rooted in an ancient cosmopolitan past. The staged Silk Road theme dance-dramas thus participate in this formation of the Chinese imagination of “nation” and “abroad,” as they aestheticise Chinese history and geography. History and geography—aspects commonly considered constituents of a nation as well as our conceptualisations of “abroad”—are “invariably aestheticized to a certain degree” (Bakhtin 208). Diverse historical and cultural elements from along the Silk Road come together in this performance genre, which can be considered the most representative of various possible stagings of the history and culture of the Silk Road journeys.In 1979, the Chinese state officials in Gansu Province commissioned the benchmark dance-drama Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, a spectacular theatrical dance-drama praising the pure and noble friendship which existed between the peoples of China and other countries in the Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.). While its plot also revolves around the Dunhuang Caves and the life of a painter, staged at one of the most critical turning points in modern Chinese history, the work as a whole aims to present the state’s intention of re-establishing diplomatic ties with the outside world after the Cultural Revolution. Unlike Dunhuang, My Dreamland, it presents a nation’s journey abroad and home. To accomplish this goal, Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road introduces the fictional character Yunus, a wealthy Persian merchant who provides the audiences a vision of the historical figure of Peroz III, the last Sassanian prince, who after the Arab conquest of Iran in 651 C.E., found refuge in China. By incorporating scenes of ethnic and folk dances, the drama then stages the journey of painter Zhang’s daughter Yingniang to Persia (present-day Iran) and later, Yunus’s journey abroad to the Tang dynasty imperial court as the Persian Empire’s envoy.Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, since its debut at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on the first of October 1979 and shortly after at the Theatre La Scala in Milan, has been staged in more than twenty countries and districts, including France, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Russia, Latvia, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and recently, in 2013, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.“The Road”: Staging the Journey TodayWithin the contemporary context of global interdependencies, performing arts have been used as strategic devices for social mobilisation and as a means to represent and perform modern national histories and foreign policies (Davis, Rees, Tian, Tuohy, Wong, David Y. H. Wu). The Silk Road has been chosen as the basis for these state-sponsored, extravagantly produced, and internationally staged contemporary dance programs. In 2008, the welcoming ceremony and artistic presentation at the Olympic Games in Beijing featured twenty apsara dancers and a Dunhuang bihua yuewu dancer with long ribbons, whose body was suspended in mid-air on a rectangular LED extension held by hundreds of performers; on the giant LED screen was a depiction of the ancient Silk Road.In March 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping introduced the initiatives “Silk Road Economic Belt” and “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” during his journeys abroad in Kazakhstan and Indonesia. These initiatives are now referred to as “One Belt, One Road.” The State Council lists in details the policies and implementation plans for this initiative on its official web page, www.gov.cn. In April 2013, the China Institute in New York launched a yearlong celebration, starting with "Dunhuang: Buddhist Art and the Gateway of the Silk Road" with a re-creation of one of the caves and a selection of artifacts from the site. In March 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning agency, released a new action plan outlining key details of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. Xi Jinping has made the program a centrepiece of both his foreign and domestic economic policies. One of the central economic strategies is to promote cultural industry that could enhance trades along the Silk Road.Encouraged by the “One Belt, One Road” policies, in March 2016, The Silk Princess premiered in Xi’an and was staged at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing the following July. While Dunhuang, My Dreamland and Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road were inspired by the Buddhist art found in Dunhuang, The Silk Princess, based on a story about a princess bringing silk and silkworm-breeding skills to the western regions of China in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) has a different historical origin. The princess's story was portrayed in a woodblock from the Tang Dynasty discovered by Sir Marc Aurel Stein, a British archaeologist during his expedition to Xinjiang (now Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region) in the early 19th century, and in a temple mural discovered during a 2002 Chinese-Japanese expedition in the Dandanwulike region. Figure 5: Poster of The Silk PrincessIn January 2016, the Shannxi Provincial Song and Dance Troupe staged The Silk Road, a new theatrical dance-drama. Unlike Dunhuang, My Dreamland, the newly staged dance-drama “centers around the ‘road’ and the deepening relationship merchants and travellers developed with it as they traveled along its course,” said Director Yang Wei during an interview with the author. According to her, the show uses seven archetypes—a traveler, a guard, a messenger, and so on—to present the stories that took place along this historic route. Unbounded by specific space or time, each of these archetypes embodies the foreign-travel experience of a different group of individuals, in a manner that may well be related to the social actors of globalised culture and of transnationalism today. Figure 6: Poster of The Silk RoadConclusionAs seen in Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road and Dunhuang, My Dreamland, staging the processes of Silk Road journeys has become a way of connecting the Chinese imagination of “home” with the Chinese imagination of “abroad.” Staging a nation’s heritage abroad on contemporary stages invites a new imagination of homeland, borders, and transnationalism. Once aestheticised through staged performances, such as that of the Dunhuang bihua yuewu, the historical and topological landscape of Dunhuang becomes a performed narrative, embodying the national heritage.The staging of Silk Road journeys continues, and is being developed into various forms, from theatrical dance-drama to digital exhibitions such as the Smithsonian’s Pure Land: Inside the Mogao Grottes at Dunhuang (Stromberg) and the Getty’s Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China's Silk Road (Sivak and Hood). They are sociocultural phenomena that emerge through interactions and negotiations among multiple actors and institutions to envision and enact a Chinese imagination of “journeying abroad” from and to the country.ReferencesBakhtin, M.M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1982.Bohlman, Philip V. “World Music at the ‘End of History’.” Ethnomusicology 46 (2002): 1–32.Davis, Sara L.M. Song and Silence: Ethnic Revival on China’s Southwest Borders. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.Duan, Wenjie. “The History of Conservation of Mogao Grottoes.” International Symposium on the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Property: The Conservation of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and the Related Studies. Eds. Kuchitsu and Nobuaki. Tokyo: Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural Properties, 1997. 1–8.Faxian. A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms. Translated by James Legge. New York: Dover Publications, 1991.Herzfeld, Michael. Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of Modern Greece. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985.Kuang, Lanlan. Dunhuang bi hua yue wu: "Zhongguo jing guan" zai guo ji yu jing zhong de jian gou, chuan bo yu yi yi (Dunhuang Performing Arts: The Construction and Transmission of “China-scape” in the Global Context). Beijing: She hui ke xue wen xian chu ban she, 2016.Lam, Joseph S.C. State Sacrifice and Music in Ming China: Orthodoxy, Creativity and Expressiveness. New York: State University of New York Press, 1998.Mair, Victor. T’ang Transformation Texts: A Study of the Buddhist Contribution to the Rise of Vernacular Fiction and Drama in China. Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, 1989.Pollack, Barbara. “China’s Desert Treasure.” ARTnews, December 2013. Sep. 2016 <http://www.artnews.com/2013/12/24/chinas-desert-treasure/>.Polo, Marco. The Travels of Marco Polo. Translated by Ronald Latham. Penguin Classics, 1958.Rees, Helen. Echoes of History: Naxi Music in Modern China. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.Shelemay, Kay Kaufman. “‘Historical Ethnomusicology’: Reconstructing Falasha Liturgical History.” Ethnomusicology 24 (1980): 233–258.Shi, Weixiang. Dunhuang lishi yu mogaoku yishu yanjiu (Dunhuang History and Research on Mogao Grotto Art). Lanzhou: Gansu jiaoyu chubanshe, 2002.Sima, Guang 司马光 (1019–1086) et al., comps. Zizhi tongjian 资治通鉴 (Comprehensive Mirror for the Aid of Government). Beijing: Guji chubanshe, 1957.Sima, Qian 司马迁 (145-86? B.C.E.) et al., comps. Shiji: Dayuan liezhuan 史记: 大宛列传 (Record of the Grand Historian: The Collective Biographies of Dayuan). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959.Sivak, Alexandria and Amy Hood. “The Getty to Present: Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road Organised in Collaboration with the Dunhuang Academy and the Dunhuang Foundation.” Getty Press Release. Sep. 2016 <http://news.getty.edu/press-materials/press-releases/cave-temples-dunhuang-buddhist-art-chinas-silk-road>.Stromberg, Joseph. “Video: Take a Virtual 3D Journey to Visit China's Caves of the Thousand Buddhas.” Smithsonian, December 2012. Sep. 2016 <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/video-take-a-virtual-3d-journey-to-visit-chinas-caves-of-the-thousand-buddhas-150897910/?no-ist>.Tian, Qing. “Recent Trends in Buddhist Music Research in China.” British Journal of Ethnomusicology 3 (1994): 63–72.Tuohy, Sue M.C. “Imagining the Chinese Tradition: The Case of Hua’er Songs, Festivals, and Scholarship.” Ph.D. Dissertation. Indiana University, Bloomington, 1988.Wade, Bonnie C. Imaging Sound: An Ethnomusicological Study of Music, Art, and Culture in Mughal India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.Wong, Isabel K.F. “From Reaction to Synthesis: Chinese Musicology in the Twentieth Century.” Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music: Essays on the History of Ethnomusicology. Eds. Bruno Nettl and Philip V. Bohlman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. 37–55.Wu, Chengen. Journey to the West. Tranlsated by W.J.F. Jenner. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2003.Wu, David Y.H. “Chinese National Dance and the Discourse of Nationalization in Chinese Anthropology.” The Making of Anthropology in East and Southeast Asia. Eds. Shinji Yamashita, Joseph Bosco, and J.S. Eades. New York: Berghahn, 2004. 198–207.Xuanzang. The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions. Hamburg: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation & Research, 1997.Yung, Bell, Evelyn S. Rawski, and Rubie S. Watson, eds. Harmony and Counterpoint: Ritual Music in Chinese Context. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.

Based on the Theory of Contrastive Analysis and Inter-language Theory, this paper investigates the common initial errors of Korean fundamental Chinese learners in different groups. The data were analyzed by listening to it and were described with IPA. 7 initial errors were found in this paper, such as a) errors of recognizing and pronouncing “b” and “p”; b) errors of “z/c/s” and “zh/ch/sh” c) errors in pronouncing “r” and so on. In order to avoid contributing all the errors to the impact of first language transfer, the students were chosen with 3 different nationalities, including Korean, Pakistani and Brazilian. The participants are all at the same age without any experience of learning a third language. This research analyzed the errors’ reasons in terms of interlanguage transfer, intralingual transfer, students’ learning attitudes and the impact of target language. Softwares called Praat and Cooledit were used to analyze the data. The reasons were analyzed with the help of the format, burst and VOT of the spectrograms. The results indicated that some errors made by all the students from different countries are due to the difficulties of the target language. As for these mistakes, even some native speakers may make them in their daily life. The reasons for these errors can be traced back to the target language itself, rather than relating them to the negative transfer of the first language. At last, some useful pedagogical recommendations were mentioned to facilitate the Chinese language education. 本文以对比分析理论与中介语理论为理论基础，以调查分析法为研究方法对 韩国初级汉语学习者的汉语声母偏误进行了分组对比研究。语音资料以由经过专 业训练的母语者听辨的方式进行统计，并得出韩国学生声母偏误共7 个，例如： 送气音与不送气音混淆；舌尖前音与舌尖后音混淆；舌尖后浊擦音闪音化，舌面 音尖音化等。 为了避开当前研究将偏误原因完全归结于母语负迁移的错误，笔者通过对比韩国、巴基斯坦、巴西三类同等水平、无第三外语、年龄相同的汉语学习者的不同偏误情况，对偏误产生原因进行了细致分析。本文从语际迁移、语内迁移、学习者学习态度和目的语语言本体角度；以Praat、Cooledit 等语音软件为分析手段；通过观察共振峰、冲直条、嗓音起始时间等元素来分析韩国初级汉语学习者声母偏误产生的原因。 经过分析，本文得出结论：即某些所有国家学生都出现发音偏误的声母，其自身都有相当的难度，母语学习者在学习的时候也会出现种种错误。这种情况下，偏误则是由目的语本身的难度等级影响而来。母语负迁移只是影响了学生声母偏误的形式。另外，笔者还针对韩国学生出现的不同偏误提出了针对性的教学方法，希望可以对对韩汉语声母教学方面有所启示。
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Education
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Master of Education

近年來，香港有不少國際學校和直資學校開辦國際文憑課程（IB，International Baccalaureate），很多非華語學生選擇學習中文作為第二語言。然而，當中很多學生在使用詞彙上產生偏誤，而在二零零八年，香港教育局發布了《中國語文課程補充指引（非華語學生）》諮詢文件中，指出漢字的字形、聲調、語彙都是中文第二語言學習者的難點（香港課程發展議會，2008），這些難點均涉及語素。以往曾有不少研究，探討語素意識與詞彙知識習得的關係，因此，研究者期望以中文第二語言學習者作為研究對象，探討漢語語素意識與詞彙能力的關係。 本研究為量性研究，以語素意識與詞彙能力測驗和單元評估試卷來蒐集數據，並採用相關度測量研究方法分析數據，從而探討國際文憑課程中學項目學生在詞彙上的偏誤類型以及漢語語素意識與詞彙能力的關係，並提出建議以提升中文第二語言學習者的詞彙能力。本研究目的有三：（一）探究香港國際文憑課程中學項目學生在詞彙上的偏誤類型；（二）探究香港國際文憑課程中學項目學生的漢語語素意識與詞彙能力的關係；（三）歸納研究結果，並就教學和後續研究上提出具體建議，作為對外漢語教學之參考。 研究結果顯示，中文第二語言學習者的詞彙偏誤類型以「語音」為主，發展同音語素意識對於減少詞彙偏誤相當重要，此外亦需要加強發展部件規則的意識以及組字規則的概念，幫助他們掌握字形，對於減少詞彙偏誤亦有相當重要的作用。在漢語語素意識與詞彙能力的關係方面，中文第二語言學習者的語素意識對於詞彙能力有預測作用，同音語素意識對詞彙能力的預測作用大於同形語素意識的作用；而心理詞彙的語素意識、心理詞彙的數量及用詞能力三者有互相影響的關係，但仍需要進一步的研究。 International Baccalaureate (IB) Curriculum is adopted by more and more international schools and direct-subsidy schools in Hong Kong. At the same time, more and more non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students choose to study Chinese Language as a second language in IB curriculum. However, the vocabulary learning is one of the difficulties when they learn Chinese. The Education Bureau has published ‘Consultation Paper on Developing a “Supplementary Guide to the Chinese Language Curriculum for Non-Chinese Speaking Students” ’ and points out those NCS students encounter difficulties in learning Chinese graphemes, tones, vocabulary, etc. These difficulties are related to morpheme. Many researchers have conducted to study on relationship between morphological awareness and lexical knowledge. This dissertation aims to study on the relationship between morphological awareness and lexical ability of IB Middle Year Programme (MYP) students in Hong Kong. This is a quantitative research. Data collection includes two tests of the morphological awareness and lexical ability paper-pencil tests and one summative unit test of Chinese Language subject in a school. IB MYP students of two classes participated in this study and their morphological awareness and lexical ability were tested and analyzed by the statistical analysis software. The objectives of the study are: (1) Analysis on the types of lexicon errors of IB MYP students in Hong Kong; (2) Analysis on the relationship between morphological awareness and lexical ability of IB MYP students in Hong Kong; (3) Suggestions on developing of morphological awareness in learning Chinese Language as a second language. The results find that most of the lexicon errors were related to the tones and radical components of Chinese character, it is suggested to develop the homophone awareness and the orthographic awareness of Chinese character to reduce the lexicon errors. The morphological awareness of students has influence on student’s lexical ability. The homophone awareness has a closer relationship with lexical ability. The morphological awareness of the mental lexicon has an influence on the amount of mental lexicon and the ability of using lexicon. It is suggested to develop the morphological awareness of students in teaching Chinese as a second language to further study the relationship between the development of morphological awareness and mental lexicon in the future.
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Education
Master
Master of Education

In the Reform Proposals for the Education in Hong Kong published in 2000, it was clearly stated that the priotity of education in the 21st century should be ―to enable our students to enjoy learning, enhance their effectiveness in communication and develop their creativity and sense of commitment‖. This paper aims to respond to two of the aspects — the enhancement of effectiveness in communication and the development of students’ creativity. For years, schools have focused on promoting students’ creavity in reading and writing, but not in speaking. In fact, among the various language skills, ‘speaking’ is the skill students have to demonstrate the most in their daily interaction. Compared to reading and writing, the ability to express one‘s views verbally in a creative manner can give rise to more direct interaction, acting as a genuine reflection of a student’s wisdom, knowledge, capability and potential. It is also a lifelong skill that students can apply when they join the workforce in the future. It is therefore meaningful to place emphasis on cultivating students’ creativity in speaking. This research aims to explore the correlation between the Chinese oral proficiency and creative ability of senior secondary students in Hong Kong based on existing theories on the development of creativity and speaking. Target participants, recruited from two aided secondary schools of different abilities, receive training on speaking and creative thinking, and analysis is done adopting both the quantitative and qualitative approaches. Students of each school are first randomly divided into two groups — the experimental group and control group. Students of both groups are required to take a pre-test and a post-test, as well as complete a set of questionnaire in each session. Results obtained are compared and contrasted to gauge the changes in their oral proficiency and creative ability. In between the tests, the experiemental group receives seven experimental design lectures on News and Report, one of the elective modules of the NSS curriculum in Chinese Language Education, while the control group receives lectures on News and Report which reference on the samples from Education Bureau only, no experimental design lectures will be delivered. In the end, the three teachers involved in the study were interviewed, during which the teachers offered their observations on the change in the students’ learning behaviour and attitude. Based on the data collected from the administration of tests, questionnaires and interviews, the following conclusions are made: first, there is a correlation between oral proficiency and creative ability; second, students’ attitude and values have a direct impact on the effectiveness of the module; third, the Speaking and Creativity Assessment rubric used in the study proved to be successful in assessing the said abilities, enhancing learning effectiveness. Through the analysis of data collected, this research contributed to Chinese Language Education to some extent, especially in the teaching of oral proficiency and creativity. It opened up a new set of criteria for the assessment of creative speaking ability from different perspectives to ensure objectivity of results, offered diversified course materials that can effectively raise the standard of students’ speaking and critical thinking ability. 香港在2000 年教育制度改革建議中明確指出教育首要目標是培養學生成為「樂於學習、善於溝通、勇於承擔、敢於創新」的新一代，其中，本研究特別回應「善於溝通」和「敢於創新」這兩個重點。過往，學校及教師多注重學生閱讀能力及寫作能力創意的培養，而忽略說話能力的創意訓練。其實，在各種語文能力中，「說話」是學生日常生活最主要的表達能力。口語表達比閱讀及寫作語言起著更直接的交流及溝通作用，是一個人智慧、知識、能力、素質的綜合體現，是學生立足社會、終生受用的語文能力。因此語文教學以創意思維培養學生的說話能力是有實在意義的。 為探索本港高中學生口語表達和創意能力的相互關係，本研究以創造力(Creativity) 和說話能力訓練的理論為依據，對上述課題展開試驗及分析工作。本計劃以香港兩所不同程度的津貼中學學生的說話能力為研究對象， 施行融合創意和說話能力訓練的實驗教學模式。本研究採用量化和質化方式為主要研究的方法。首先， 每所學校的研究對象隨機分為實驗組 (Experimental Group) 和控制組 (Control Group)。兩組對象分別安排前測和後測來量度實驗前後的數據變化。在前測及後測之間， 實驗組將會進行結合了創意思維訓練元素的中國語文選修單元「新聞與報道」共七節課的教學，從而探究這次實驗課能否提高學生創意說話能力學習的成效。而控制組卻不會在實驗教學施行期間安排進行任何實驗教學，有關的課堂教學，只按照原本學校的「新聞與報道」課程進行。在公平的原則下，所有控制組的學生會在暑假補回教授有關的實驗課程知識。本研究同時在兩班實驗組學生發出前後兩次的問卷調查，以檢視受試者的說話能力及創意能力的變化。最後，訪問兩所受試學校參與研究的三位老師，以深入瞭解學生整體的學習行為和態度情意的改變。 透過分析實驗教學資料、問卷調查數據和訪談結果，本研究主要有以下幾方面的總結：第一，確立說話能力和創意能力的相互關係。第二，學生的學習態度和品德情意直接影響課程的學習成效。第三，本研究所採用的「說話及創意能力評量表」能客觀評估學生的說話及創意能力，促進學習效能。經各種測試及結果分析，本研究對中國語文教育作出了一些貢獻，尤其是在融合說話與創意能力方面，以提高學生說話和思考水平；開發創意說話能力的評核標準，包含多角度的評審考量為評核精神，以客觀的等級描述為評量依據；提供多元化的創意說話課程設計，有助提升學生的創意說話能力表現等多方面的意義。
published_or_final_version
Education
Doctoral
Doctor of Education