Summary:"Large-unit teaching" has become a buzzword in the education world. Relying on the relevant literature, it is of great significance to clarify the research status and historical evolution of related concepts for understanding "large-unit teaching". Under the current research background, front-line teaching should not be lightly referred to as "large-unit teaching", but should make more efforts in "language learning task groups" and "overall unit teaching", so as to effectively improve the quality of students' Chinese learning and develop students' core literacy in Chinese.
Keywords:large-unit teaching; language learning task clusters; Teaching of the unit as a whole.
Recently, a professional group of teachers talked about "big concept teaching", and then extended to "large unit teaching". The author found that very few people were able to participate in the discussion, and most of them were indifferent or interested. In the author's opinion, this is both reasonable and unexpected. The teachers of this group come from more than 10 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government. In terms of grades and subjects, it involves most subjects from kindergarten to high school; From the perspective of rank, there are both junior and senior teachers, and there are many special teachers. Therefore, the response of this group should be somewhat representative.
In line with a rational, pragmatic and open-minded learning attitude, the author has written this article for reference by extensively consulting materials and combining with the current situation of Chinese teaching, focusing on the topic of "large-unit teaching".
Early "big unit teaching".
Through literature search, it was found that in the field of basic education, the term "large-unit teaching" can be traced back to the nineties of the twentieth century.
For example, the article "The Theoretical Framework of Chinese Textbooks: The Concept of "Literary and T文体Large Units" (1992) proposes to treat high school Chinese textbooks as "large units". Specifically, the texts scattered in each volume of textbooks are classified according to narratives, literary works, expository essays, arguments, and practical texts (all including classical Chinese), etc., and are combined into five major stylistic units, so as to arrange the progress of Chinese teaching in the three years of high school. ［1］
This construction method of "large stylistic unit" takes into account the knowledge system of both unit and single text. In the teaching of individual texts, more attention is paid to the knowledge teaching of texts, focusing on the "five points of the text" and "five points of sentences", for example, the "five points of sentences" include Chinese characters, context, semantics, grammar, rhetoric, etc. In teaching, the author organically integrates "unit" and "single article", and conducts corresponding intensive training in a targeted manner, in order to form an "intelligence and skill training system".
This kind of large-unit teaching, which focuses on the implementation of students' knowledge and the formation of skills, should be a more practical framework for processing teaching materials and an effective way of teaching Chinese at that time. But from today's perspective, it seems to ignore the mutually reinforcing, spiraling nature of students' minds and skills.
Another example is the article "On the "Concept of "Large Unit Teaching": On the Innovation of the Construction of Compulsory Textbook Units (1993), which argues that the so-called "concept of large-unit teaching" is to use the overall connection viewpoint and take the staged, gradual and objective nature of teaching as the basic idea to carry out textbook design and teaching design. 2 To put it in layman's terms, it is based on the common Chinese textbooks at that time, reconstructing their layout style, and choosing a personalized teaching mode and training program to implement Chinese teaching. This kind of unit teaching idea is the "large unit teaching concept".
This "large-unit teaching concept" absorbed the "reasonable components" of the unit arrangement of the textbooks at that time, and carried out the integration of "class units" with ingenuity, emphasizing the teaching idea of "comprehensive openness", and paying attention to the close connection between Chinese teaching and life. It is worth mentioning that the author has achieved diversified explorations in the unit structure, for example, from the level of language intelligence, he has designed a layered language intelligence training such as "training perception", "training analysis" and "training judgment", so that the large unit is really "big" and "lively". However, we can also imagine that this kind of treatment will cause many students to feel at a loss, such as "how to use Chinese textbooks", "what class will be taught tomorrow", "how to prepare effectively", and so on.
To sum up, the early "large-unit teaching" was mainly based on pragmatism, based on general Chinese textbooks, and personalized reconstruction of texts and units according to stylistic characteristics or other connections, and then introduced living water and focused on language ability training, so as to pursue higher teaching efficiency and improve students' academic performance and mental level. From this, we can also see that teachers or schools often need to invest huge mental and financial resources, otherwise they cannot support the reconstruction of teaching materials, content reorganization, and classroom reconstruction. And these are not what ordinary teachers and schools can afford. From the perspective of teaching effect alone, there will also be certain academic quality risks due to the uneven quality of teachers and school teachers.
"Large unit teaching" in recent years
Since the "core literacy" was proposed, especially since the promulgation of the "General High School Chinese Curriculum Standards (2017 Edition)", "large-unit teaching" has gradually become a hot word in articles, books, and conferences. But at this time, the meaning of "large unit" has quietly changed.
For example, the article "Integrating Resource Reading and Writing Linkage and Implementing Pragmatic Ability Training: Research and Practice on Reading and Writing Linkage in Embedded Large Unit Teaching of Primary Chinese Attached to Adult Teachers" (2017) pointed out that textbook resources can be carefully integrated by simplifying, deleting, transferring, and changing, effectively embedding extracurricular resources, and exploring the operational strategies of reading and writing linkage, so as to improve students' language literacy, especially students' reading and writing ability. ［3］
From the point of view of this paper, although the primary school attached to the teacher also has a moderate integration of textbook resources, from its essence, it still relies on the textbook unit to adjust the teaching strategy. The school has added a large number of extracurricular materials to the unit teaching, and pays attention to the scientific, demonstrative, diverse, child-oriented, and rich presentation of the material content, so that students can obtain more language nourishment and thinking nourishment in reading, accumulation, and comparison. But in general, it is named a "large unit teaching", presumably to establish the "core goal of the unit", so that the goal is "big"; Embed more extracurricular reading materials, making it "bigger".
Another example is the article "Three-dimensional Goal Integration, Realized in the Teaching of Large Units in Real Situations: A Case Study of Unit 5 of the First Volume of the Eighth Grade of the Unified Edition" (2019), which proposes that the integration of three-dimensional goals and the development of core literacy can be achieved through the overall structure of the unit, the creation of real situations, and the driving of learning tasks. At the time of the publication of this article, Unit 5 of the 8th Unified Textbook consisted of four texts ("Chinese Stone Arch Bridge", "Suzhou Garden", "Cicada", and "Dream Back to Prosperity"), as well as writing, oral communication, and the introduction to the famous book "Insects". With the theme of "The Imprint of Civilization", the author designed the following task framework (see the figure below) to allow students to integrate three-dimensional goals in the "big theme", "real situation" and "big task" to complete the unit teaching. ［4］
Obviously, the "big unit" here, judging from its content style and article title, is already a textbook unit. The "bigness" of the "big unit" must point to its ideological core - the three-dimensional goal, as well as the "big theme" and "big task" that we often say.
From the above two articles, it can be seen that the connotation and form of "large-unit teaching" proposed by some schools and teachers in recent years have undergone significant changes compared with the early "large-unit teaching". In recent years, the teaching of large units has relied more on the teaching materials to make them "bigger" in terms of the establishment of themes, the creation of situations, the design of tasks, and the supplementation of content.
What is "large unit teaching"?
What exactly is "big unit" and "big unit teaching"? If we have not even figured out these two basic issues, it is indeed a bit hasty to talk about "large-unit teaching".
Different scholars will have different interpretations of what is meant by a "large unit". The "big unit" proposed by Professor Cui Yunmiao is a "micro-course" based on the "unit" that is different from the textbook unit. He believes that "a unit is a learning unit, a unit is a learning event, a complete learning story, therefore, a unit is a micro-course". At the same time, "a learning unit is composed of literacy goals, lesson time, situations, tasks, knowledge points, etc., and the unit is to organize these elements according to certain needs and norms to form a structured whole". Starting from the above significance, the "bigness" of "large-unit teaching" advocated by Professor Cui is mainly to "advocate the design of big concepts, big projects, big tasks and big problems in the teaching of discipline core literacy", so as to improve the position of teachers, change the pattern of teachers, expand the thinking of the classroom, and develop the core literacy of students. 5 For example, interdisciplinary learning and off-campus language practice activities should all belong to the "large-unit teaching" proposed by Professor Cui.
According to Ms. Xu Jie, a large unit "refers to a learning unit based on a certain subject goal or experiential theme, which can be either a natural chapter or unit in a textbook, or a learning content reconstructed around a major concept of the subject"6. This kind of explanation seems to be easier for front-line teachers to understand, and at least they can design their teaching around "subject objectives" and "nature chapters or units in the textbook", while "experiential themes" are more personalized and can better exert the subjective initiative of teachers. For example, the author's "Synchronous Composition" teaching and "Reading Famous Books with You" series belong to this category.
Dr. Liu Hui proposed to use "big concepts" to reconstruct unit teaching. She divides "units" into different perspectives, such as macro, meso, and micro units, disciplinary units, and interdisciplinary units. On this basis, she advocates the use of "telescope thinking" or "magnifying glass thinking" for instructional design. For the design steps, Dr. Liu listed the "deep learning practice model" proposed by Ms. Liu Yuexia, that is, "selecting the unit learning topic, determining the unit learning objectives, designing the unit learning interaction, and carrying out continuous evaluation"7.
Ms. Liu Yuexia's "deep learning practice model" should also be based on "textbook units". This model provides a relatively concise design path for teachers, but it is challenging in practice, especially in "carrying out continuous evaluation". This kind of challenge is advocated by the integrated requirements of "teaching-learning-evaluation" in the new curriculum standard, and it is also something that most teachers can gradually reach a certain level through continuous learning and practical exploration.
The above expressions of "large units" all have in common that they all point to "core literacy", but there are many problems in promotion: first, the concept is unclear, which makes it difficult for many schools to co-ordinate and many teachers to design teaching; Second, it is difficult, such as "big ideas" are inconvenient to refine, and "big projects" are inconvenient to design; Third, it is easy to be confused, for example, the relationship between "large units" and "textbook units" is difficult to clarify, and it is difficult to distinguish between target positioning; Fourth, it is arbitrary, different teachers will have different choices, and it is inevitable to be hasty and make mistakes; Fifth, the risk is high, the tiger cannot be an anti-dog, the core literacy is difficult to achieve, and the academic quality is difficult to guarantee; Wait a minute.
In view of this, the author believes that professional scholars can fully demonstrate the "large-unit teaching", and the pioneer teachers can continue to explore, and the ideal state is to be able to start from the actual situation of the discipline and put forward a teaching paradigm that can be used for reference, imitation, promotion and verification.
About the "Language Learning Task Group".
To a certain extent, there are keywords such as "learning task group" and "learning situation" in the new curriculum standard. Relying on Chinese textbooks, there is a "unit overall teaching" that is easier to operate and points to the core literacy.
The new curriculum standard states that "the language learning task group consists of a series of interrelated learning tasks, which together point to the development of students' core literacy". In the compulsory education stage, the language learning task group is divided into three levels: the first is the basic learning task group "language accumulation and combing". This task group is closely related to almost every unit and every text, so it is called "foundational". The second is the developmental learning task group, including "practical reading and communication", "literary reading and creative expression", and "critical reading and expression". This type of task group is relatively independent, spiraling, and progressive. The third is the extended learning task group, including "whole book reading" and "interdisciplinary learning". These two types of task groups, the former are independent, and the latter are widely connected, aiming to improve students' pragmatic ability and improve their comprehensive literacy. The author believes that the Chinese learning task group is somewhat similar to the "macro unit" proposed by Dr. Liu Hui, and the "micro unit" proposed by her is similar to what we often call the "textbook unit", for example, each volume of junior high school Chinese textbooks has six units. In contrast, the research and design of "learning task groups" should have more theoretical support and more teaching needs.
As front-line teachers, how should we make good use of the "language learning task group"? The author believes that we can start from the following four aspects.
First, "language" is the foundation. The language learning task group can only be "Chinese", which must conform to the basic characteristics of the Chinese curriculum and serve the development of students' core literacy, that is, adhere to the idea of "one belt and three belts", so that students can strive to develop their language ability under the overall role of cultural self-confidence, thinking ability and aesthetic creativity.
The second is to "learn". Language learning task clusters are completed through students' "learning". Therefore, it should not only conform to the law of students' physical and mental development, but also conform to the law of language learning. That is, adhere to the principle of gradual and spiraling, so that students can acquire language knowledge, improve language ability, and develop core literacy in the language practice activities of "literacy and writing", "reading and appreciation", "expression and communication", and "combing and **".
The third is "task" driven. The key to the language learning task group lies in the "task", and the difficulty lies in creating a real language practice situation and designing a scientific, reasonable, interesting and challenging "learning task". This aspect can best test the educational feelings and wisdom of teachers.
Fourth, the grand view of "group". Emphasizing the grand view of "group" means that when using task groups to design and implement Chinese teaching, there should be a systematic view of language teaching: there are both macro and micro levels; There are both unit and single articles; There are both "crowds" (students) and "groups" (languages); There are both immediate and long-term; Wait a minute.
Looking back at "Unit-Holistic Teaching".
In general, the unified junior high school Chinese textbooks are all "theme components", and each unit has a more explicit theme. In terms of its task orientation, it can be divided into "Reading and Writing" unit (named by the author) and "Activity ** unit".
In terms of the reading category, the unit usually adopts the three-in-one style of "teaching reading, self-reading, and reading of famous works". Such units, from the perspective of their learning objectives, are all "two-line components", that is, "humanities themes" and "language elements" penetrate each other and go hand in hand. It is not too difficult for teachers to rely on "unit prompts" and text content, as well as reading aid systems such as "preview prompts" and "thinking**" to carry out the "overall teaching design of the unit".
The activities are presented in the form of "Task 1", "Task 2" and "Task 3". In this kind of "overall unit teaching design", most teachers can organize and implement language practice activities according to the "tasks" provided by the textbook.
The reason why the author is not stingy with words on the teaching materials is that when the "large-unit teaching" has not yet been "officially certified" (such as written into the curriculum standards or a certain document) and the conditions are not yet mature (the vast majority of front-line teachers cannot design it, and even have resistance), it is advisable to focus on the design and implementation of the "overall unit teaching", make more efforts, more research, and promote more. In fact, some schools, some teams, and some journals have invested in research on the "overall teaching design of the unit" and have achieved results. For example, the B issue of Chinese Teaching Newsletter has launched two issues (issues 7-8 in 2021 and issues 1-2 in 2022), covering the overall teaching design of each unit of junior high school Chinese textbooks. Although some of these teaching designs are not yet mature, as far as their starting point is concerned, they all point to real situations, specific tasks, learning evaluation, and core literacy in the form of "lesson sections".
It should be noted that no matter what form of unit teaching is, it cannot dilute the teaching of individual texts. On the contrary, in the treatment of some classic texts, such as "fixed texts" (including modern texts, classical Chinese, and ancient poems), the teaching of individual texts may be more important. This is because learning these classic texts well is more conducive to students' language accumulation and the development of core literacy.
Conclusions and Statements
Let's start with the conclusion. From the perspective of the reality of Chinese teaching, the author believes that it is an ideal teaching state to start from the textbook unit, complete the overall teaching design of the unit, implement the learning objectives of the unit, and promote the improvement of students' core literacy. There is still a long way to go to seek the "association integration" between units, the "internal association" of "magic hands" and even "magic strokes", and the formation of "large-unit teaching" in the real sense. Because, at present, among the teachers in the front line of teaching, including special teachers and senior teachers, only a very few can arouse interest and participate in research in "large-unit teaching", and those who can implement the classroom and be effective are even more rare. In view of this, the author believes that the director, principal, and teaching and research staff should not speak lightly of "large-unit teaching" when facing front-line teachers; If you want to talk about it, you can do it as a subject experiment or individual research for the time being.
Make another statement. The author considers himself an ideal realist and a conservative avant-garde, and has always had admiration and admiration for those who are persistent and determined to reform. To make it clear, the author admires and admires the experts and professors, front-line teachers, and experimental schools listed in the article, and has been working hard to follow. This article is a good example, please read this article and discuss it extensively, but do not misunderstand and do not take it out of context.
References:
1 Yang Yulin. The Theoretical Framework of Chinese Textbooks: The Concept of "Stylistic Unit" JChinese Language Learning, 1992(09).
2 Deng Yunan, Xiao Hongyun. On the "Concept of Teaching in Large Units": On the Innovation of the Construction of Compulsory Teaching UnitsSecondary Chinese, 1993(07).
3 Yao Sifang, et al. Integrating Resources Reading and Writing Linkage and Implementing Pragmatic Ability Training: Research and Practice on Reading and Writing Linkage in Embedded Large Unit Teaching of Primary Chinese Attached to Teachers JEducational Science Forum, 2017(11).
4 Jia Qiuping. Three-dimensional goal integration is realized in the teaching of large units in real situations: A case study of the fifth unit of the first volume of the eighth grade of the unified edition JLanguage Construction, 2019(11).
5 Choi Yoon-hsiao. How to carry out the design of large units that point to the core literacy of the discipline JBeijing Education (General Education Edition), 2019(02).
6 Xu Jie. Keywords of the new curriculum plan and curriculum standards nChina Teacher Daily, 2023-01-18
7 Liu Hui. Big Concept Teaching: Literacy-Oriented Unit Overall Design mBeijing: Education Science Press, 2022:70-121
(This article was originally published in Language Teaching Newsletter B, Issue 12, 2023).