Shi Yan Zhi: From Ideological Construction to Moral Education

During the pre-Qin period,shi yan zhi(poetry expressing aspirations)was not a poetic concept.It primarily served to shape Confucian ideology,carrying significant discourse implications.The practices of shi yan zhi and bi zhi in religious rituals held important implications for poem reciting,a prevalent activity during the banquet ceremonies in the Spring and Autumn Period and its various forms.Together,they established the rites and music tradition characterized by yanshuo(speeches).This tradition further established the status of The Book of Odes as a classic,furnishing high-ranking officials and Confucian scholars with legitimacy and rich discourse resources to develop new ideologies.The different interpretations and applications of shi yan zhi resulted in diverse discourse models,such as duanzhang-quyi(to interpret out of context),xin’er youzheng(being reliable and borne out by evidence),wenwang yinyan(no word,no expression of thoughts)and yiyi-nizhi(interpreting a writing from one’s perspective).Through these different interpretations and applications,the scholarly-official class established multiple values and objectives,such as liyan buxiu(advocating lasting noble ideas untouched by time),xing-guan-qun yuan(stimulation,contemplation,communication,and criticism),shang you(befriending those superior to oneself),fa hu qing,zhi hu li yi(starting with feelings and control with propriety).In the process of building a unified ideology in the Han Dynasty,the“Introduction to Mao’s Version of The Book of Odes”advocated the unity of qing(sentiment)and zhi(aspiration),infusing shi yan zhi with connotations of enlightenment as well as extolment and satirical criticism.This advocacy redefined the political authority and discourse models of the scholar-official class,objectively unveiling the literary features of poetry,such as evoking an emotional response and commencing the practice of education through poetry teaching.

Appraisal of the Production-Oriented Approach： An Introduction

The production-oriented approach （POA） has been developed over a decade. It is driven by the need to improve English classroom instruction for university students in China （Wen, 2016）. It is also motivated by the aspiration to enhance the quality of foreign language education in other similar pedagogical contexts outside China. A volume of research has been done by Wen Qiufang and her research team, to formulate the theory of POA and to test its effectiveness in classroom pedagogy （e.g. Wen, 2016, 2015; Yang, 2015; Zhang, 2015）. At the moment, the POA is still at an early stage of theory building and almost all empirical research is done in the Chinese context. In order to improve the quality of this theory and to make it intelligible to the international academic community, a one-day symposium was held in Beijing Foreign Studies University on May 15, 2017. The symposium was entitled ＇The first international forum on innovative foreign language education in China： Appraisal of the POA＇. In the forum, leading experts in applied linguistics were invited to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the POA and the directions for its future development. The symposium was the first attempt for the POA research team to discuss its latest work with international scholars. This Viewpoint section collects the responses of four experts who participated in the symposium, listed in alphabetical order. The collection of articles covers three topics related to the POA： its pedagogical application, its use for teacher training, and its research. Alister Cumming is Professor Emeritus and the former Head of the Centre for Educational Research on Languages and Literacies, University of Toronto, Canada. His article focuses primarily on POA research as an exemplary case of design-based research. Rod Ellis is Research Professor in the School of Education at Curtin University, Australia. He discusses POA in terms of pedagogy, teacher training and research, with both critiques and constructive suggestions. Paul Kei Matsuda is Professor of English and Director of Second Language Writing at Arizona State University, the writed states. He responds to POA from the perspective of an expert researcher and teacher of L2 writing. Charlene Polio is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Linguistics ＆ Germanic, Slavic, Asian ＆ African Languages atMichigan State University, the writed states. She conceptualises POA as a useful method to address some issues in pre-service teacher development. Overall, the articles in this section are insightful and reader-friendly. They are not only useful for the development of POA in particular, but may also be valuable to a broad range of researchers as they touch upon pertaining issues, as well as emerging topics, in the field of applied linguistics. We therefore find it necessary to make them accessible to a wide readership.