On the Differences between Chinese Languages Education in Xinjiang and Economically Developed Cities under the New Curriculum Standard

. By examining the ancient and modern educational approaches in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, this study analyzes the changes and processes based on the analysis of Xinjiang's location, ethnic situation, and educational resources and studies the differences between language education in Xinjiang and the general region, which proposes the importance of the popularization of the common national language for language education. It also analyzes the relationship between the common national language and Chinese language education.The paper is divided into four parts. The first part introduces the background. The second part introduces language education under the new curriculum standards and explores in depth through language learning requirements, teaching materials, and school-based resources. The third part analyzes the current situation of the use of national languages by ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and explores it through students, language teachers, and learning. The fourth part concludes. The shift from "bilingual education" to full Chinese language teaching has been a long-standing educational goal in Xinjiang, and it has been achieved. However, the version of language teaching materials in the region lags, the curriculum reform is slow, and teachers and language curriculum resources are relatively scarce. This will provide some reference for future research and exploration of language education in Xinjiang. This study finds that the versions of the language teaching materials lag, the curriculum reform is slow, and the teacher strength and the language curriculum resources are relatively scarce.


Introduction
In May 2014, the second Central Working Forum in Xinjiang pointed out that bilingual education should be actively promoted, especially for young people to learn and use the country's common language [1].On August 23, 2016, the Ministry of Education (Moe) and the state language and Culture Commission (NLC) released the "Fifteen Development Plan" for the state language and character industry, which set the goal of "Basically popularizing the nation's common language and character by 2020" [2].Then, in September 2018, he proposed the "Cultural Replenishment of Xinjiang" project, the most important of which is to promote the country's common language and characters and improve their popularity and quality.It proposed to effectively link the project to popularize common language and characters with rural revitalization and promote "The project to popularize and upgrade the national common language and characters and the implementation plan of the Universal Rural Revitalization Plan" to promote universal support for rural revitalization.This solution should elaborate on the cultural functions of supporting ambition and wisdom in language and writing and improve the grassroots people's language ability and cultural level.The implementation of this project will directly affect the language education in Xinjiang Basic Education and the understanding and recognition of the language knowledge of ethnic minority students.At the same time, it also indirectly requires that the schoolbased curriculum resources of Chinese education should be diversified and integrated into the excellent traditional culture of Xinjiang ethnic minorities.
Chinese education can improve the understanding and analysis of Chinese literature from ancient times to the present, as well as the ability of oral and strong written expression.However, due to regional differences, the reform of Chinese textbooks in Xinjiang has been slow, and it was not until the primary and secondary schools in the 2021 region began to use the ministry's version of the textbooks that other regions, for example, Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei from 2019 began to use the ministry compiled textbooks, and carried out the reform of the Chinese college entrance examination questions.Many normal school students go to first-tier cities as soon as they graduate, and even many experienced teachers there will move to other areas because of the salary.This will indirectly lead to the language curriculum resources that can not be updated, teachers are more to complete the task of books, and the schoolbased curriculum is not concerned with or does not explore innovation.
In view of the above content, the existing literature has also done some investigation and research.In 2009, Li Ruzhong completed the "Millennium Timeline of bilingual education for ethnic minorities in Xinjiang (II)" and noted that bilingual education in Xinjiang began in the 1950s; it has experienced four stages: system establishment (1950)(1951)(1952)(1953)(1954)(1955)(1956)(1957)(1958)(1959)(1960)(1961)(1962)(1963)(1964)(1965), education stagnation (1966)(1967)(1968)(1969)(1970)(1971)(1972)(1973)(1974)(1975)(1976), resuming development (1977)(1978)(1979)(1980)(1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987), reform experiment and accelerating development (1987-present) [3].However, it can also be seen from the "Cultural Replenishment of Xinjiang" proposed in 2018 that "Bilingual" education has advanced to popularize the common national language fully.In the same year, Gan Xumin made a separate investigation on the subject of Chinese in Kashgar, southern Xinjiang, in "the analysis of the new curriculum reform of senior high schools in the western minority areas-taking the subject of Chinese in Kashgar, Xinjiang as an example", it also lays a foundation for the comparison of the Chinese education between the minority areas in southern Xinjiang and the ordinary schools in Urumqi.Then, in 2018 Wang Yang's lecture "reflections on the subject orientation and connotation construction of Chinese language teaching in Xinjiang ethnic primary and secondary schools" and Fu Xiaoqun's 2020 "research on the effective development and utilization of Xinjiang language curriculum resources", in a deeper and more targeted way, it is pointed out that there are still some problems in the Chinese education of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, such as the backward edition of teaching materials, the lack of curriculum resources and the shortage of teachers, which is also why this paper focus on the language education, at the same time also mentioned the "Bilingual" education, in such minority areas, the two are inseparable.
The use of the common national language is being promoted continuously, and so is Xinjiang's current language education situation.Through the use of teaching materials (design), curriculum resources, and the common national language, this article proposes suggestions for teaching minority languages in Xinjiang and improving the current situation of language teaching in ethnic areas.In the end, the educational value of "educating people through literature" of Chinese traditional culture will be realized to a certain extent.

Xinjiang minority Chinese education under the new curriculum standards 2.1Different requirements for Chinese learning in Xinjiang
At present, the Chinese curriculum is guided by the compulsory education Chinese curriculum standards (2022 edition) (hereinafter referred to as the "Chinese curriculum standards"), cultivate patriotism, collectivism, and socialism, develop a correct outlook on the world, life, and values, learn to use a variety of reading methods, and develop independent reading ability.Can read daily books, newspapers, and magazines, preliminary appreciation of literary works, can use reference books to read simple Classical Chinese.Learning to listen and express the Chinese curriculum standards for ethnic primary and secondary schools (compulsory education) (hereinafter referred to as "Chinese curriculum standards") has guided the teaching of Chinese in ethnic primary and secondary schools in Xinjiang; it is pointed out in the preface that this curriculum standard is applicable to the minority students whose mother tongue is non-Chinese and whose Chinese is the second language [3].At the same time, it is pointed out in the "General objective" that the general objective of the Chinese curriculum at the compulsory education stage is to cultivate students' Chinese application ability and to lay a foundation for students' lifelong learning and overall development.The design of the goal focuses on the overall improvement of Chinese literacy [4].From this point of view, the "Chinese curriculum" and Chinese as a second language curriculum are different in terms of the subject attributes and teaching objectives.
Taking the first stage (Grade 1 Grade 2) as an example, the Chinese course standard requires that about 1600 commonly Chinese characters be recognized, and about 800 of them should be able to write.Be able to read consonants, vowels, tones, and whole syllables correctly.Able to spell syllables accurately and correctly write consonants, vowels, and syllables.Learn the majuscule and memorize the Chinese phonetic alphabet.Master the basic strokes of Chinese characters and commonly used side part of the first, according to the basic stroke order rules with a hard pen to write, pay attention to the frame structure, a preliminary experience of the physical beauty of Chinese characters.The Chinese curriculum standard requires that students learn to master Pinyin.Students are required to master the basic writing rules and initially develop correct writing habits.The initial formation of correct writing habits is to master the basic writing rules.It can be found that, for students whose mother tongue is not Chinese, their Mandarin classes and the Chinese courses of ordinary students, although they are carrying out basic learning of Chinese characters, the requirements are not the same; they are more focused on "Will", and not "Use" it.
Certainly, the two standards in the teaching methods, the stage of teaching objectives and the use of teaching materials, have different degrees of difference.

2.2.Use of language teaching materials
In 1958, Xinjiang Education Publishing House published Chinese textbooks (1-3volumes) for secondary schools in Uyghur, Kazakh, and Mongolian.This initiative was taken to change the backward situation of minority education in Xinjiang.It was also the first set of Chinese textbooks for minority secondary schools since the liberation of Xinjiang.151 of the Uyghur "Language" textbooks used in minority areas in 2004 reflected the Uyghur culture, accounting for 49.19% of the total number of texts.
In 2012, to implement the spirit of the autonomous region's ten-year plan for the development of bilingual education, the Department of Education cooperated with the People's Education Publishing House to prepare a bilingual textbook applicable to Xinjiang, Language (for Xinjiang in the PEP Edition).This textbook was officially put into use in 2016.It targets primary and secondary schools in Xinjiang where Chinese is taught as the main language, with single subjects plus teaching modes such as Uyghur and Kazakh.In addition, all Nonethnic Chinese schools in Xinjiang use the PEP Edition.
In high schools, for example, the ministry's textbook version will be used in September 2019, with six provinces piloting its use, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Shandong, Hainan, and Liaoning.It will not be until September 2021 that first-year high school students in Xinjiang will begin using the ministry's version of the textbook.However, in July 2022, the teaching materials of the PEP Edition could still be found for sale in Shenzhen City (a larger local bookstore) in Urumqi, Xinjiang, and were not all removed from the shelves.Students in sophomore and junior high school are still using the PEP Edition(questionnaire below).
Compared with the old textbook, the content of "national self-confidence" in the ministry's version of the high school language textbook can be said to be "heavily" covered in the whole set.Among the four categories of content to be studied, Chinese traditional culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture account for three of them, and the other category is a foreign culture.Because Xinjiang's educational resources lag behind those of other provinces and the language problems of ethnic minorities, language teachers are still figuring out the new teaching materials.They are not only dealing with the students of Han nationality but also with a large proportion of minority students.

2.3.The problem of school-based resources for Chinese in Xinjiang
The Language Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education (2022 Edition) mentions that "language curriculum resources include both paper resources, as well as digital resources; daily life resources and cultural resources of regional characteristics …" "Regional and local characteristics resources, design language practice activities with school characteristics and regional characteristics, implement the target requirements of the learning task groups, enhance the richness of the language curriculum content and the openness of the curriculum implementation."It has been emphasized "regional characteristics" and "local resources", so as language teachers, they should try to develop language curriculum resources, even knowledge related to local cultural characteristics.
China's vast territory, the natural conditions, customs, and educational environment vary greatly from place to place, and the unified management cannot take into account the differences between places, which to a certain extent diminishes the effect of school education based on such a situation made a curriculum policyschool-based curriculum.However, few curriculum resources have regional characteristics in Xinjiang's language classrooms.
First, language teachers in Xinjiang have a weak sense of self-development.They teach around textbook knowledge or have a school-based curriculum, but there is no content related to minority groups in Xinjiang for language teaching.Although Xinjiang is located northwest of China, it is a vast region with rich natural resources and landscapes.Moreover, it is home to Uyghur, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Mongolian, Tajik, and other ethnic minorities, accounting for 57.76% of Xinjiang's total population.Cultural resources are numerous and rich and include many excellent minority literature works.For example, the narrative poem Saiyit Haohan opposes oppression and exploitation and praises the brave and resourceful struggle spirit of the Uyghur working people.This can be compared with the Water Margin, which students learned in the textbook.With the language teaching concept of "life is language" and "the extension of language is equal to the extension of life", language teachers in Xinjiang should integrate the high school language textbooks with the local language curriculum resources in Xinjiang to implement the language teachers in Xinjiang should integrate the high school language materials with the local language curriculum resources in Xinjiang [5].
Second, students have limitations in their choice of school-based curriculum resources.They do not know what a school-based curriculum is, and they just choose according to the selection given by the teacher because the curriculum given by the teacher is also not innovative and does not reflect the regional characteristics.Therefore, the language knowledge that students learn is limited to books, which also makes students' ability to explore language knowledge on their own relatively weak.
Third, schools do not pay enough attention to it.Schools need to determine the goals and structure of their school-based curriculum through curriculum review committees, but schools in Xinjiang do not have wellestablished curriculum review committees, and more often than not, teachers are directly asked to set the topics.Schools fail to conduct regular and quantitative training for language teachers on curriculum resource development and utilization, and teachers do not have institutional protection for developing and utilizing curriculum resources [6].
Therefore, how to develop a school-based curriculum with Xinjiang characteristics is still an issue that needs to be addressed.

Current status of the use of national languages by ethnic minorities in Xinjiang
Since China has entered the era of globalization, the demand for international exchange has increased in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other coastal cities, and as a result, bilingual schools have emerged in the form of remedial schools [7].The term "bilingual education" here is more in line with the broad definition of bilingual education abroad: bilingual education refers to the use of two languages in schools.
However, China has a vast territory, many ethnic groups, and a rich cultural heritage, so Chinese scholars have defined "bilingual education" according to the educational situation in China, including both broad and narrow meanings.In the narrow sense, bilingual education refers to the education system in which students from ethnic minorities are the target students and are taught in both their own language and Chinese.This is more in line with the Xinjiang analyzed in this paper, for the minority groups in Xinjiang, who have their own languages and scripts but also receive Chinese education.In particular, the project "Cultural Replenishment of Xinjiang" proposed in September 2018, highlights the focus of bilingual education and proposes comprehensive coverage of education in the common national language and script.
In fact, since the 1960s, Xinjiang has been experimenting with bilingual education for ethnic minorities, and in the 1980s, it was officially proposed that the goal of Chinese language teaching or bilingual education is to cultivate talents who can understand both Chinese and Mandarin [8].In 2017, the Education Working Committee of the Party Committee of the autonomous region held a symposium on promoting bilingual education in primary and secondary schools, issued the Opinions on Strengthening and Improving Bilingual Education in Primary and Secondary Schools, and fully launched the work of full coverage of education in the common national language.By the start of the autumn school year in September 2018, 2,941,900 students in compulsory education across Xinjiang will have fully achieved the goal of 100% full coverage of education in the common national language and script.

Students
Schools in Xinjiang can be divided into one school for the Han and minority nationalities, ethnic schools, and Chinese-only schools.By far, most of the schools in Xinjiang are Chinese-only schools, in which the students are mainly of Han nationality, but there are also many minority students.In this paper, a survey questionnaire was used to investigate a Chinese-only high school in Urumqi, Xinjiang.The data are authentic and can reflect the Chinese language level of minority students in Chinese-only schools and analyze the popularity of the national language.However, this questionnaire needs to continue to be improved and can be compared with the situation of ethnic schools and one school for the Han and minority nationalities.
The target population of this survey: minority students in the senior year of a purely Chinese-speaking department in Urumqi, Xinjiang, including Uyghurs (15 People), Kazakhs (6 People), Mongols (6 People), Kirgiz (1 People), and other minorities (5 People).The total number of students in this grade is 442, with 33 ethnic minorities.A survey was conducted to analyze minority students' Chinese language use, Chinese character writing, Mandarin language teaching, high school language school curriculum, and college entrance examination type selection, and derive the data in table 1.The data in the above table reveals the following.First, for the language of their own nationality, most students use it in their daily communication.However, fewer of these students can write their own ethnic script, for which it is recommended to keep improving the ability to use the common national language while preserving their own culture.
Second, the common national language is indeed gaining popularity.The Ministry of Education has proposed that by the start of the fall school year in September 2018, 2,941,900 students in compulsory education across Xinjiang will have fully achieved the goal of 100% full coverage of education in the commonly used national language and script.The above data shows that these minority students have their own ethnic languages and scripts, but they basically speak Chinese and write Chinese characters from the first grade of elementary school, which is basically barrierfree.
Third, the type of college entrance examination is chosen more in favor of the "Chinese Proficiency Test for Minorities".In this case, minority students already have a good foundation in Chinese and have an improved understanding of the common national language and script.Therefore, the policy of the "Chinese Proficiency Test for Minorities" is also favorable to minority candidates, which makes more such students learn Chinese, and the purpose of popularizing the national language has been achieved.

3.2.Chinese Teachers
The above data can reveal that a relatively small percentage of minority languages are used in the classroom.Teaching in Chinese is conducive to the development of students' Chinese language and culture.This is also different from the teaching of minority languages such as Uyghur and Kazakh in the past.Currently, all subjects are taught in Chinese, which also needs the support of language teaching.Because language teaching will improve students' understanding of Chinese language segments in addition to speaking and writing Chinese characters, language can lay a good foundation for students to learn science subjects well and is also more conducive to the study of liberal arts such as history and politics.
In 2019, two large-scale events were held in Kashgar and Aksu regions, in which about 500 secondary school language teachers and researchers and backbone language teachers from the four southern Xinjiang regions participated, including demonstration classes for backbone teachers across Xinjiang and seminar classes for local teachers, with a variety of classes involving different genres and taking into account the reading and writing of masterpieces [8].Similar training, in different forms, is conducted every year to improve local language teaching.Language teachers in Xinjiang have taken on the responsibility of popularizing the common national language while passing on the excellent traditional Chinese culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture.

3.3.Schools
In September 2018, Xinjiang will fully achieve the goal of 100% full coverage of education in the common national language, which makes it imperative for schools to put the use of the common national language into practice.Regardless of the type of school, students must use Chinese to teach and communicate.In Urumqi, Xinjiang, for example, some "one school for the Han and minority nationalities" will remind students on a screen at the school entrance that they should use the common state language when entering the school.According to 2016 statistics, there are 4,942 primary and secondary schools in Xinjiang, of which 951 (19.2%) are "one school for the Han and minority nationalities", and the number of "one school for the Han and minority nationalities" in primary, middle, and high schools are 539, 299, and 113, respectively.
The number of "one school for the Han and minority nationalities" in primary, middle, and high schools was 539, 299, and 113, accounting for 15.29%, 28.16%, and 31.92% of the total number of schools of each type, respectively [9].The expanding scale of "one school for the Han and minority nationalities" is conducive to the adaptation of minority students to the Chinese-speaking environment and to the expansion of the coverage of the common national language, with remarkable results.
The emergence of "one school for the Han and minority nationalities" schools is a response to the need to promote the learning of minority students in Xinjiang.
In order to further provide good teaching resources for minority students, the state has opened Inner High School classes in some economically developed cities on the mainland.
In March 2000, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Education Commission followed up by issuing the "Implementation Plan of Xinjiang High School Classes in Some Economically Developed Cities in the Mainland (for Trial Implementation)", which kicked off the creation of Xinjiang High School Classes in the Mainland.Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Changchun, Harbin, Yangzhou, Yancheng, Zhenjiang, Taizhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Jiaxing, Xiamen, Qingdao, Yantai, Weihai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Jiangmen, Zhaoqing, Shenzhen and other developed cities in the mainland held Xinjiang high school classes one after another [10]."Mainland Xinjiang Classes" will be held after students pass the examination to improve their Chinese language proficiency and to make up for the differences in knowledge.The implementation of this policy is of great importance to the cause of general language education in Xinjiang.
However, there are still problems of inadequate and uneven development of general-purpose state language and writing education in Xinjiang, such as the remote agricultural and pastoral areas in the four southern Xinjiang prefectures are areas where general-purpose state language and writing education is relatively weak [11].In these remote areas, they lack qualified teachers, and the management of comprehensive schools is relatively backward.The education of the common national language is inseparable from language education, and from this perspective, it is especially important to see how language textbooks (Ministry of Education) can be used effectively, how the national curriculum, local curriculum, and school-based curriculum can be organically connected, and how to create a Chinese language atmosphere in schools.

Conclusion
In the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, language education differs from other general regions, most notably in terms of language.A good foundation for language education requires proficiency in the Chinese language, while the full spread of the Chinese language facilitates the study of the language as a subject for minority students.The two complement each other.Based on the above research and analysis, at present, although some remote areas in Xinjiang still have problems, education in the common national language has basically achieved full coverage compared to the past.On such a basis, Xinjiang needs to implement a focus on the language subject.The use of language textbooks has lagged in Xinjiang, and teachers are relatively weak in their ability to teach the new materials, of which there is a lack of articulation between the national curriculum and the school-based curriculum.Therefore, there is an urgent need to address the issues of how to narrow the gap between language education in Xinjiang and other regions, how to improve the capacity

Table 1 .
A Survey on Relevant Content of Language Education for Minorities in Xinjiang[Self-drawn]