This leads to concerns about the shortcomings of students studying literature today, which are the lack of a systematic view of literature through the periods; the lack of a basis for identifying authors and works through the periods, thereby having a basis for a deeper understanding of the work...

PHOTO: DAO NGOC THACH

No more learning literature in chronological order

With the 2006 General Education Program, literature is built on a time axis. Accordingly, students learn about previous genres, previous periods, and then recent literary periods: folk literature, medieval literature (according to the progression of 4 periods), modern literature (from the beginning of the 20th century - 1945, from 1945 - 1975, from 1975 - the end of the 20th century). Before studying the works of each period, students learn an overview of the literature of that period. This helps students understand deeply the historical, social, and cultural context of each period; grasp very clearly which period the author belongs to, which creative movement... Accordingly, students are given a fairly detailed program system for each period.

Meanwhile, in the 2018 General Education Program, from grades 6 to 12, the works are arranged freely, not in chronological order. There are very modern works that are arranged to be taught first, and there are also classical works that are not studied until near the end of the high school program. Students (who do not study literature) do not have a general overview of literary history like in the 2006 program.

The 2018 General Education Program does not rely on the main axis of time to provide historical literary knowledge like the 2006 program, but mainly takes the requirements of reading, writing, speaking and listening skills as the basis.

New program towards application

Both programs use genre criteria (literary, argumentative, and informational texts) as the basis for selecting texts. However, the 2018 General Education Program focuses more on practical (daily) learning of literature, so the selected texts are very rich and diverse. Many texts are very new and have never been mentioned in previous literature history overviews. This is consistent with the program's view that it aims to teach skills rather than focusing too much on knowledge.

PHOTO: DAO NGOC THACH

Scholar Nguyen Hien Le was right when he said that the difficulty in learning literature for students at that time was that the younger classes studied ancient texts, which were very difficult to absorb, while the older classes studied modern works, which were closer to their language and life. Therefore, learning literature according to the historical process has its advantages, but also many disadvantages.

Explaining the way the new program is built not in chronological order, Dr. Nguyen Thanh Thi (Editor-in-Chief of the literature book series Creative Horizon ) expressed his opinion in a recent textbook training session for teachers: "It is not necessary to teach texts in a historical order, but through each lesson, students can visualize and correctly perceive the context of those works." The viewpoint of the program writers is to reduce the load of knowledge. However, there is still "room" for students to "show off their skills", giving students the opportunity to study in depth. These are classes in groups with specialized literature topics that help students learn literature in a more systematic way.