Abstract：This paper offers an overview of the historical development of Chinese language education in the past seventy years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese language education in China can be divided into three phases: inception stage, reform stage and rejuvenation stage. In the inception stage (1949–1977), Chinese language education was a political mission for the Communist Party and the government, and an array of corpus and status planning endeavors for the Chinese language and written characters were made (e.g. publication of Hanyu Pinyin romanization system, simplification of Chinese characters, and promotion of Mandarin Chinese). The Chinese language was mainly conceptualized as a tool. However, the Cultural Revolution caused severe damage to the Chinese language education. In the reform stage (1978–2011), Chinese language education was brought back to order, and many eminent educators and scholars participated in the public discussion of Chinese education in schools. Moreover, a national-wide Chinese language education survey was conducted and several rounds of Chinese language curriculum reform were carried out in this period. The rejuvenation stage (2012–2019) witnessed the adoption of a new Chinese language syllabus and curriculum, and regional Chinese language teaching was becoming increasingly active. In view of the merits and problems in the past seven decades’ Chinese language education, this paper concludes that Chinese language education still assumes a paramount role in nurturing good virtues and characters and developing Chinese language skills.
