May 16 2017, Professor Guo Xiaoming, school supervisor of Macau Education and Youth Affairs Bureau, as well as Distinguished Professor of Education Faculty at City University of Macau, was invited to be the guest speaker of the 9th Education Forum, which was organized by the FED of City University of Macau. Professor Guo brought a brilliant talk entitled Tradition and Reform of Chinese Education in Macau - From the Perspective of Cultural Inheritance! This lecture also attracted many local teachers and education professional colleagues, including teachers from Kao Yip Middle School, the Workers' Children High School, and Guangdong Education Press!

In the beginning of the lecture, Professor Guo put forward a very practical question: What different teaching experience teachers would have when they teach Chinese in Cantonese or in Mandarin? For students, what different learning experience they would have? Next, Professor Guo explored his lecture with four key propositions. First, Prof. Guo elaborated the cultural mission of Chinese education, from the perspective of identity awareness and cultural identity; Second, based on a series of philosophical discussion about the concept of tradition, Macau regional culture, and the timeline of tradition, Prof. Guo analyzed the tradition of Macau Chinese education, especially the construction of the new tradition of Chinese education; Third, Prof. Guo discussed the positioning of Chinese education in Macau, from the perspectives of classical Chinese literature, Macau local literature, writing traditional Chinese characters as well as recognizing simplified Chinese characters, strengthening calligraphy education and so on; Finally, Prof. Guo shared several feasible approaches to compiling Chinese teaching textbooks in Macau.

In the Q & A session, the front-line educators from Macau primary and secondary schools also shared several insightful remarks. Mr. He Cheng, the schoolmaster of Kao Yip Middle School, suggested that, the compiling of Chinese education textbooks and teaching materials faced a very critical question: how to simultaneously highlight the characteristics of Macau local culture and the Chinese tradition to the utmost? Ms. Li Xuemei, the director of Macau Workers' Children High School mentioned that, in the real teaching context, there are several real challenges, such as how to clarify the Chinese education curriculum criterion and how to effectively facilitate teacher constant in-service training. In addition, students of FED also shared the differences as well as challenges between Chinese education in the Mainland and that in Macau.

Finally, Professor Guo Xiaoming thanked the Faculty of Education, for providing a wonderful exchanging platform for educational researchers and front-line teachers to explore dialogues, which links the education theoretical research and practical work closely. Prof. Guo believed that today’s forum would be an important moment for the development of Macau Chinese textbooks!