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Schools are being urged to go back to ‘chalk and talk’ teaching that was once widespread in Britain – in order to reproduce the success the traditional methods now have in China.
为了重现当年英国普遍使用的传统教学方法的辉煌成果，英国教育部部长鼓励学校返璞归真，回归目前在中国广为应用的板书授课教学方法。
Education Minister Nick Gibb said having a teacher speak to the class as a whole from the front was much more effective than children working on their own – the method which has become dominant in schools over the past 40 years.
英国教育部长尼克·吉布称，比起让孩子们进行自主学习，老师在全班同学面前讲课的效率更高。而让学生自主学习这种教学方法曾在过去的40多年里占据教学的主导地位。
Mr Gibb’s intervention, which will infuriate many in the educational establishment, follows a Government scheme in which more than 70 maths teachers from British primaries went to Shanghai to study the teaching styles of their Chinese counterparts.
吉布的说辞将会刺激教育界的许多神经。之前，英国政府实施了一项计划，把70多名小学数学老师派到上海，学习中国老师的教学方式。
Researchers have found that children in China achieve marks in maths up to 30 per cent higher than English pupils of the same age.
研究者们发现，中国孩子的数学成绩比同龄的英国孩子高出了30%。
In ‘whole class’ teaching, which was common in this country until the 1950s, the teacher instructs all the pupils together by using a blackboard, or its equivalent, while testing the children with questions.
50年代，“全班教学”在英国非常普遍，老师使用黑板或类似的东西给学生们授课，用提问的方式淳淳善诱来测试学生是否听懂。
But progressive educationalists argued this was too authoritarian, and instead promoted the ‘child-centred’ approach that has been prevalent in primary schools since then. Under this system, pupils are encouraged to ‘discover’ knowledge by themselves, working at their own speed or in small groups, with the teacher offering them support.
但教育改革派认为这种方法太过“独裁”，从那时起“以学生为中心”的教学模式开始在小学校中盛行开来。在这种教学系统下，学生们被鼓励根据自己的学习进度、自己去“发现”问题、进行小组学习，而老师只提供辅助。
Mr Gibb told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I would like to see schools across the country adopt whole class teaching methods, particularly in maths and science. Research shows it is significantly more effective than other methods that concentrate more on personalised learning.’
周日，吉布先生接受《每日邮报》采访时说：“我希望全国的学校都能够采用整班教学方法，尤其在数学和科学这两个学科上。研究显示，这种方法比其它关注个性化学习的教学方法更有效。”
He said Shanghai schools topped international league tables, with 15-year-olds there three years ahead of their English counterparts in maths.
他说上海的学校一直在国际比赛排名中名列前茅，15岁学生的数学能力等同于英国18岁学生。
Mr Gibb added: ‘In Shanghai primary schools, whole class teaching with all pupils taking part in question and answer sessions is key to their success. All their pupils are taught the same curriculum and all are expected to reach the same high standard.’
吉布补充说：“在上海小学里，所有学生参与课堂问答是他们取得成功的关键。所有的学生被教授以同样的知识，老师期望所有的学生都能达到同样的高标准。”
Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said: ‘English education was overtaken with progressive ideas in recent decades, which held it was better for children to learn by themselves and at their own pace.
英国白金汉大学教育与就业研究中心主任艾伦·史密瑟斯教授说：“近几十年来，认为让孩子根据自己的节奏进行自主学习更好的激进言论占据了英国的教育界。”
‘This was clearly madness, and it has taken 40 years to realise this.
“这很疯狂，但人们耗费了40年时间才意识到这个错误。”
‘The trouble with the trendy methods is that the children are left to their own devices, including chatting to their friends, while the teacher is elsewhere. It is a very inefficient use of time and resources.’
“这种时尚教学理论的弊端是放任学生们根据自己的方式进行学习，包括跟朋友们聊天，而老师则在别处，既浪费了时间又浪费了资源。”
Mr Gibb’s comments have been backed by recent research, which concluded that the success of pupils in the Far East is largely down to teaching methods.
吉布发表这番言论基于近来的研究成果。一些研究得出结论，远东地区学生成功的原因绝大部分取决于他们的教学方式。
Maths tests taken by 562 nine and ten-year-olds in classrooms in Southampton and Nanjing in China found that the Chinese pupils scored between 20 and 30 per cent higher than the English youngsters.
562名9岁和10岁的学生分别在南安普敦和南京教室里进行数学测试，结果显示，中国学生的数学成绩比他们的英国小伙伴高出了20%-30%。
Researchers also used video to analyse what was going on in lessons and found that in the Chinese classrooms – where pupils sit in rows of desks facing the front – ‘whole class interaction’ was being used 72 per cent of the time, compared with only 24 per cent in England.
研究者们也利用视频对课堂行为进行了分析，他们发现在中国教室里学生们一排排坐着面向讲台,“全班互动”时间占72%，而在英国，这样的时间只占24%。
By contrast, the classes in England, where pupils are often grouped in clusters of desks, spent nearly half – 47 per cent – of their time in ‘individual or group work’, compared with 28 per cent in China.
相反的，在英国，学生们经常被分为小组，他们花费了近一半的时间（约47%）在“个人或小组活动”上，而在中国，这样的时间约为28%。
The research, by Zhenzhen Miao and Professor David Reynolds of the University of Southampton, concluded: ‘Effective teachers spent longer time on interacting with the whole class rather than with individuals/groups or leaving pupils to independent seatwork.’
进行这项研究的南安普敦大学的缪珍珍和大卫·雷诺兹教授得出结论：“比起个人或小组学习、或让学生独立学习，教师花更多的时间与全班进行互动，更有效率。”
Prof Reynolds said he was disappointed that more schools were not increasing their use of the ‘whole class’ approach as it would improve results in most subjects.
雷诺兹教授说，目前他对更多的学校没有跟进“全班教学”的方法感到失望，因为这种教学方法对大多数学科非常有效。
