英教育大臣呼籲學習中國教學經驗

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.

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.

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.

Researchers have found that children in China achieve marks in maths up to 30 per cent higher than English pupils of the same age.

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.

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.

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.’

He said Shanghai schools topped international league tables, with 15-year-olds there three years ahead of their English counterparts in maths.

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.’

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.

‘This was clearly madness, and it has taken 40 years to realise this.

‘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.’

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.爲了學習傳統教學在中國取得的成功，英國教育大臣建議學校重拾“填鴨式”教學模式，這一教學方式曾經也在英國風行一時。

教育大臣尼克·吉布（Nick Gibb）說道，讓一個老師在前面講課比學生自行學習更加有效。學生自主學習的模式在過去的40年中主導了英國學校教育。

吉布先生的這一提議將會激怒教育機構的許多人士。不久前，英國政府曾安排70餘名小學數學教師赴上海觀摩數學教學，希望向中國“取經”。

研究人員發現，中國兒童取得的數學成績要比同齡的英國兒童高百分之三十。

這一“全班教學模式”，直到20世紀50年代在英國仍然很常見，老師在上面用黑板板書上課，向學生提問來測試他們的聽課程度，所有學生坐在下面聽老師講。

但是進步教育工作者批駁道，這種模式太過於“獨裁”，並倡導實行自那時以來一直在小學教育中風行的“以孩子爲中心”的教育模式。這種體制，鼓勵學生自己去發現知識，以他們自己的速度或小團體合作來學習並輔之以老師的指導。

吉佈告訴《每日郵報》說：“我想讓全國的學校採取全班教學的模式，尤其是在數學和科學的教學上面。研究表明，這一模式比其他的專注於個體學習的模式更加顯著有效。”

他說上海的學校榮登國際排行榜榜首。上海十五歲的學生在數學教學上面，要比英國的同齡學生要先進三年。

吉布補充說：“在上海的小學的全班教學模式中，所有的學生參與問題回答是他們成功的關鍵。老師教授給所有的學生同樣的課程，以期他們獲得同樣高的水平。

白金漢大學（Buckingham University）教育與就業研究中心（Centre for Education and Employment Research）主任艾倫·史密瑟斯（Alan Smithers）教授說道：“英國的教育在近幾十年中過於強調進步的思想，而這種思想認爲通過兒童自己的方式學習更好。”

“這顯然是瘋狂的，我們花了40年的時間才認識到。”

“這些時髦教學方法的問題在於，孩子們的學習由他們自己來決定，他們可能會與朋友聊天，而老師卻在別的地方。這一方式沒有充分的利用時間和資源。”

吉布的言論得到了最近研究的支持，研究認爲，遠東地區學生的成功在很大程度上就歸因於教學方法。

在一項由562名九至十歲的來自南安普敦（Southampton）和中國南京的學生參與的課堂數學測試中，發現中國學生的分數要比英國學生的分數高20%至30%。

研究人員還用視頻來分析課堂過程，他們發現在中國的課堂中，學生們排排坐，面對着黑板，72%的時間是用來課堂交流的，而相比英國的課堂只有24%的課堂交流。

相比之下，英國的課堂上，學生們分成幾個小組，他們用近一半的時間——47%的時間在‘個人或團體討論活動’中，中國的課堂只有28%的時間花費在此之上。

研究者之一雷諾茲教授說，他很失望很多英國學校沒有充分利用“全班教學”方式，這種方式能提高大多數科目的學生成績。