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.为了学习传统教学在中国取得的成功，英国教育大臣建议学校重拾“填鸭式”教学模式，这一教学方式曾经也在英国风行一时。
教育大臣尼克·吉布（Nick Gibb）说道，让一个老师在前面讲课比学生自行学习更加有效。学生自主学习的模式在过去的40年中主导了英国学校教育。
吉布先生的这一提议将会激怒教育机构的许多人士。不久前，英国政府曾安排70余名小学数学教师赴上海观摩数学教学，希望向中国“取经”。
研究人员发现，中国儿童取得的数学成绩要比同龄的英国儿童高百分之三十。
这一“全班教学模式”，直到20世纪50年代在英国仍然很常见，老师在上面用黑板板书上课，向学生提问来测试他们的听课程度，所有学生坐在下面听老师讲。
但是进步教育工作者批驳道，这种模式太过于“独裁”，并倡导实行自那时以来一直在小学教育中风行的“以孩子为中心”的教育模式。这种体制，鼓励学生自己去发现知识，以他们自己的速度或小团体合作来学习并辅之以老师的指导。
吉布告诉《每日邮报》说：“我想让全国的学校采取全班教学的模式，尤其是在数学和科学的教学上面。研究表明，这一模式比其他的专注于个体学习的模式更加显著有效。”
他说上海的学校荣登国际排行榜榜首。上海十五岁的学生在数学教学上面，要比英国的同龄学生要先进三年。
吉布补充说：“在上海的小学的全班教学模式中，所有的学生参与问题回答是他们成功的关键。老师教授给所有的学生同样的课程，以期他们获得同样高的水平。
白金汉大学（Buckingham University）教育与就业研究中心（Centre for Education and Employment Research）主任艾伦·史密瑟斯（Alan Smithers）教授说道：“英国的教育在近几十年中过于强调进步的思想，而这种思想认为通过儿童自己的方式学习更好。”
“这显然是疯狂的，我们花了40年的时间才认识到。”
“这些时髦教学方法的问题在于，孩子们的学习由他们自己来决定，他们可能会与朋友聊天，而老师却在别的地方。这一方式没有充分的利用时间和资源。”
吉布的言论得到了最近研究的支持，研究认为，远东地区学生的成功在很大程度上就归因于教学方法。
在一项由562名九至十岁的来自南安普敦（Southampton）和中国南京的学生参与的课堂数学测试中，发现中国学生的分数要比英国学生的分数高20%至30%。
研究人员还用视频来分析课堂过程，他们发现在中国的课堂中，学生们排排坐，面对着黑板，72%的时间是用来课堂交流的，而相比英国的课堂只有24%的课堂交流。
相比之下，英国的课堂上，学生们分成几个小组，他们用近一半的时间——47%的时间在‘个人或团体讨论活动’中，中国的课堂只有28%的时间花费在此之上。
研究者之一雷诺兹教授说，他很失望很多英国学校没有充分利用“全班教学”方式，这种方式能提高大多数科目的学生成绩。