British official urges schools to learn from China

A British education official has urged primary schools in his country to return to the traditional "whole class teaching" method in order to reproduce its success in China, the Daily Mail reported on Sunday.

Having a teacher speak to the class as a whole from the front is much more effective than trendy student-centred

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learning, Minister of State for Schools in the British Department for Education Nick Gibb said.

Gibb added that he would like to see schools across Britain adopt "whole class teaching" methods, particularly in math and science.

"Whole class teaching" methods, also known as "chalk and talk" teaching, was primarily used in Britain until 1950s when it was branded authoritarian and replaced with the 'child-centered' approach. Under the new system, pupils are encouraged to 'discover' knowledge by themselves at their own pace, often in small groups, with the teacher offering them support.

The "whole class" teaching has proven popular and effective in China. In Chinese primary schools, pupils sit in rows of desks facing the teacher and blackboard. Videos showed that teachers interacted with the whole class 72 per cent of the time in Chinese classrooms, compared with only 25 per cent in England.

Research shows that children in China score up to 30 percent higher in math than British pupils of the same age.

As Shanghai's pupils have been the top performers in the Program for International Student Assessment organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, sixty of China's top math teachers from Shanghai were invited to selected British schools to share their skills in a bid to lift standards in Britain this September, while some British teachers flew to Shanghai to study teaching methods in China.