Hi, Aya! When I read your post above, I thought I should introduce this book I read recently. It’s 「ことばを鍛えるイギリスの学校」written by Asako Yamamoto published in 2003. The author is a linguistics researcher who has lived in Reading, UK with her family since 1986. She mainly wrote about English education in UK along with British education system, school curriculums and British people’s views on education in general from her research and experience as a mother of three sons. Since I’ve always admired British people’s logical argument and richness of expressions, I read the book with avid interest.
What impressed me most was their strong belief on education, which is learning by speaking, in other words, developing thought by production. She explains that people believe that children can learn by speaking what they know in front of others and by discussing it with them. In school, students are trained to express their own opinion clearly and logically in speaking and writing from early age. It seems demanding even ambitious to me, who was raised by being told that listening is the very first step of learning. However, output-oriented learning would create more interaction in class and it can start any time under appropriate instruction. It might be challenging yet should be encouraging and enjoyable for students.
English is a national language for British people and the most important subject in school. It’s not just the matter of the quantity. They put English in center and other subjects around it. She explained the importance of English education as a subject and relationship with other subjects giving an example of a history assignment his son worked on at age 8. While studying the Tudors, he was instructed to write an essay on the followings: 1) Write some features of schools in the Tudors. 2) Compare them to those of your school and write which you prefer and the reasons. Of course, the students were required to answer in full sentences. As another example, his eldest son made a newspaper on Macbeth and later wrote scripts for a TV news report on the same subject during studying Shakespeare and the media. As you can see, there is a clear attitude that they read and listen in order to speak and write. When I look back my early school days, I didn’t have such intention when I read a book. That attitude would probably change the whole point of views.
The book has a lot more to talk about and I have some concerns, but I should stop now. I found the book very informative and intriguing. It’s highly recommended if you are interested in language and education.
