2012
年1
月2
日星期一 12:53-13:27
Our Intelligence and Diligence and Our Weaknesses and Defects
(我们处于聪明、勤奋与薄弱、缺陷之中)
We teachers and students are all intelligent and diligent but we have some weaknesses and our educational institutions have some defects.
With this reflection in mind, we need to make our inquiry into our individual weaknesses and our defective educational institutions.
Then what are the individual weaknesses in our English language teaching and learning?
What are the institutional defects in our English language teaching and learning?
It seems to me that our individual weaknesses lie in our inadequate engagement in creative thinking and critical thinking that are overwhelmed by too much mechanical repetition in exercises preparing for a slim chance of cross-cultural communication that discourages many in English language teaching and learning.
As for our institutional defects, our education encourages knowledge mastery in memory through repeated exercises that is imposed on both the students as well as the teachers by the standardized examinations such as CET-4, CET-6, TEM-4 and TEM-8 for accountability of English language teaching and learning. Our education discourages creative thinking and critical thinking because they are hardly testable and measurable.