Britain Turns to Chinese Textbooks to Improve Its Math Scores

The teaching method, known as the “mastery” approach, is based on the idea that all students can succeed in learning mathematics when given proper instruction. Whereas teachers in the West might describe a concept and then assign problems for students to solve individually, the mastery method is more interactive. Teachers frequently pose questions to students who are then expected to precisely explain both solutions and underlying principles in front of their classmates.

Source: Britain Turns to Chinese Textbooks to Improve Its Math Scores – The New York Times

While textbooks were translated directly from Chinese, an elementary task involved pairing images …

But at least one pair had to be changed, he said. The bird and cage in the original became a bird and a tree in the English edition — a not-so-subtle metaphor, perhaps, for the different approaches to teaching.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *