How does your teacher make you sit—in rows or in groups? How would you like to sit? Does sitting in rows make you feel good or does it make you feel lonely? Do you feel that sitting in a group and discussing things makes you learn more in an easier way?
In the last 30 years or so, experts on teaching methods have thought about these questions. They felt that sitting in rows was not very useful to children, and that they learnt easier and better when they sat around a table in a group. That way, they could also learn to get along with others and exchange ideas easily.
However, it seems they were not quite right. At least Nigel Hastings, professor of Nottingham Trent University, does not think so. He has been researching classroom behavior for the last 20 years in England. His conclusion (结论) is that children work much better when they sit in rows than sitting around in groups.
His study found that students wasted a lot of time talking when they were placed in groups. When children were made to sit singly or in pairs and not in groups as they were used to, they were more attentive (专注的) to their work.
Right now, most primary school students in England are seated in groups of four and six according to Sunday Times. So the report of Nigel’s study could make a big difference to how they will sit and learn.
1. Why did some experts think sitting in groups was better?2. What’s the conclusion of Nigel’s study?
3. What happened when students sat in groups in Nigel’s study?
4. How are the most pupils in England seated nowadays?
5. Would you like to sit in groups or in rows? Why?
相似题推荐
In Chinese, the Forbidden City is called “Zijincheng（Purple Forbidden City）”. Why is “purple” in its name?
（a）The Forbidden City in Beijing was the emperors’ palace during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Its walls are red and its roofs are yellow, but the Chinese word for “purple” is in its name.
In fact, zi came from the “ziwei star”, or Polaris（北极星）. In the past, Chinese believed that the ziwei star was the heart of the sky, and that the heavenly emperor（天帝）lived on this star in his ziwei palace.
People also believed that Chinese emperors were the sons of the heavenly emperor. So their palace on Earth should be like the ziwei palace in the sky. That’s why “purple” is in the name.
In Chinese culture, the color purple stands for good luck.（b）这是因为一个关于老子的故事。Laozi was the founder（创立者）of Taoism（道家）who lived around 2,500 years ago. One day, when Laozi was traveling through Hangu Pass（函谷关）in Henan, a purple mist（雾气）appeared from the east.
Because of this story, people connected（联系）the color to nobility（高贵）.
根据短文内容，完成下列任务。
1. 请将（a）处画线句子翻译成汉语。
2. 请将（b）处画线句子翻译成英语。
3. Where did the heavenly emperor live, according to the story?
4. 根据短文内容填空，每空一词。
The Forbidden City was the
【推荐2】Do you often put off doing something that you should be doing? It’s called procrastination (拖延症). Most of the tasks that you procrastinate on aren’t actually difficult to do—you have the skills to complete them—you just don’t want to start them for one reason or another.
2-Minute Rule is a method of dealing with the problem and the goal is to make it easier for you to get started on the things you should be doing. It includes two parts. Part One comes from David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done. It’s surprising how many things we put off that we could get done in two minutes or less, for example, cleaning up your desk and sending an email. If a task takes less than two minutes to complete, then follow the rule and do it right now.
Can all of your goals be achieved in less than two minutes? Of course not. But every goal can be started in two minutes or less. And that’s the purpose behind the rule’s second part. Once you start doing something, it’s easier to continue doing it. The most important part of any new habit is getting started—not just the first time, but each time. I love the 2-Minute Rule because it accepts the idea that all good things happen once you get started.
Want to study better? Just pick up your books (2-Minute Rule) and begin reading or learning, and soon you will memorize the knowledge that seems difficult to learn.
Want to become a better writer? Just write one sentence (2-Minute Rule) and you’ll probably find yourself writing for an hour.
Want to make reading a habit? Just read the first page of a new book (2-Minute Rule) and before you know it, you have read the first ten pages.
Use next 120 seconds to get one thing done. Go!
1. What does “It” in Paragraph 2 refer to?2. 将划线句Can all of your goals be achieved in less than two minutes?翻译成汉语。
3. 参照示例，列举2-Minute Rule能帮助我们做的事情。
①studying better
②
③
4. 根据短文内容填空。
2-Minute Rule is a method people use ①
Fun with apps
What makes smartphones fun and useful? The apps, of course. Besides (除了) some popular ones like WeChat, QQ and Tik Tok, what other apps do you know? In fact, there are many apps that you can have fun with. Check out some of them here.
Vocabulary.com
Vocabulary.com offers (提供) some help to the English learners, even a linguist (语言学家), to make their English language skills better. Why is Vocabulary.com special? That’s because it’s much more than just a dictionary (字典). It has the basic features of a dictionary app—explanations, pronunciations and grammar tips—but it also has a word learning system. This means that you can practise the words you learn through a fun game. The game will help you remember words more quickly. The app knows that even if you look up a word, you may still forget it soon. So it helps you remember words by saying them again and again in the game. It’s like carrying your English teacher in your pocket!
Prisma
Are you a fan of art? Here’s an app just for you. Prisma is a photo-editing app unlike any other. The photo filters (滤镜) on the app can make your pictures look like works of art. What’s more, the filters on Prisma never get old. Prisma offers a new photo filter every day. However, it also gives you freedom to change the filters with image-enhancing (图像增强) tools. Imagine you can have a picture painted by Picasso, too! How amazing!
1. What apps are popular according to the passage?2. How can we practise the words we learn on Vocabulary.com?
3. What kind of app is Prisma?
4. Why do the filters on Prisma never get old?
5. Which app do you like best? Why? (请自拟一句话作答)
【推荐1】Like schools in China, American schools begin in September after a long summer holiday. There are two terms in a school year. The first term is from September to January and the second is from February to the start of June. Usually American children begin to go to school when they are five years old. Most students are seventeen or eighteen years old when they finish high school.
But unlike middle school students in China, high school students in America take only four or five subjects each term. They usually go to the same classes every day and have homework for every class.
After class they do all kinds of interesting things. After high school, many students go to college. They may go to a small or a large one. They usually have to pay a lot for their higher education. So lots of students after school have to make money for their studies.
根据短文内容完成下列问题。
1. When is the second term in America?
It’s from
2. How old are most American students when they finish high school?
They are usually
3. How many subjects do high school students in America take each term?
They take
4. What do many students do after high school?
They
5. Why do many American students work after class?
Because they have to
Object-based Learning
The standard school field trip often includes an outing to a museum, but a new resource provides guidance on how to bring a museum into the classroom. As part of the Mobile Museum Project, the Royal Holloway, University of London, and the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens teamed up to help create school museums. The project, which can be used for any age group, turns the traditional understanding of a museum on its head. The primary aim of object-based learning should be to learn from rather than about objects.
Asking questions such as, “What do you want people to learn and why?” and “Who are you hoping to attract and why?”helps students make clear the purpose of the collection of their objects. Collecting the objects for the museum is a learning process in and of itself. Culturally significant objects, such as an old thing passed down through a family or a thing from a student’s home country, can help students build a sense of historical understanding and empathy. Such a process can encourage students to think independently and critically, so this can make their mind quicker and sharper.
When the students are gathered, they can practise thematic grouping by sorting the things into different categories(类别) before organizing the collection for final display. Students might be asked to create an explanatory PPT to show the relationship among the things. For example, a display description might try to discover the evolution( 演 变 ) of an object: wheat seeds to wheat seedings, to flour, and to flour products. Designing and writing labels(标签)provide the way to get storytelling into the learning process.
The museum project is a broad framework that can be used to integrate( 融 合 ) different subjects. At the end of the project, students must be sure to collect advice, even criticism from each other. They can work together to explore what worked and what didn’t work and what might be done differently next time. This gives students an opportunity to critically assess(评估)their own work.
1. Where is the museum created in the project?2. What do the students firstly need to do for the museum?
3. How can the students get story-telling into the learning process?
4. What do you think of the object-based learning? Why?(At least two reasons)
Do you know how to cook, clean or grow plants? A survey was done among 1,000 students about the labor (劳动) activities that interest them most. These are all parts of Chinese public education starting now.
A new standard for labor education recently came out. The goal is to make Chinese students’ life colorful and build their characters through labor. Starting from the 2022 Autumn term, students in primary and middle school have at least one class a week to try and experience different kinds of labor and learn different life skills and even job skills.
|
|
In foreign countries, people have known the importance of labor education. For example, children over 6 years old must help their parents with housework in Germany. Chinese school education didn’t pay attention to this in the past. In fact, many people welcome such courses. They think it is necessary to teach young students basic life skills.
Schools and families play an important role in teaching students about the value of working hard.
| Some Skills Students Need to Learn Make a healthy daily eating plan. Make their rooms and classrooms tidy. Cook three or four dishes by themselves. Take part in local labor such as planting and fishing. ▲ |
Chart II
1. According to the Chart I, how many more students are interested in cooking than doing the dishes?2. What’s the goal of the new standard of labor education?
3. What’s the common point of Li Tao and Lin Lin on the cooking lessons?
4. What does the underlined word “this” refer to in the passage?
5. Please add another skill that students need to learn in ▲ in Chart II.
6. What do you think of labor education? Why?
Here are some good ways to make your weekend relaxing and meaningful (有意义的).
Have a good sleeping habit (习惯). It’s important to get enough sleep. But it doesn’t mean you can go to bed and get up late at weekends. Remember: Early to bed and early to rise (起来) makes a man healthy.
① Go out and enjoy the great weather with your friends and family. It’s a great chance to have fun.
Enjoy a dinner with your family and friends. It can bring us pleasure and happiness to have dinner with family members and friends. After a delicious dinner, it’s a time for us to share our life with each other.
② It’s a good choice for you to spend your free time. There are many different kinds of clubs. And there are different kinds of activities in different clubs. You can have a try.
1. Translate the underlined sentence into Chinese. (把划线部分的句子翻译成汉语。)2. What can it bring us to have dinner with family members and friends?
3. 根据短文内容，为①②横线处选择合适的标题。
①
A. Join a club. B. Plan a short trip or a picnic.
4. How many ways to spend weekends are there in the passage?
5. Give a proper title to the passage. (给短文拟一个合适的标题。)
【推荐2】Americans use many expressions with the word “dog”. People in the United States love their dogs and look after them well. They take their dogs for walks, let them play outside and give them good food and medical care. However, if dogs have no owners to care for them, they will live a different life. The expression “to lead a dog’s life” describes a person who has an unhappy life.
Some people say we live in a dog-eat-dog world. That means many people are competing (竞争) for the same things like good jobs. They say if a person wants to be successful (成功的), he has to work like a dog. This means they have to work very, very hard. Such hard work can make people dog-tired. And, the situation (情况) will be even worse if they become sick like a dog.
Still, people say every dog has its day. This means that every person enjoys a successful period during his or her life.
To be successful, people often have to learn new skills. Yet, some people say “you can never teach an old dog new tricks”. They believe that older people do not like to learn new things and will not change the way they do things.
| Dog expressions | Descriptions |
| To lead a | A person has an |
| Live in a dog-eat-dog world. | People compete for good |
| Every dog has its | During the life, every person enjoys a successful period |
| You can never teach an old dog new | It is not |
【推荐3】Everyone enjoys music but did you know it could improve the lives of sick kids? A famous musician once said music could change the world! In fact in Australia, a scientist Catherine, has made a music program that’s been putting smiles on the faces of kids in hospitals across the country. “It can make you happy, it can make you sad, it can make you want to get up and dance, and it can make you feel good and take away any stress,” said Catherine.
For thousands of years people have believed that music has a great effect on both the mind and the body, but it was only about 70 years ago that scientists began to study its medical effects. At that time, doctors and nurses found that playing music in hospitals helped sick soldiers feel better. Since then it’s been used to help people with brain problems learn to speak again and help other patients feel less pain and sadness. It’s even been used to help kids in schools get better marks because it allows them to relax and pay more attention.
Now music is being used in a special program called Music Therapy(治疗). It helps people improve their life in many different ways by using music. It can include: listening to music, playing instruments, singing, song writing, action songs and games.
Sophia is eleven. She got bone cancer five months ago, but playing music, learning new songs and singing have become a part of her life. “It takes my mind off feeling sick. While I am listening to music, it tells me not to give up hope. I feel that my life will turn around and I will be strong again.”
It seems that a few minutes of music a day can help keep the doctor away!
1. Who is Catherine?2. Can music help children to get better marks at school?
3. What’s the use of Music Therapy?
4. How does Sophia feel during her Music Therapy?
5. What’s your idea for music?
