《中英對照讀新聞》Don’t stop classroom chatter; it’s good for learning.不要停止課堂閒聊；這樣有助學習

◎鄭寺音

Children should be allowed to move around the classroom and to work against a background of chatter as classmates exchange ideas, a leading US academic has recommended.

美國一位知名學者建議，孩童應該獲准在教室各處走動，並在像是和同學交換意見的閒聊環境中學習。

Angeline Lillard, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, said that too many schools were still clinging to a traditional“factory model”of the classroom in which children sitting silently in ranks were considered blank sheets on which teachers could imprint knowledge merely by talking to them.

維吉尼亞大學心理學教授安嬌琳．李拉德說，太多學校還是嚴守傳統的課堂「工廠模式」，孩童安靜地排排坐，被看成一張張白紙，老師只要對他們說話，就可以讓他們牢記知識。

Professor Lillard said that this approach ran counter to everything that psychologists had discovered in the past hundred years about how children learn.

李拉德教授說，這種方法與心理學家過去數百年間所發現有關孩童如何學習的種種結論，背道而馳。

"We were designed in nature to think about the world in relation to how we physically interact with it-it’s called embodied cognition. So it’s only natural that children learn better when they get to move,”she said.

「我們天生是以身體與世界互動的方式，來思考認識這個世界—這叫作具體認知。所以孩童可以走動時，學習的效果更好，只是自然現象。」她說。

新聞辭典

cling to︰緊抓、堅持。例句：She clings to the hope that her husband will come back to her.（她緊抓著老公會回到她身邊的希望。）

run counter to︰背道而馳。counter，副詞，反方向地、相反地。例句：He acted counter to old conventions.（他的行為與舊習俗背道而馳。）

來源：自由時報

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