【正文】 clarify obscure points and ments that challenge sloppily constructed arguments are indispensable to scholarship. Without them, the liveliest mind can atrophy. Undergraduates may not be able to make telling contributions very often, but lecturing insulates a professor even from the beginner’s na239。只有這樣他們才能開(kāi)發(fā)出聰明的、創(chuàng)造性的思考所必需的分析能力。更為常見(jiàn)的是學(xué)生試圖寫(xiě)下所有的內(nèi)容，甚至還帶著錄音機(jī)去聽(tīng)課，以這種笨拙的方式來(lái)記錄每個(gè)詞。主動(dòng)學(xué)習(xí)時(shí)學(xué)生些文章或做實(shí)驗(yàn)，然后由教師評(píng)價(jià)他們的作業(yè)，因此主動(dòng)學(xué)習(xí)對(duì)那些還沒(méi)有完全學(xué)會(huì)如何學(xué)習(xí)的學(xué)生來(lái)說(shuō)益處要大得多。但是他們真正的問(wèn)題是專(zhuān)心聽(tīng)課比他們認(rèn)為的要難得多。講課和理解之間的時(shí)間差異導(dǎo)致開(kāi)小差。閱讀課本中的相同內(nèi)容是更有效的學(xué)習(xí)方法，因?yàn)閷W(xué)生可以根據(jù)其需要慢慢閱讀直到他們理解這些內(nèi)容，甚至僅僅做到專(zhuān)心聽(tīng)課都很難。One problem with lectures is that listening intelligently is hard work. Reading the same material in a textbook is a more efficient way to learn because students can proceed as slowly as they need to until the subject matter bee clear to them. Even simply paying attention is very difficult。而且有些班級(jí)，如一年級(jí)的英語(yǔ)課，也總是相對(duì)較小的。 and some classes such as firstyear English and always relatively small. Nevertheless, far too many courses rely principally or entirely on lectures, an arrangement much loved by faculty and administrators but scarcely designed to benefit the students. 我承認(rèn)上面的描述言過(guò)其實(shí)。其他人像瑪麗一樣堅(jiān)持下來(lái)，無(wú)奈地接受了這種制度，等待著到大三大四時(shí)的好日子，那時(shí)他們就會(huì)有較小的班級(jí)，最終也會(huì)得到真正的學(xué)習(xí)所需要的那種針對(duì)個(gè)人的關(guān)注。期末考試后她會(huì)立刻忘掉她背下來(lái)的大部分內(nèi)容。但是，因?yàn)榻淌诓蛔鲂y(cè)驗(yàn)也不提問(wèn)，她很快就認(rèn)識(shí)到她不必準(zhǔn)備。他不必?fù)?dān)心，學(xué)生和他一樣感到下課是一種解脫。漸漸地她意識(shí)到教授和他的聽(tīng)眾一樣感到無(wú)聊。Some days Mary sits in the front row, from where she can watch the professor read from a stack of yellowed notes that seem nearly as old as he is. She is bored by the lectures, and so are most of the other students, to judge by the way they are nodding off or doodling in their notebooks. Gradually she realizes the professor is as bored as his audience. At the end of each lecture he asks, “Are there any questions?” in a tone of voice that makes it plain he would much rather there weren’t. He needn’t worry—the students are as relieved as he is that the class is over.有幾天瑪麗坐在前排，她可以看到教授在讀一疊幾乎和他年紀(jì)一樣老的發(fā)黃的講義。教授不停地講，學(xué)生不停地記筆記，就想十三世紀(jì)時(shí)的情形一樣，那時(shí)因?yàn)檎n本缺乏又昂貴，很少有學(xué)生買(mǎi)得起。有人對(duì)高等教育的狀況做了研究并發(fā)表了報(bào)告，但由此引發(fā)的變化很大程度上不是表面的，就是使已經(jīng)糟糕的情形變得更糟。美國(guó)的商業(yè)和工業(yè)飽受無(wú)進(jìn)取心的、缺乏創(chuàng)造力的管理人員之苦，這些人受的教育是自己不用思考，而是說(shuō)一些過(guò)時(shí)的、在世界上其他地方早已拋棄的陳詞濫調(diào)。Today American colleges and universities (originally modeled on German ones) are under strong attack from many quarters. Teachers, it is charged, are not doing a good job of teaching, and students are not doing a good job of learning. American businesses and industries suffer from unenterprising, uncreative executives educated not to think for themselves but to mouth outdated truisms the rest of the world has long discarded. College graduates lack both basic skills and general culture. Studies are conducted and reports are issued on the status of higher education, but any changes that result either are largely cosmetic or make a bad situation worse. 今天美國(guó)的大學(xué)（原本是以德國(guó)的大學(xué)為模型的）受到了各方面的嚴(yán)厲指責(zé)。接著令Fowkes大吃一驚的是，教授并沒(méi)有按照順序講下一課，而是講了后面一課。新視野研究生英語(yǔ)讀說(shuō)寫(xiě)2英語(yǔ)原文加翻譯及課后答案：還有人在聽(tīng)嗎？Toward the middle of the semester, Fowkes fell ill and missed a class. When he returned, the professor nodded vaguely and, to Fowkes’s astonishment, began to deliver not the next lecture in the sequence but the one after. Had he, in fact, lectured to an empty hall in the absence of his solitary student? Fowkes thought it perfectly possible.在學(xué)期中間，F(xiàn)owkes 因病缺了一次課。他回到課堂的時(shí)候，教授毫無(wú)表情地向他點(diǎn)了點(diǎn)頭。難道他真的在他唯一的學(xué)生缺席的情況下對(duì)著空教室講了一課？Fowkes認(rèn)為這太有可能了。人們指責(zé)老師沒(méi)有教好，學(xué)生沒(méi)有學(xué)好。大學(xué)畢業(yè)生即沒(méi)有基本技能也沒(méi)有全面修養(yǎng)。One aspect of American education too seldom challenged is the lecture system. Professors continue to lecture and students to take notes much as they did in the thirteenth century, when books were so scarce and expensive that few students could own them. The time is long overdue for us to abandon the lecture system and turn to methods that really work.美國(guó)教育中很少被挑戰(zhàn)的方面是講課制度。我們?cè)缇驮撋釛壷v課制度，開(kāi)始使用真正有用的方法。她聽(tīng)課聽(tīng)煩了，其他大部分同學(xué)也聽(tīng)煩了，這從他們的行為中可以做出判斷：他們要么在打盹，要么在筆記本上涂鴉。每次課結(jié)束時(shí)他都問(wèn)道：“有問(wèn)題嗎？”他的語(yǔ)氣明顯表明他更希望沒(méi)有問(wèn)題。Mary knows very well she should read an assignment before every lecture. However, as the professor gives no quizzes and asks no questions, she soon realizes she needn’t prepare. At the end of term she catches up by skimming her notes and memorizing a list of facts and dates. After the final exam, she promptly forgets much of what she has memorized. Some of her follow students, disappointed at the impersonality of it all, drop out of college altogether. Others, like Mary , stick it out, grow resigned to the system and await better days when, as juniors and seniors, they will attend smaller classes and at last get the kind of personal attention real learning requires. 瑪麗清楚的知道她應(yīng)該在每次上課前閱讀布置的作業(yè)。學(xué)期末她只要看看筆記，再記記一些事件、年代就可以跟上進(jìn)度。她的有些同學(xué)對(duì)這種無(wú)人情味的學(xué)習(xí)很失望，干脆輟學(xué)。I admit this picture is overdrawn—most universities supplement lecture courses with discussion groups, usually led by graduate students。大多數(shù)大學(xué)有討論課來(lái)補(bǔ)充聽(tīng)力課，通常討論課是由研究生主持的。但是，還有太多的課主要或者完全依賴(lài)于講課，這種安排受到教師和管理人員的青睞，但絕不是為學(xué)生的利益而設(shè)計(jì)的。 people can listen at a rate of four hundred to six hundred words a minute, while the most impassioned professor talks at scarcely a third of that speed. This time lag between speech and prehension leads to daydreaming. Many students believe years of watching television have sabotaged their attention span, out their real problem is that listening attentively is much harder than they think.聽(tīng)課存在的一個(gè)問(wèn)題是：會(huì)聽(tīng)是件很難的事。人聽(tīng)的速度可以達(dá)到每分鐘400600個(gè)詞，而最富有激情的教授說(shuō)話的速度也很難達(dá)到這個(gè)速度的1/3。很多學(xué)生認(rèn)為多年來(lái)看電視已經(jīng)削弱了他們保持注意力的能力。Worse still, attending lectures is passive learning, at least for inexperienced listeners. Active learning, in which students write essays or perform experiments and them have their work evaluated by an instructor, is far more beneficial for those who have not yet fully learned how to learn. While it’s true that techniques of active listening, such as trying to anticipate the speaker’s next point or taking notes selectively, can enhance the value of a lecture, few students possess such skills at the beginning of their college careers. More monly, students try to write everything down and even bring tape recorders to class in a clumsy effort to capture every word.更糟的是，聽(tīng)課是被動(dòng)學(xué)習(xí)，至少對(duì)沒(méi)有經(jīng)驗(yàn)