Name: Grace
Instructor: 施以明
Course Number: 2020
Date: 03.25.2008
Lectures or Discussions
In“College Lectures: Is Anybody Listening?” David Daniels argues that lecture system influences students, professors, and even American business. According to Daniels, the present system makes American education less challenged and thus results in the lack of basic skills and general culture of college graduates. The lectures are ineffective and should be replaced by workable methods. He says large lecture classes harm not only students, who became impatient listeners because of the lack of“active listening” as they begin their college life, but also professors on account of less feedback, few questions and comments. In spite of the shortcomings, the lecture system will continue to be carried out because of its economic necessity and long tradition. Therefore, Daniels suggests that smaller discussion classes are supposed to be given during the first two years of college, when students need close and respective instruction, in order to improve their intelligent listening skills and creative thinking way. I am partly convinced of Daniels’ opinion. However, my personal experiences show that lectures are not exactly so redundant while small discussion classes are not really adorable.
As far as I am concerned, classes respecting languages should indeed be given as small classes, instead of large lecture classes that consist of a great number of students. Take my Japanese and Spanish classes for example; these courses are exactly given as large classes. The instructors are quite fine and teach grammar earnestly but the only one thing students can do is just sit there and keep taking notes. Due to a good many students, the teachers are not able to offer discussions and activities to discover whether students completely know what they learn or not. So, the only way to test if students learn well is exams which will nevertheless easily turn out to be merely memorization. Conversely, to speak a language well, the way of acquiring should not be restricted to grammar learning. The language classes ought to be smaller size and the instructors should focus on not only grammar but also speaking and listening. Also, the method of grading could not be limited to simply exams that are not the goal of learning. After all, we want to master a language rather than only do well on exams.
Another point of view of mine contrary to David Daniels is that I do not think small discussion classes are all good for students. Whether small classes are effective or not depends on how the professors instruct. One of my classes is exact a small discussion class; nonetheless, I feel that I seem not to acquire anything at all in the class. On the first day of this class, the instructor just said that all we had to do is talk as much as possible. Students just made groups by themselves and chatted until they did not know what to say finally. The class seemed quite untrammeled but we felt bored later on. Hence, we still needed the instructor to plan activities and evoke our passion so that we could involve ourselves in discussions.
In addition to the sort of inadequate methods of gives of classes, I still have several experiences of nice classes. The professors still give lectures but weave group discussions, presentations and films watching into the course schedule; consequently, the stuffs enrich the classes and make them absorbing and interesting. When the instructors lecture, we listen carefully and take notes about the teachers’ summaries, explanations, and comments of articles and essays. As for presentations, we have to report in team works so we look for and collect information collaboratively. After presenting, we could get the sense of achievement. When it comes to watching movies related to what we learn, the films give us profound impressions and new viewpoints varied form previous thoughts. In these ways, students are able to response their reflections and instructors can also get feedback. This kind of instruction is a little bit difficult to practice but seemingly better for students and professors.
David Daniels has pointed out the defects of lecture system which has passed down and rooted in the education system. Nonetheless, whether it is proper or inappropriate depends on how professors instruct. What’s more, no matter students, instructors, faculty, or administrators, they are supposed to try to find the balance between lectures and small discussion classes. As a result, both lectures and discussions have advantages and shortcomings; whether they work effectively depends on how people make use of them.
