2011年9月至14年3月最新真题翻译部分.doc

2011年9月 英译汉 The relative decline of American education at the elementary- and high-school levels has long been a national embarrassment as well as a threat to the nations future. Once upon a time, American students tested better than any other students in the world. Now, ranked against European schoolchildren, America does about as well as Lithuania, behind at least 10 other nations. For much of this time—roughly the last half century—professional educators believed that if they could only find the right pedagogy, the right method of instruction, all would be well. They tried New Math, open classrooms, Whole Language—but nothing seemed to achieve significant or lasting improvements. Yet in recent years researchers have discovered something that may seem obvious, but for many reasons was overlooked or denied. What really makes a difference, what matters more than the class size or the textbook, the teaching method or the technology, or even the curriculum, is the quality of the teacher. Much of the ability to teach is innate—an ability to inspire young minds as well as control unruly classrooms that some people instinctively possess (and some people definitely do not). Teaching can be taught, to some degree, but not the way many graduate schools of education do it, with a lot of insipid or marginally relevant theorizing and pedagogy. In any case the research shows that within about five years, you can generally tell who is a good teacher and who is not. 一直以来，美国初高中教育质量的相对下降对整个民族的将来来说，不仅仅是窘境也是一种威胁。从前，美国学生比世界上任何一个国家的学生都更擅长于测试。而现在，与欧洲学校的孩子相比，美国学生的水平仅与立陶宛旗鼓相当——被其他10个国家远远甩开。 就过去这个时代而言，粗略来讲，上个世纪的后五十年，教育界专家们认为如果他们能找到正确的教学法，能用正确的方法给予教导，那么这种教育将是无可挑剔的。为此，他们尝试过集论教学体系、开放式教室、全语学习，但是似乎看起来无一能取得意义深远或是持久的改善。 而在近些年来，研究人员发现了一些看起来十分明显，但却由于各种各样的原因而被忽视或否定的东西。他们认为，造成这种差异的，比教学规模和教科书更为重要的，比教学方法或者科技手段更不容忽略的，是教师的质量。教书育人的能力大多是与生俱来的，即激发朝气蓬勃的思想、驾驭难以管教的班级。这种能力是一些人与生俱来的；很明显，一些人并不具有这种品质。在一定程度上，“教”是可以被传授的，但这种“教”并不意味着就是许多所谓的教育学研究生院课上所教的那样——灌输的大都是些枯燥乏味且风马牛不相及的理论和教学法。总之，这项研究表明，五年内，你就可以辨别出哪些是优秀的老师，而哪些并不是。