First Middle School,Affiliated with East China Normal University,Tries Multi-Unit Foreign Language Classes

In recent years the First Middle School, affiliated with East China Normal University, has encountered a series of difficult problems in its attempts to: (1) emphasize quality instead of quantity, and (2) encourage student initiative. First, it was faced with the problem of how to teach foreign languages in a manner consistent with the academic level of the students. In every grade, some students were far advanced while others lagged behind in foreign language studies. The gap was particularly pronounced in higher grades. When teaching on the level of the advanced students, the teacher found that those who were less adept fell even further behind and eventually discontinued their language studies. Conversely, if the teacher chose the latter group as the standard, the former group soon became bored. Should the teacher decide that the middle group set the pace, students at either end of this range were dissatisfied: the advanced students had too little challenge, and the slower members of the class could not cope with the assignments. To combat this situation and to improve foreign language teaching, the First Middle School inaugurated a multi-unit class or "composite" method after the summer of 1964. Five classes in the senior middle school were chosen to participate in this test project.