Thoughts:
In the text, it introduces an Oxford’s model category as “Rote Learning”. It includes ‘repetition’, which means “saying something over and over, listening to something several times, rehearsing and imitating.” This definition of Rote Learning there can be better illustrated by Rachael’s experience of “To help us prepare for the exam, our English teacher taught us a large amount of grammar knowledge and exam techniques, and let us practice papers every single class. The exam was mainly relevant to reading and grammar rather than writing or other skills. Therefore, I practiced with different articles and grammar exercises from varied textbooks, online resources and past papers.” Actually, what Rachael was doing was to remember those grammar knowledge and exam techniques her teacher taught her through tons of repetition during the exercises. So Rachael’s experience is not only influenced by the “exam-oriented” learning but also affected by Rote Learning. On the other hand, Rachael’s literacy narrative can extend the definition of the “Rote learning” because through repetition of exams and exercises is also kind of “Rote Learning” to let students memorize the knowledge and how to avoid same mistakes.
The writer of this chapter also presents some opinions from students “Rote learning is helpful to get exact answers for the high marks in the exams. It will affect my results if I give up rote learning.” “I do not feel safe enough if I do not keep what I have learnt in class deep in my mind before any tests” Xiuping Li and Joan Cutting use the students’ opinions to illustrate that Rote Learning actually can help students do better in the test and can be active instead of passive memorization. But sometimes, “Rote Learning” can be a bad habit when students handle the knowledge they can’t understand. When countering a part of the knowledge in Spanish class I didn’t understand, I chose to memorize it exactly for the test next day instead of first understanding it. But I simply forgot the knowledge after the test. Although I got a good grade during the test, the mindless memorizing habit causes trouble in my learning. Although Rote learning can be a good way to get better grades, it’s not always a good way to acquire knowledge.
This chapter gives me a new term “Rote learning” which is fit for what I think the way of English learning in China. It is kind of related to another source called Meeting in the middle: Intercultural adaptation which talks about difference expectations and ways of learning between Chinese students and foreign teachers during the classroom learning.
This is our way of learning English!
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