脑神经科学与教育：中英语文教学研究计划综合报告

摘要

《应用脑神经及认知科学提高香港语文教育成效研究计划报告》全文600余页。报告分三部分，第一部分是综合报告，它是第二部分的导言；第二部分为研究报告，由十一节组成；第三部分为附录，包括研究工具和程序等。文章是《应用脑神经及认知科学提高香港语文教育的成效研究计划报告》的综合报告，记录3年（2000-2003）研究的全部结果，并论述本计划对教育研究与教学实践的意义。本计划由香港特别行政区政府资助，为香港近年各大学大规模跨学科合作科研项目。本合作研究计划的目的，是要为香港教师和学童寻求以科学为依据、并具有高效率的语文教学途径和方法。除了设有课堂实验外，本计划同时研究脑部结构及在学习时的运作与活动。本计划要将经过验证的新知识应用于改善教育的工作。%This is a condensed report on a pioneering, multidisciplinary study on language acquisition. The neuroscience for language education project was sponsored by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. Participants in this study were specialists in medicine, education, arts and sciences, the social sciences, and engineer-ing from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University; and teachers and students from local schools. This intensive three-year project began in 2000 and has branched out into related, special inquiries, generating new results and information. The cooperative effort used pertinent findings from the neurosciences relating to prenatal, postnatal and subsequent development of the human brain-physiologically, functionally and cognitively-to answer fundamental questions about language education: (a) At what points in a child’s mental development would carefully designed educa-tional interventions be most effective in facilitating the acquisition and mastery of a language?(b) What interventions are the most useful and effective for acquisition of a language? (c) What does current neuroscience and cognitive science data indicate as the best age at which children should begin formal training in their first and second languages? (d) What approaches to acquiring proficiency in the first and second languages in different instructional settings yield the best results, qualitatively and quantitatively? (f) What practical guidelines for effective language teaching and learning can be recommended to policy makers, teachers, learners, and curriculum designers?Do these guidelines differ for the first (Chinese) and second (English) languages?