牛津和剑桥的教学制度

牛津和剑桥的教学制度

The teachers are commonly called 'dons'. Most of these are Fellows of their colleges， but at the same time hold university appointments as lecturers or professors. Part of the teaching is by means of lectures organised by the university， and any student may attend any university lecture. The average don gives one or two lectures a week， on a subject which is his special field of interest. At the beginning of each term a list is published showing all the lectures being given during the term within each faculty 1， and every student can choose which lectures he will attend， though his own college tutor will advise him which lectures seem likely to be most useful. Attendance at university lectures is not compulsory 2， and no records of attendance are kept. Some lectures are given in college halls or lecture rooms， others in the university's Examination Schools'. These places may be widely separated from each other， and around eleven o'clock each morning the streets of oxford 3 are alive with students rushing， mostly on bicycles， from one lecture to the next.

教师一般称为"Don"，多数教师是本学院的研究员，但同时受聘于大学担任讲师或教授。部分教学采取大学所安排的授课形式，学生想听什么课都可以。平均每个教师就自己的专长一星期讲课一、二次。新学期一开始，各系整个学期所举办的讲座将-一列出公布于众，学生想听什么可从中挑选，各学院的导师也会告诉自己的学生哪些讲座看来可能最有用处，并不强制学生去听讲座，教师也不点名。有些讲座在学院的礼堂或教室里举行，有些安排在大学的"考试中心"。这些地方可能相距甚远，因此，每天上午11点钟的时候，牛津的街道上热闹非凡，学生们你来我往（多数人骑自行车），匆匆赶去听下一个讲座。

Apart from lectures teaching is by means of the tutorial system， which has been， in modern times， one of the chief foundations of the greatness of Oxford and Cambridge among universities. This is a system of individual tuition organised by the colleges. Each Fellow in a college is tutor in his own subject to the undergraduates who are studying it. Each student goes to his tutor's room for an hour every week to sit in an armchair and read out an essay which he and the tutor then discuss. A student does not necessarily go only to his own tutor in his own college for all his 'tutorials'. He may be assigned to another don in his own college or in another college when he is studying some particular topic which is outside the special interest of his own tutor. Nowadays， with the increased number of students， it is quite usual for two or more students to attend a tutorial together. The system of teaching practised at Oxford， with its tendency to avoid set courses， probably encourages independent thought and judgement.

除了讲座授课这种形式，还采用了"导师制"。牛津和剑桥之所以能成为当代出类拔萃的大学，根本原因之一便是导师制，即由学院组织的个别指导制度。学院里每位研究员都是各自学科的导师，对学习该学科的本科生进行指导。每个学生每星期到导师的办公室去一次，每次1小时，坐在扶手椅上把写好的论文念给导师听，然后与导师进行讨论。学生不一定只到本学院本人的导师那儿接受"辅导"，当所学的某个特殊课题不是本人导师的专长时，也可安排该学院或别的学院的另一教师加以辅导。如今，学生人数增多，两个或更多的学生一起上辅导课已是司空见惯。牛津大学所实行的这种教学制度（通常避免设立固定不变的课程）可能有助于培养学生独立思考和独立判断的能力。