Amy Qin, Britain Turns to Chinese Textbooks to Raise Math Scores; An interactive approach, not just problems to solve. New York Times, Aug 6, 2017
Quote:
"Now, some British schools will try to replicate that success by using translated textbooks that are otherwise all but identical to those in public elementary schools around Shanghai. Starting in January, teachers in England will have the option of using 'Real Shanghai Mathematics,' a series of 36 textbooks translated directly from Chinese into English. The only difference? The renminbi symbols will be replaced by British pound signs.
"In the past, a small number of schools in the West experimented with a Singapore-style approach. It is similar to the method used in Shanghai
"But experts say England is the first country to forge ahead with a bold government-backed plan to remake some classrooms in the image of the East. Under a $54 million initiative funded by the government, more than half the primary schools in England will adopt a teaching approach to math that is used in top-performing places like Shanghai and Singapore. * * * Nick Gibb, the British schools minister who oversees primary education * * * announced the initiative last year.
My comment:
(a) Emphasis in the last quotation is on "government-backed" and "primary schools."
(b) There is no need to read the rest. If you do -- and I am sure you will -- you will find the depiction of Asians' learning math is laughable, which is called in this report "mastery" approach: interactive because "Teachers frequently pose questions to students who are then expected to precisely explain both solutions and underlying principles in front of their classmates." (I have not been to China or Singapore.) In Taiwan, everything is 填鸭式.