Episode Details

Teachers in many English classes across America are having students read fewer full-length books. 

美国许多英语课堂的老师都在减少学生阅读长篇书籍的数量。 

Recently, the Associated Press explored the issue in education. 

近日，美联社就教育问题进行了探讨。 

It reports that students instead are given only short parts of books. Educators said this is because they believe current students have shorter attention spans than those of the past. The teachers might feel pressure to prepare students for state and nationwide examinations know as standardized tests. They also might believe that short pieces of writing will help students in the modern, digital world. 

据报道，学生只获得了书籍的一小部分。教育工作者表示，这是因为他们认为现在的学生的注意力持续时间比过去的学生要短。教师可能会感到压力，让学生准备国家和全国性考试（称为标准化考试）。他们还可能认为短篇写作将对现代数字世界的学生有所帮助。 

The National Council of Teachers of English is a professional organization for teachers based in Champaign, Illinois. In 2022, the group released a statement about reading. “The time has come to decenter book reading and essay-writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education,” the group said. 

全国英语教师委员会是一个位于伊利诺伊州尚佩恩的教师专业组织。2022年，该组织发布了一份关于阅读的声明。该组织表示：“现在是时候将书籍阅读和论文写作作为英语语言艺术教育的顶峰了。” 

Seth French helped write the statement. He said the idea was not to remove books but to teach media literacy and have students read things in which they are interested. French taught an English class before becoming a dean at Bentonville High School in the state of Arkansas. He had students read plays, poetry and articles but only one book as a class. 

塞思·弗伦奇帮助撰写了这份声明。他说，这个想法不是要删除书籍，而是要教授媒体素养，让学生阅读他们感兴趣的东西。在成为阿肯色州本顿维尔高中的院长之前，弗伦奇曾教过英语课。他让学生读戏剧、诗歌和文章，但一堂课只读一本书。 

He said, “A lot of our students are not interested in some of these texts that they didn’t have a choice in.” 

他说：“我们的很多学生对其中一些他们无