Chinese teachers in British classrooms spark global debate on education styles

Zou Hailian, the mathematics teacher in the program, gives a lesson to his British students. [A screenshot from the BBC documentary series]

However, in the latest interview with Chinese media, Zou Hailian, the mathematics teacher in the program from Hangzhou Foreign Language School, said that his British students were nice children with good manners.

"In the first episode, students look lax and absent-minded sometimes. To me, this is understandable. Normally, there are less than 20 students in a British classroom. Now they have 50 students. What's more, they have to stay at school for 12 hours each day, even longer than the school-time in Hangzhou Foreign Language School. They are not accustomed to it for sure," he said.

Compared with British students, Zou stressed that Chinese students usually study harder and have a clearer goal due to their parents' demands and their own planning. But British students have their own characteristics.

"British teens always say 'make the world different'. They care less about good marks or low marks, but pay attention to extracurricular activities. They have very good coping capacity and hands-on skills. In addition, they are mostly good at making speeches," he added.

Furthermore, Zou pointed out that China's tough education system produces strong results in subjects like math and science, capturing the interest of educators in the U.S. and Europe where some feel the child-centered approach does not do enough to teach the basics.