著者

堀口 誠信

出版者

徳島文理大学

雑誌

徳島文理大学研究紀要 (ISSN:02869829)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.78, pp.83-94, 2009-09

---

This paper focuses on the educational philosophy in Finland which has led studentsthere to reach the highest rank in the world in many achievement tests such as TOEFL orPISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). As a result of such success,many researchers are visiting Finland these days, and, in November 2008, I went therewith the specific purpose to establish a method of developing presentation skills among collegestudents and fixing the criteria in evaluating these students' presentations in Japan.By showing how classes in Finland are conducted, I will discuss the ideology of Finnisheducation, or "the FINNISH METHOD of education."The FINNISH METHOD of education is based on how effectively teachers can helpstudents acquire communicative skills through discussion. In the FINNISH METHOD,"discussion" doesn't simply mean talking with others but two parties coming to a conclusionwhich is favorable to both parties. This is done by persuading the other party, recognizingthe different values of others, and, sometimes, getting through hardships of confrontingopposite opinions. This special idea of "discussion" can be applied to help studentsobtain skills to solve problems in groups and obtain a sense of global communication skills.Both skills are best adapted to solve the PISA tests, but the Finnish Educational Ministrystarted to emphasize these two skills not because they would like to raise the students'scores in PISA but because the Finnish people came to realize the importance of these conceptsin order to survive the terrible economic situation after the collapse of the SovietUnion in the 1990s, which used to be the biggest market for Finland. In order to build awelfare nation, Finnish people had to develop skills to solve problems in groups, not individually,and, living in a small country surrounded by such big nations as Sweden or theSoviet Union, they had to develop necessary global communication skills.※Acknowledgment : This work includes the result of the research supported by KAKENHI(20530870), or Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) ["Establishing the Method toDevelop Presentation Skills and the Criteria in Evaluating Presentations by Referring tothe FINNISH METHOD of Education"] by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science(JSPS).