The Classroom Experience. There's no such thing as an all-lecture class at Yale, nor at most other undergraduate colleges or business schools. Professors expect and demand engagement and discussion and students will often pipe up with questions in the middle of a salient point. In most cases, this is not considered rude; I think American students occasionally think of themselves as consumers of the course material, with the right to get their questions answered or theories explored by the professor. In one early class of ours, the professor even wrote to students who had not been participating to request that they speak up more in class.

课堂教学。 在美国，无论是商学院或是本科，我们都没有纯粹地“讲授式”教学。教授们通常都希望，甚至要求课堂互动与讨论，而学生们也会在关键点上主动提问。大多数情况下，我们不认为这种“打断”是不礼貌的，因为美国学生普遍有一种“消费者心理”：我们花钱花时间来到这个课堂，就是知识和教授的消费者，就有权得到满意的答案，有权请教授当下进一步阐述不明之处。我听说有的教授甚至亲自写信给那些课上过于“安静”的同学，请他们踊跃发言。

I imagine this is a difficult practice to begin if one comes from a place where the classroom dynamic centers on the professor speaking uninterrupted. But in the States I think students come to class to learn as much from each other as from the teacher, and so participation is viewed positively and seen as part of the unwritten contract. I know from speaking to other American students, we yearned to hear from our international classmates more, especially at the start of the year.

听说在很多其他国家，比如中国，课堂完全以教授讲述为主，教授与学生之间似乎有一种“不被打断”的约定俗成。我认为，两者间最大的差别是，我们坚信课堂教学过程中，学生不但要向教授学习，更需要互相启发、分享见解，所以互动式教学是有积极意义的，也是一种美国式的约定俗成。而作为美国学生，我们也真的非常希望在课堂上听到更多来自国际学生的声音。

Of course, not all participation is valid or particularly helpful. Students will often ask questions they should know the answer to, or attempt to build on a point with an off-base comment. Interestingly, I think if a group of students is in a class together consistently (as we are at Yale with our cohort system), the group begins to subtly govern itself and members whose contributions might not be adding to the total experience will get the hint and aim to consider the good of the whole when raising their hand. But shifting between absorbing the lecture and participating in a conversation about it is a key feature of the classroom experience.

当然，不得不承认的是，我们不可能保证这种互动总是有益且高效的。有些同学可能会问一些理应在课前阅读中解决的问题，甚至会提一些不靠谱的想法。有趣的是，如果一个班的学生经常在一起上课，在同学间会渐渐自发地产生一种“潜规则”，或者说是一种“同侪压力”，逼迫着那些经常提“傻问题”的同学三思而后行。总而言之，在课堂上把握好吸收知识与参与讨论的节奏是对每个学生至关重要