ABSTRACT
The Russians have a word, obuchenie, which can mean learning, teaching, or both. That semantic usage implies a conception of learning and teaching that is often overlooked: it is that the processes of teaching and learning are complementary. Analyses of teacher's lesson plans revealed that they planned their lessons in terms of their own actions. Research into teaching emphasized what teachers did, research into learning focused on what students did. Thus, while there has been a great deal of research into student learning this century, little has had much impact on teaching practice. In fact only in the last ten years has research focused significantly on relationships between teacher classroom behaviour and student achievement. The surface approach is based on extrinsic motivation: the student sees school learning as a means towards some other end, such as obtaining a better job, or just keeping out of trouble. The deep approach is based on interest in the subject matter of the task.
