Earl W. Stevick

“ The subject-oriented lesson groups all presuppose the vocabulary and grammar of the entire primer, and each group is intended to be studied from the beginning--the vocabulary within a given group being cumulative. However, no subjectoriented lesson group depends in any way on any other group so that the student is free to pursue his study of these lesson groups in any order after he has finished the primer. ”

“ In this, as in many other respects, experience with Peace Corps language training has provided stimulating, if discomforting, ventilation of old complacencies. Students' specialized interests are at the same time more specialized; trainees are more conscious of their own dissatisfaction with both content and method; instructors are mostly willing but inexperienced, brought up in an educational system that knows nothing of audio-lingual materials. ”

“ Fred Householder Householder's words about phonological theory apply also to language teaching. Our final assumption is that no one format, and no one system however ingenious, can be sufficient for even one student or group of students. What has been seen only once will not be perceived, and what has been perceived from only one point of view will not be assimilated. ”

“ One advantage of modular construction is that it allows for more user responsibility (Assumption IV) : a class that wants to spend the first 15 hours on phonology can do so, but a class that finds that kind of activity unmotivating can wait until what is for them a more appropriate time. Dialog memorization, newspaper reading and study of grammar may proceed in any order, or simultaneously. A second advantage is that, for example, a set of readings or dialogs appropriate for well-diggers may be replaced by a set appropriate for TB control workers without tearing the whole course apart. ”

“ Even 'real' communication in a foreign language mayor may not be 'authentic.' If it is in the language that for the two interlocutors would be the natural one to use at that time, on that topic, then it is authentic ”

“ Communication; is always accompanied by understanding. Communication requires that the student himself supply the sounds, words, and structures needed to express his thought. This concept of communication may prove more important to the language teacher than either programed,learning or transformational analysis. ”

“ Robert Penn Warren Our third assumption is that individuals, but also groups, vary widely not only in general language aptitude, in their emotional involvement with the new language, and in the degree of pre-existing motivation, but also in the lexical content that they can make immediate use of, in the approaches that they will put up with, and in the methods that are appropriate for them. Some students, but only some, can profit from spending the first 15 hours of class on phonological drills ”

“ The class with only a few hours of time to devote to classroom drill with an instructor may find it possible to cover the primer only. Students with more time will wish to select such of the subject fields covered in the later lessons as are of most interest to them. Students in intensive courses with at least 300 hours of class and laboratory will be able to cover the entire content of the course. ”

“ Hawthorne and Emerson met on the wood paths of Concord, and passed on, Emerson with his head full of bright futuriti es and relevances, Hawthorne with his head full of the irrelevant past... We revere Emerson, the prophet whose prophecies came true..., but we find in [Hawthorne's] work a complex, tangled an revolutionary vision of the soul, which we recognize as our own. ”