Earl W. Stevick

“ The fifth assumption that underlies the modular approach is 'pluralism': 'If a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing in at least two ways.' In fact, it seems to be the case that if a word or a sound or a grammatical relationship is to be retained at all, it must be met with and studied from at least two points of of view. The coherent picture of structure afforded by a reference grammar, and the immediate linkage of individual qrammar points with individual instances in meaningful discourse, both should be available. ”

“ Like a reference grammar, a learner's synopsis presents an organized view of the total grammar of the target language. It differs from a reference grammar in that it is shorter and less detailed. A student requires so much time to go through an ordinary reference grammar that he cannot form a general view ('syn-opsis') of the whole. The proposed format is therefore limited to perhaps 3000 running words (exclusive of examples) , and covers only enough of the details to account for perhaps 95% of the problems (by text frequency) that the student will meet. ”

“ Another advantage of the synopsis format is that it lends itself to pseudo-self-instructional treatment. It need not stop with presenting examples for each point, as a reference grammar does. It can provide opportunities, within a very limited vocabulary, for the student to test his understanding of what he has read, and it can do this at the end of every paragraph. It may do so by matching each set of examples with one or more self-testing frames. ”