Language teaching

“ In this way all that part of language-study which tends to be dead weight in teaching the young is got rid of in one fell swoop, and this though the language taught and learnt is a highly developed instrument for reading, writing, speaking, and literary expression. ”

“ Language cannot be acquired, only tested, by analysis, and grammar is an analytic, not a constructive science.
We have compared bad use of language to a scurvy condition of the skin. To cure the skin we must doctor the blood; and to improve the language we should begin by teaching the mind to think. But that, you will say, is a large undertaking. Yes, but after all it is the most direct and effective way. All education should be in the nature of teaching the mind to think, and the teaching of language consists in teaching thinking in connection with word forms and expression through language. ”

“ If the purpose of language teaching is the improvement of pupils' speaking and writing, pupils must speak and write abundantly. But they must do more. Two garrulous housewives may gossip over the back fence for years and at the end of that time speak no better than at the beginning. ”

“ There are, in addition, non-linguistic 'behaviors' which are totally indispensable for linguistic success: willingness to phonate, feeling that one has something worth phonating about, expectation that the language can be useful--these and many others deserve conscious and systematic encouragement from the teacher at least as much as gender agreement or sequence of tenses do. ”

“ Grammar, exercises, reading aloud, and mnemonic lessons, mere word-practice—the sole resource in teaching to write and speak a foreign language—do not help in the least in learning to read and understand it, nor even in learning to speak and write it, for lack of imitation, by which means alone these arts are acquired. ”

“ When the pupil is sufficiently advanced in English to justify the teacher in taking up any of the Special Subjects, does he, for instance, while teaching Latin or Greek, French or German, begin by throwing aside the knowledge of English already acquired by his pupil, and commence to teach these foreign languages in the same way adopted by him in teaching the child English—a language quite as foreign to him as Latin or Greek, French or German? ”

“ It is a serious question whether students can ever acquire a mastery of a language, or even a sufficient knowledge of it really to appreciate its literature, unless they learn to use this language to express their own thoughts. ”

“ J’ai écrit, il y a quelques années, un livre, The Scientific Study and Teaching of Languages, auquel j’avais donné la forme d’une étude soulevant des questions nouvelles, sujettes à controverse et montrant qu’en réalité la science de l’étude des langues n’existait pas et qu’il était grand temps de rassembler les matériaux et les études permettant de lui donner un point de départ sérieux. ”

“ It is not the saving of time, however, for which we propose a change in the system of teaching language. In this respect, it is the study of one's life. New facts are constantly developing themselves, new combinations of ideas and words are discovered, and new beauties presented at every advancing step. It is to acquire a knowledge of correct principles, to induce a habit of correct thinking, a freedom of investigation, and at that age when the character and language of life are forming. ”

“ He said (p. 49) that 'a student learns grammar not by attempting to say everything that he will eventually want to say, but by familiarizing himself with structure patterns from which he can generalize, applying them to whatever linguistic needs he may have in the future.' 'The single paramount fact about language learning is that it concerns . . . the formation and performance of habits' (p. 47) . The teacher should learn how to 'teach the use of structure through pattern practice' (p. 139) , but 'structure is [also] learned in the form of dialogues based upon living situations' (p. 123) . ”

“ The fundamental issues in language teaching, then, lie not here, but where they have always lain. We constantly seek--and occasionally obtain--new light on three different but related areas: What is to be learned? What is the nature of learning? What makes learning happen? ”

“ What needs, and what opportunities does the student have to be aggressive in making sense out of nonsense--to acquire skills and insights actively rather than having them 'skillfully presented and sufficiently drilled' into him? Active inquiry, even when it is not conscious, may result in active learning (Kuno, 1969) . Here is the value, for some students at least, of the inductive presentation of grammar so dear to some A-L practitioners, and also of direct, monolingual teaching of meanings for words and sentences. ”

“ Semantics teaches us the meaning of words, of inflexions, and of compounds; it shows us how to transform our thoughts into language, to select the most appropriate word or form, and to interpret correctly what we hear and read. It is more especially this branch which teaches us the differences in style and dialect, and enables us to distinguish the colloquial from the classical and to keep either from contaminating the other.
If we are to judge by the average teacher and the average language-course, the principle of proportion is usually violated by teaching:
(a) No phonetics at all. ”

“ Finally, the last supposition, which seems to us more plausible than the rest, consists in this: that the apparent fault lies not in the nature of the thing, but in our insistence on the notion that the object of teaching language is to raise pupils to the degree of knowing the literary language, and, above all, in making rapid progress in the attainment of this end. ”

“ We try to teach the English language by rules, definitions, analyses, diagrams, and parsing. Before the poor innocent child can write a single sentence correctly, we teach the painful pronunciation of words without the grasping of thought as reading. We vainly endeavor to give children a knowledge of number by teaching figures, the signs of [207] number. ”

“ It is a subject of debate whether we ought to use explanations at all for the purpose of teaching anyone to use a language. Some maintain that we should no more explain a point of theory to a schoolchild or an adult than we should to a child of eighteen months. The young child, it is said, learns to speak the language which he hears around him by dint of sheer imitation ”

“ All educationists, moreover, throughout the country are in favour of a change by which the teaching of the national spoken language shall take the place of the classical language. Inasmuch, therefore, as all desire to promote education in the National Language, we deem it wise not to delay longer in the matter. ”

“ The utilitarian idea which pervades every phase of their school work is especially noticeable in the teaching of their own language. In harmony with this idea, let [Pg 123] me call attention to the fact that, from the first, constant use is made of every attainment in both oral and written form. The oral work embraces the reading of the text, reading from the blackboard, and conversational exercises on the special topics being considered. Written work on the same lessons include copying of certain selections or parts of them and original expressions in regard to the contents of lessons read. ”

“ The first must be done by Imitation and Practice, the other is the Work of time, and must be improved by degrees. They that learn the Art of speaking before they can speak invert the true Method ... for the Reason and Philosophy of speaking is a great Art and the work of Time, and not at all to be taught to children. ”

“ It is worthy of serious consideration, indeed, how far the progress of our young men in an available knowledge of the finest language of the world may have been impeded by the perverse methods of teachers who could not speak, and who gave themselves no concern to speak, the language which they were teaching ”

“ Each of these four aspects requires special methods of teaching. A method or device which will rapidly enable the student to understand the language when spoken will be inefficacious as a method for teaching him to produce a written composition. No amount of composition work, on the other hand, will teach him how to understand what is rapidly uttered by natives. If (as is freely admitted) a command of the spoken language is a great help towards acquiring command of the written, the converse is not the case; proficiency in written work does not imply progress in oral work. ”

“ Now since so much of our teaching psychology and common sense have shown to be radically wrong, let us build up our language work on the high plane of interest in real things, expressing thought directly without translation into fitter terms. ”

“ And it is sufficiently known that many men, by their own industry, without the method or rules of grammar, have gotten a competent understanding in divers languages: and many unletter'd persons will, by use and exercise, without Grammar rules, learn to speak and understand some languages in far shorter time than any do learn them by method and rule, as is clearly manifest by those that travel.... ”

“ In the daily teaching of languages it is in a number of cases quite superfluous to let the pupils translate. If the reading selections are as easy as is desirable, there will be some sentences in each lesson where neither the vocabulary nor the construction presents the slightest difficulty. ”

“ Do they believe that the aim of teaching English is to increase the exact and beautiful use of the language? Or that it is to inculcate and augment patriotism? Or that it is to diminish sorrow in the home? Or that it has some other end, cultural, economic or military? ”

“ But if the learner is indeed to be at the center of deliberate language transfer, we must no longer look at him only as 'linguistic man'--man regarded only as a potential internalizer and producer of alien sounds, words and patterns. Any language student is an entire social being, who inhabits (or consists of) an entire physical organism. ”

“ Even if “words” ought to be the real object of education, it would be supposed that English words would be more useful to a people whose mother-tongue is English, than the words of any other language; yet the students of the introductory and freshman classes of the ancient course receive instruction five hours a week through both terms in Latin and Greek, and one lesson per week during one term in the English language. The students of the modern course substitute for Latin and Greek the French and Spanish languages. ”

“ The most important activities of classroom language study are continuous imitation and repetition of the model of the spoken language provided by the teacher.
(d)
A knowledge of grammatical rules and terminology is independent of the ability to speak and understand a language. Cornelius represented a strain of American applied linguistics which placed heavy emphasis on the imitation and memorization of authentic samples of speech. ”

“ It would probably be presumptuous to take a strong position here on the question of teaching modern languages, but experience with commercial students has clearly indicated that greatest progress can be made if the language is taught by a conversation or direct method from the very start, and if paradigms and rules of syntax are evolved after some vocabulary has been developed and some facility in speech has been acquired. ”

“ And again, if we conceive that languages learnt by use and exercise render men ready and expert in the understanding and speaking of them, without any aggravating or pushing the intellect and memory, when that which is gotten by rule and method, when we come to use and speak it, doth exceedingly rack and excruciate the intellect and memory: which are forced at the same time, not only to find fit words agreeable to the present matter discoursed of, and to put them into a good Rhetorical order, but must at the same instant of speaking, collect all the numerous rules of number, case ... ”

“ This assumption had three corollaries: that habits are strengthened by reinforcement; that foreign language habits are formed most efficiently by giving the right response rather than by making mistakes; and that since language is behavior, then that behavior can be taught only if the student is induced to 'behave.' The remaining assumptions were that students learn more efficiently when speaking is presented before reading and writing: that 'analogy' is a better foundation for producing new sentences than is 'analysis' ”

“ With the text-books, however, all close resemblance between the teaching of Latin in grammar schools and the teaching of French ends. As we have seen, reading, pronunciation, and conversation were the main concerns of the French student; translation held a large place and grammar rules a subsidiary one. The grammar-school boy, on the contrary, would first gain an elementary knowledge from rules written in English, and memorize the vocabulary and phrases ”

“ There are literally thousands of published books devoted to the study and teaching of our language. In such a flood it would seem that we should have no difficulty in obtaining good guides for our study. ”

“ It takes a variety of organized activities to teach language successfully, for the art and science of teaching include the judicious selection, timing, measuring and blending of the many ingredients involved.' The level of agreement on this point is exceeded only by the level of disagreement on just what principles, procedures and formats should provide that organization. ”

“ Having learned English in this way and gotten a knowledge of French and German as collateral helps, the student will enjoy the best fruits of learning languages—a liberal culture, a critical knowledge of his mother-tongue, an intelligent insight into the laws of language, and a key to what is best, usefulest, and most inspiring in literature.
But, to learn the language in its living power, it is necessary to study it in its literature. The language is the body, the literature is its soul; they can be rightly understood only by studying them together. ”