Like most works on pedagogy, this one too has been mostly concerned
with the teaching of beginners. But now and then there has been a word
about the instruction of advanced pupils, and now I shall add a few
more suggestions about it. It is best to continue on the same lines as
during the first years, only making those changes which circumstances
necessarily demand.
The pupils must _read_--read more and more, read better and better
books, books whose contents are of a nature to hold their attention
and to give them as much all round information and development as
possible--accordingly, as has been previously suggested, not solely
works of literature. That sort of reading is especially good which
gives the pupils some insight into the foreign nation’s peculiarity in
the widest sense of the word, and best of all is that reading which
is apt to make the pupils love what is best in the foreign people.
Tennyson is right when he says, “It is the authors, more than the
diplomats, who make nations love one another”;[54] and teachers of
modern languages should ever remember that it is their mission to make
their countrymen know and understand foreign nations. By making their
pupils read good literature as well as by capacitating the younger
generations of different countries for intelligent intercourse with
one another, language-teachers all over the world may ultimately prove
more efficacious in establishing good permanent relations between the
nations than Peace Congresses at the Hague.
Some reading must be taken thoroughly, some may be _cursory_; it is
perhaps best to have several gradations. Whereas in the beginning it is
necessary to chew well in order to get all the linguistic nourishment
out of the reading, later on it may of course be taken in larger and
larger bites. Already rather early in the course of instruction, those
pieces may be more lightly passed over whose contents are scarcely
fit to be taken too seriously or which contain words which it is not
absolutely necessary to remember. The teacher may simply let the
pupils read such pieces aloud, explaining every word which they do
not understand, but without basing any questions on them, and without
requiring them to be studied for the next time. Later on, in the
midst of more serious work, a month or two may be taken for reading
a light novel through in the same easy manner. The pupils may also
have private reading to do at home in addition to what they read in
school. The teacher that I had in French and English in the upper
classes in Frederiksborg School (H. Mathiesen) had an excellent way
of making us desire of our own accord to read novels in the language
studied; each one of us was ambitious to give in the longest list of
volumes read when the teacher called for the lists at the first lesson
in every month, and even if we of course read very rapidly and never
looked up any words, yet we learned a good deal, and I consider the
habit of reading which I thus acquired to be one of the most valuable
acquisitions that I got during my last years in school. In order to
test whether we really had read the books as stated, our teacher
sometimes talked to us about their contents, but he talked in Danish,
sometimes he only made us open the books at random and translate a
little piece. It is no doubt better to organize this practice, as it
is now done in some parts of Germany, where the whole class reads the
same book at home and must have read a certain amount by a certain day
(after a fortnight’s or a month’s interval). Then they must be able
to give an account of the contents in the foreign language, must also
ask each other questions about the book, and may even occasionally
be required to write down the contents as a written exercise; after
the teacher has looked through these accounts, the pupils may deliver
them orally and more freely, and this will give occasion for further
conversation--all in the foreign language.
Most important, however, is the reading which is done _thoroughly_,
so thoroughly that the pupils completely master both contents and
language, and which therefore in both these respects ought to be as
good as possible. In exercises with questions and answers, the contents
naturally play an important part, and even if the pupils feel it is
one aim, and a very important one, to acquire skill in the language,
yet this aim is not always directly kept in view as such; neither does
a child talk in order to practise using its mother-tongue, but in
order to get some information and in order to communicate itself to
others--and thereby it learns the language. This feeling of reality
becomes more and more prominent as the pupils become more advanced; in
the conversations, the pupils show directly, that they understand the
contents, indirectly that they understand the language.
The pupils must _talk_--about what they have read, and that the
talks are not mere farces with conventional “parleur” phrases, as
our opponents would like to make out, I hope that I have shown
sufficiently well.[55] When a certain teacher wrote somewhere that
all the conversation that there is time for consists of the following
five questions, which are asked of the monitor (and only of him) at
the beginning of every lesson: “Who is the monitor? What date is it
to-day? What day of the week is it? Who is absent? What have you
prepared for to-day?”, and that he owes it to the truth to confess that
it is only the minority of the pupils who at the end of the year are
able to answer these questions correctly without hesitation, then this
deplorable result is primarily due to the fewness of the questions; he
who only gets the tip of his finger dipped in the water three times
in twenty weeks will never learn how to swim. It is secondarily due
to the fact that the questions are stereotyped and have no connection
with what the class is reading. Furthermore this same teacher says
that he generally cannot spend more than a few minutes of each lesson
on these “elementary exercises,” since the reading, translation and
grammar requires the rest of the time, in the middle classes, indeed,
all the time, so that at this stage there is no time at all for any
conversation. But if the talks are used for interpreting the text, two
big birds are killed with one stone, and then it will soon be seen
that skill in speaking increases like wealth; if you have only reached
a certain point, the rest comes of its own accord; the accumulated
capital multiplies surprisingly fast and willingly.
The pupils must _write_--original papers in the foreign language, not
translations--that is, the form of language used must be as little as
possible suggested by English turns of expression. But the subject
must be concrete and limited. The chief danger that there may be in
such original written exercises, namely that the pupils avoid all the
difficulties and only use a slender supply of expressions, which they
feel sure of, this danger is greater the vaguer or more comprehensive
the subject is. For instance, it is best not to give broad literary
subjects, such as “Die romantische schule,” etc. A more limited subject
is far better, both as an exercise and as a test; for instance, an
account of a little anecdote or of the newspaper report of some event,
which the teacher has read to the class; a description of what is to
be seen on a picture, a renarration of some episode in the novel or
in the historical selection which is being read in class, possibly in
the form of a letter;[56] a summing up of everything relating to one
of the characters in the text read; a review of the line of thought in
(a section of) some essay which has been read; a paraphrase of some
poem. Still more limited are such exercises in which a certain number
of questions have to be answered, or such exercises in the use of
synonymous words and expressions as have been described on p. 139.
* * * * *
But can such a method of instruction as has here been described
really be carried out under existing circumstances? Are there not
obstacles to be encountered on every hand? Yes; unfortunately there
are things which stand in the way and make a good deal of trouble, but
luckily they do not make it quite impossible for the new system to be
used. As hindrances may be mentioned the shortness of the time, the
apportionment of the time, the examinations, the teachers.
The _time_ which is now set apart for modern languages is too
brief. Therefore all teachers of modern languages ought to unite,
and, together with all the parents who are dissatisfied with the
arrangements in our grammar schools (and they are not few), they
ought to agitate for the removal of that burden which weighs heavily
on the school and which prevents the growing generation from getting
an education which can meet the urgent demands of our times, I mean,
the school must be delivered from the classical languages; then there
will be air and space for all that is now shoved into the background,
among other things the modern foreign languages.[57] But--even in the
scanty time which is now at disposal, there is much that can be done
differently and better than hitherto, and the more the teachers in
modern languages show this, and the more they can keep out of the old
jogtrot way, the more will their subject be respected, and the more
willingness will there be to extend the time when future reforms demand
it.
The _apportionment_ of the time is poor. When will people finally
realize that everything cannot be learned at once? Many subjects, and
with so few hours a week for each that the pupils forget what they have
learned from one lesson to the next--that is a frightful waste of time.
No, learn a few things or one thing at a time, learn everything
well and learn it to the end before passing on to the next.[58] And
especially with respect to languages, there can be no doubt that it is
best to take them up one after the other, not side by side; to every
language that is taken up should be devoted many hours a week, and as
a rule two years ought to be allowed to pass before commencing a new
language; then the first is so firmly rooted in the minds of the pupils
that merely a very few lessons a week will be sufficient for keeping
it up and extending it,[59] and then the two languages do not injure
each other nearly as much as if they were studied side by side before
the pupils have mastered either one of them. As to the question at what
age the children ought to begin to learn foreign languages, I dare
not express any decided opinion; I think I should be afraid to begin
too early rather than too late; first let the mother tongue have time
enough to take a firm and lasting hold of the child’s mind before other
languages are admitted.
The worst canker in our school-system[60] is the _examinations_.
Everything is arranged with a view to examinations; the parents,
the children, and unfortunately also a number of the teachers care
for nothing but the results attained in the examinations; the daily
instruction is left to shift for itself, but the authorities will take
ample care to guard against the least bit of negligence which might be
shown by the examiners.
Examinations compel the teachers to lay undue stress on cramming. “Cram
may be defined as the accumulation of undigested facts and second-hand
theories to be reproduced on paper, handed in to the examiner, and
then forgotten for ever. A crammed examinee differs from a crammed
Strasburg goose in not assimilating his nutriment, and this would be a
real advantage were it not that the process leaves him with a nauseated
appetite, enfeebled reasoning powers, though abnormally enlarged
memory, and a general distaste for disinterested study.”[61]
Examinations cause the mental and physical ruin of many more young men
than we can afford. As a test of what a young man is worth in life, an
examination is without any value whatever; as a test of how much really
valuable knowledge he has, it is not worth much; and even as a test of
how much he knows of what happens to be asked him on such an occasion,
an examination is not nearly as reliable as people like to imagine.[62]
And then examinations tend in so many ways to impede instruction
which would otherwise be really profitable. The question “will that
be required for the examination?” is always, either consciously or
unconsciously, present in the schoolroom; it smothers the teacher’s
enthusiasm for communicating to his pupils what interests himself most;
and it discourages the pupils’ natural thirst for knowledge for its own
sake. Just before the examinations, the whole school is seized with its
yearly attack of its chronic examination-catarrh. In all departments,
it is considered necessary to recapitulate for examinations; for a
couple of months, the pupils are transformed into mental ruminants;
they receive no new mental sustenance whatever, but have to be
satisfied with going through the whole year’s work once or twice more
at as rapid a pace as possible. The matter which they have been given
does not become more savoury on being served again; all the juice and
strength, all that makes it tempting is lost, and nothing remains but
what is toughest and dryest.
But even if there is much fault to be found with the system of
examinations, yet it is not necessary to reform that before we can
begin to improve the instruction. The examination requirements are
not so great that we cannot meet them even if we do not from the very
beginning plan all our instruction exactly with them in view. Although
the chief stress in the examination may be laid on the translation
and not on speaking, yet that is no reason why the latter should be
entirely dispensed with. If by a _receptive_ command of a foreign
language is meant the ability to understand it, and by a _productive_
command, the power to express oneself in the language, then I am fully
convinced that anyone who merely concerns himself with the receptive
side of it injures himself and acquires far less ability to understand
it than if he had from the very beginning also aimed at a productive
command of the language. Therefore our all round exercises will give
our pupils at least just as much receptive knowledge of the language
as is attained by the pupils of others; and even if it is rather
provoking for a teacher who has taken a good deal of trouble to teach
his pupils to speak to see that this counts for little or nothing at
the examination, he can comfort himself with a good conscience at any
rate--beside the pleasure which he and his pupils have had in their
daily work together.
Nor ought any consideration for examinations to prevent anyone from the
best kind of recapitulation, which is, not to wait until the approach
of examinations, when much that has been read is forgotten, so that the
teacher has to be on the lookout all the time to make sure that the
pupils understand everything, but to take it up while the matter is
still fresh in the memory, so that it is not necessary to sound the
pupils on every little point. Every chapter ought to be revised when
it is finished, and every section or book ought to be gone over as a
whole. Then the thoughts which were formerly occupied with details may
be turned to the connected whole, and since the work can be conducted
in the form of almost uninterrupted intelligent reading aloud, the
pupils will be enabled to get approximately the same impression and
the same enjoyment out of the matter read as a native gets.[63] If the
reading has thus been gone over a section at a time at each natural
break, it will be seen at the examination that these short revisions
distributed throughout the year are more advantageous than a long,
tedious recapitulation just before the examination, and besides the
pupils have been kept fresh by reading something new up to the very end.
As the last possible impediment in the way of the reform method,
I mentioned the _teachers_. Those times are now past when it was
considered sufficient for a teacher of modern languages to have taken a
degree in law or theology--to have studied Tacitus and Plato, and then
by way of amusement to have read by himself a few volumes of _Revue
des deux mondes_ or some novels by Cherbuliez and Freytag. But even
the younger generation of teachers who are better prepared will very
often find that it is not so very easy to give good instruction in
modern languages. It is a shame how little is done to give high-school
teachers opportunities for further improvement; they ought to have
abundant access to courses in advanced work, but especially to many
and liberal travelling scholarships, so that no conscientious teacher
in foreign languages need do without a tolerably long stay among the
people whose language he (she) teaches. Poor pay and long hours, too,
naturally lead to a teacher’s looking merely to examination results.
But still I continue to hope that more and more teachers will avoid
the old rut, and they will surely find that it pays to get out of
it, even if, especially in the beginning, they have to expend more
time and energy on their teaching, and on their preparation for every
lesson, in order to meet the greater demands of the new methods. In
Germany and the Scandinavian countries, exceedingly great efforts are
being made to reform the instruction in languages; in Norway, much of
what has been recommended in this book has even been adopted in the
official school-plans issued in 1897;[64] and fortunately the movement
is also on the way to becoming strong in England. If this book by
a foreigner can contribute ever so little to the encouragement and
support of English language-teachers in their zealous and able efforts
to introduce newer and better methods, then I am glad to have been
enabled in this manner to pay off a little of the debt that I owe to
England and to many Englishmen.
In closing let me try to sum up. The old-fashioned disconnected
sentences proved to be a failure for many reasons, and one reason
was because there was nothing else to do with them but to translate
them. They could arouse no interest; they could not even be read aloud
intelligently; they could not be remembered in that definite form which
they happened to have, so they could not be used as patterns for the
construction of other sentences; therefore the rules of the grammar,
which was committed to memory, came to play such an important part. It
all became monotonous and lifeless.
Our method tries to employ many means which mutually support each
other. The pronunciation is not learned merely by the teacher’s saying
the word and the pupils repeating it, or by the pupil’s guessing at
it through the orthography and the teacher’s correcting him. The
latter plan we reject entirely; the former, however, we use even to a
larger extent than before, and we adopt in addition to it a rational
description and indication of sounds. The improved pronunciation thus
acquired also helps in a high degree in the acquiring of the other
(signification) side of the language. Where formerly there was no other
way of communicating the meaning of words but through translation, we
have in addition thereto direct and indirect observation, explanations
in the foreign language, etc. Where the pupils formerly had to
commit to memory paradigms, rigmaroles and rules, which all had to
be taken on faith, we let them investigate for themselves and thus
get an insight into the construction of the language. And whereas
formerly the only exercises were translation from the mother tongue
into the foreign language, we now have a whole scale of varying
exercises, namely: direct reproduction (repetition of the teacher’s
words; answers to questions which are based directly upon the words
of the book)--modified reproduction (repetition of sentences with
changes of tense, person, etc.; answers to freer questions; asking
of questions)--free reproduction (renarration) and finally--free
production (letters, etc.). And since there is a sensible meaning in
all that is read or said or done, the interest is awakened and held,
and the instruction becomes not only varied, but what especially
beseems living languages, it becomes in the deepest and best sense of
the word really _living_.