Continuing my researches into the history of methodology, here are some more gems:
“One cannot really begin to learn the grammar of a language until one knows the language itself” (Jespersen, O. 1904. How to teach a foreign language, p.126)
“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” (Jespersen op cit. pp. 190-191)
“I believe that to teach successfully we must take into account the social, as well as the psychological, situation of the pupil, remember that we are teaching language to be put to use for social purposes, for the expression, communication and reception of ideas, for establishing and maintaining contacts between people on the emotional as well as the intellectual level” (Billows, L. 1961. The Techniques of Language Teaching. p. x.)
“The teacher must really be himself [sic] and give himself, talking to real people about real things and then training his pupils to talk to one another about real things,” (Billows, op.cit. p. 56)
“The textbook is one—perhaps the most important—of many visual aids. We should never allow it, or any picture or sentence in it, to stand between our pupils and the concrete world… The language must not be allowed to stay imprisoned between the pages of a book…” (Billows, op. cit., p. 71)
“If the grammar of the written language only exists in the written language, the grammar of the spoken language only exists in the spoken language” (Palmer, H. 1921, The Principles of Language Study, p. 150)
“Grammar, like all other sciences, deals with what can be brought under general laws, and relegates all the other phenomena of language to that collection of isolated facts which we call the dictionary. It need hardly be said that there is no absolute line of demarcation between the two.” (Sweet, H., 1899, 1964. The Practical Study of Languages. p. 73 )
“Conversation in a foreign language may be regarded from two very different points of view: (1) as an end in itself, and (2) as a means of learning the language” (Sweet, op. cit., p. 210)
And, finally, one on "technology":
“Instead of fearing the classroom window as a possible source of distraction, the language teacher may welcome the opportunities it gives for natural and effective use of language related to easily perceived samples of living. The teacher may sometimes spend ten or twenty minutes at the window, talking about what can be seen, and afterwards make a rough representation of the principal features on the blackboard for further discussion” (Billows, op. cit. p. 152)
I mean, who needs an interactive white board?
Comments
toughguy
Scott Thornbury
Good point, Toughguy (nice name!). I think there is a real risk of being seduced by "the latest fad", at the expense of a long tradition of successful practice. As I travel around, I am constantly asked "What's the latest method?" I often have to disappoint the questioner, by saying, "Well, there really isn't one, and anyway, what's wrong with the old ones?!"
Fernando Guarany
I think there is a real risk of being seduced by "the latest fad", at the expense of a long tradition of successful practice. As I travel around, I am constantly asked "What's the latest method?" I often have to disappoint the questioner, by saying, "Well, there really isn't one, and anyway, what's wrong with the old ones?!"
I will be giving a short talk on Dogme ELT at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte [Natal, Brazil] on 4 June and will surely use this quote.
Thanks
Fernando Guarany Jr
Crespus
Hello Scott,
I'm so glad you are here. You know, You're a kind of GOD for us (teachers).
Ivan from Brazil.
Scott Thornbury
Good luck with your Dogme talk - let me know how it goes!
Scott Thornbury
Nik Peachey
Hi Scott
Some great quotes here. I particularly liked this one:
And, finally, one on "technology":
“Instead of fearing the classroom window as a possible source of distraction, the language teacher may welcome the opportunities it gives for natural and effective use of language related to easily perceived samples of living. The teacher may sometimes spend ten or twenty minutes at the window, talking about what can be seen, and afterwards make a rough representation of the principal features on the blackboard for further discussion” (Billows, op. cit. p. 152)
I mean, who needs an interactive white board?Though I think that technology, if we use it well, can provide a classroom window onto the world and one through which we can enable our students to interact with the world.
They can also save those interactions store them on their interactive whiteboard and share them with others. I'm not sure that it's a case of whether we need technology or not, it's more to do with it being part of ours and our students' lives. Wikipedia (another handy technological part of my life) defines technology as being "a broad concept that deals with an animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects an animal species' ability to control and adapt to its environment. "
An IWB is just another tool of our craft just as a blackboard, whiteboard, piece of paper , pencil or tape recorder is. The IWB is just an inevitable progression of a number of those things that we make part of our craft as we adapt to our more technological environment.
Best
Nik Peachey | Learning Technology Consultant, Writer, TrainerTeacher Development: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/
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Scott Thornbury
Thanks for the comment, Nick. I don't want to get into (another!) argument about IWBs (those who are interested can go to the BC IATEFL online website, and follow the thread in the Learning Technologies forum: http://tinyurl.com/kn8mx3) but of course I was asking for it!
I checked if wikipedia had an entry for "waste of money" but it doesn't. It does have one for "white elephant" though: "A white elephant is a valuable possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness." ;-)
bcgstanley
TE Team
Thanks for this article, Scott - it's always great to be reminded that so much of value has already been written about our profession.
It's a pity you didn't look at the entry for 'interactive white board' while you were checking Wikipedia, though. If you had, you might have spotted this in the entry:
"research showed that interactive whiteboard technology led to consistent gains across all key stages and subjects with increasingly significant impact on the second cohorts, indicating that embedding of the technology into the classroom and teacher experience with the technology are key factor"
Actually, I'd love to hear your arguments against the IWB expressed in a well-thought out blog post or article rather than throw-away comments, forum rants or tweets (for the uninitiated, these are the short, 140-character posts made using the social networking tool, Twitter). I know the discussion on the IATEFL online site which then spilled out into the wider web afterwards became heated, but I do think you have a lot to say about the subject that can help those who use or who are thinking about using it steer away from the pitfalls that await the uninitiated. I'd be especially interested in reading an article or post by you that looked at it from a pedagogical point-of-view rather than the (obvious) criticism of its costliness in comparison with the dry whiteboard or blackboard.
And please don't think of this as me throwing down a gauntlet - I'd be genuinely interested in reading a well-argued pedagogically sound criticism against this technology if you can contain yourself for long enough to write one. What do you say?
Scott Thornbury
Just came across this quote from the (late lamented) Wilga Rivers: "[Teachers] faced with the daily task of helping students to learn a new language cannot afford the luxury of complete dedication to each new method or approach that comes into vogue" (1981, Teaching Foreign Language Skills, p. 54).
(Incidentally, I met Wilga Rivers when she was in Barcelona for a TESOL Spain conference probably about 20 years ago. She was already getting on then. She caused a bit of a stir by writing on the (very costly) pull-down projection screen with an indelible marker. In Moncton, Canada last year I found a copy of her Teaching Foreign Language Skills in a second-hand bookshop (the only shop that wasn't a mall). I must have learned that she had died not long after that. Then in Boston last summer, in yet another second-hand book shop, I found a number of books which she had actually owned (she used to teach at Harvard), and I bought one, a hard-back copy of Images and Options in the Language Classroom by that other national treasure, Earl Stevick (1986). The frontispiece is signed "Wilga Rivers, Harvard University, Boyston Hall 206. Please return." Something rather sad in the way a library hardly outlives its owner).