Professional Documents
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answer was given many years ago, bat perhaps for different reasons
from today. In what follows I restrict myself to the situation as it is,
and only include such future developments in educational policy
as may to some extent be relied upon to come about. My point of
departure is the situation of a relatively small linguistic community,
like Denmark, and I will draw heavily on my national experience
when it comes to examples. A diagram of the Danish educational
system up to age 19 will perhaps illustrate some of my points better
than words. Apart from a few experimental classes, most Danish
children begin learning English in the fifth form.
Survey of the Danish School svstem
Special
Preparation education
lor higher Grammar p
education school llV
(Gymnasium) ^~
Real
school
CD
Nine-year
H
course of
education
(compulsory)
CD
Nurserv school
rr
Three factors which led to the talk that forms the basis of this
article were, in order, the reading of The School Pd Like (edited by
Edward Blishen), my fellow-countryman Paul Christophersen's
Second-Language Learning, Myth and Reality, and, last but not
least, a Bill, which in December 1973 one could still believe was
shortly to be enacted, containing a decision to aim at making
A Plea to Think More of the Language-Learner's Situation 17
motivation than anything else, and tends to support the view widely
held among learners that there is (a) school English (b) the real thing.
The kind of middle-class to upper middle-class English family they
see reflected in their textbooks does not agree with what they know
is typical. If we are to hope for anything remotely like Lambert's
integrative motivation, there should be more about ordinary people
in the textbooks.
(5) Structures. To begin with, they should preferably be those of
the spoken language. The emphasis on speech should be maintained
somewhat longer than is normal nowadays. It is of special importance
for the teacher to have the patience to wait until listening
comprehension is well established before he goads unwilling speakers
into utterances in the foreign language.
(6) Grammar. To speak of grammar-less language teaching is
obviously nonsense. But most of the theory of grammar should
stay where one hopes it is, at the back of the teacher's head. When
rules are called for, they should be rules that relate primarily to the
spoken language: production rules, as it were, instead of control
rules. In thisfield,more than any other, provision should be made for
individualised learning.
(7) Pronunciation. The teaching of pronunciation should be less
finicky; one should aim at intelligibility rather than perfection.
Once a reasonably good standard of pronunciation has been
established, it is good sense to try to uphold it, but not at any price;
and with plenty of 'sound' evidence from records, tapes, radio, and
television, it is more than useless to try to produce Received Standard
in the face of native Received Southern Standard speakers and,
for instance, turn down American-type pronunciation as unEnglish.
This is anti-motivational and unnecessarily widens the gap between
school English and 'English as She is Heard*. Let me refer you at
this point to a recent article in ELTJ by James and Lloyd Mullen,
and also to the views expressed by D. Abercrombie in Problems and
Principles of Language Study. (From a practical point of view, by
the way, it seems that American English pronunciation is easier for
Danes to acquire.)
To sum up what I consider as anti-motivational in English teaching
at present, there seems to be:
Too much dependence on the printed word, even at an early stage;
Not enough use of the various kinds of speaking picture, such as slides+tape,
cineloop films, 8 mm and 16 mm sound films, and videotape;
Too few tapes for imaginative and creative use of language in the language
laboratory;
Too few materials with built-in activating mechanisms;
Too few reading-books which are interesting enough to close the gap between,
say, a 10-year-old child's mental and linguistic abilities. (The only way in
22 Egon Foldberg
which language bombardment through the printed page can be carried through
effectively is by means of high-quality texts which are read in quantity for
their own sake and interest.)
In most textbooks too few problems that need a bit of thought, too little
that appeals to the child's cognitive functions.
Bibliography
Abercrombie, D . : Problems and Principles in Language Study, Longman.
Achtenhagen, F.: Dldaktik des fremdsprachlichen Unterrichts, J. BaJtz.
Adams, P. (ed.): Language in Thinking, Penguin Modern Psychology.
Atkinson, J. W.: An Introduction to Motivation, Van Nostrand, N.Y.
Blishen, E. (ed): The School That I'd Like, Penguin.
An Analysis and Arrangement of Verb Patterns 23