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By-Magner. Thomas F. _ . . ..-
The Folklore of Language Teaching.
Pennsylvania State Modern Language Association.
Pub Date Apr 65
Note-5p.: Paper delivered at the Fall Conference of the Pennsylvania State Modern Language Association.
Bucknell Univ.. Lewisb.srg, Pa. October 10. 1964
Journal C1t -Bulletin of the Pennsylvania State Modern Language Association: v43 n2 p59-63 Apr 1965
MRS Price MF -5025 HC-S0.35
Descriptors -Audolingual Methods. College Language Programs. Language Instruction. Language I. aboratories.
Modern Languages. Native Speakers. Pattern Drimis (Language). Russian. Secondary Schools. Second
Language Learning Study Abroad. Teaching Methods. Textbooks
A university professor examines attitudes and theories relating to foreign
language teaching commonly accepted by instructors and students in US. high schools
and universities. The author attempts to distinguish the factual from the legendary. or
the folklore as he refers to it. in such areas as the audiolingual approach. selection
of textbooks. language laboratories. native speakers as teachers. the value of study 1

abroad. the choice of a language to be studied. and the introduction of literature in

a language program. (DS)

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Thomas F. Magner
Pennsylvania State University
Folklore is that body of "traditional wants to be an "old key" teacher or even
customs, beliefs, tales, or sayings, especially one "out of key"! I am assuming here that
those of a superstitious or legendary nature, the audio-lingual method is characterized
preserved unreflectively among a people" by the use of oral pattern drills which equip
(Webster's 2nd.) .* When we use the word the student to manipulate
folklore, we tend to think of it in relation patterns of the target language. the structural
to primitive people; I, for example, see in
my mind's eye a cluster of wooly types Nothing in my teaching experience of
hunched down around a campfire while the fourteen years indicates that the audio-
tribal shaman or memory man spins out lingual method can by itself suffice for the
some tribal lore. Conventions of language effective teaching of a modern foreign lan-
teachers actually present a similar picture, guage. After all, we operate in limited and
though the incidentals of dress and environ- limiting situations: our students use
ment are somewhat different: now the English for most of their waking day; they
university professor is the shaman; he dis- assemble in a classroom to grapple with the
penses his lore in more stately rhythms foreign language only for an hour or even
before a microphone rather than a fire; less each schoolday; the time span of the
instead of uncouth members of a tribe, we school year is punctured by vacations,
see well-groomed members of a language rallies, assemblies, school elections, fire
organization draped in a variety of ways drill, sickness, substitute teachers, not to
over hard Pinks in an over-heated room. mention attacks of boredom or of creeping
I propose to examine some of the folklore adolescence. What language teacher can
of our craft, that is, of language teaching. mention summer vacations without shud-
Specifically, I shall try to identify some of dering at the memories of the open mouths
the beliefs associated with language teach- and dull looks of students returning for the
ing and scrutinize them as closely as we second-year course of some language? We
might those of an alien tribe or unfamiliar have been consistently misled and mislead-
sect. The beliefs will be couched in the form ing by the time statements in connection
of statements (folklore items), statements with language teaching: two years of a
which are frequently made by language foreign language, for example, represents
teachers to language teachers, statements a tiny fraction of two chronological years.
which appear as premises in much of the It seems obvious, at least to me, that, no
pedagogical literature, statements which are
so familiar to language teachers that they matter how worthy the audio-lingual
can be called the cliches of our craft I do not method
by a
is in itself, it has to be supported
variety of what are, if you will pardon
say, indeed I cannot say, that these state-
ments or folklore items are false, because the expression, traditional devices: reading,
most of them reflect a substantial measure exercises, compositions, etc. In our teaching
of valuable experience. I am simply pre- of Russian at Penn State we use a "modified
senting them as generalized statements to audio-lingual" method, modified, that is, to
which you and I might say: "Yes, but . " fit the limitations of time which are real
enough for the present-day college student
and, I feel sure, for the serious high-school
Folklore Item I. The audio-lingual method student as well.
is the best method for teaching a modern
foreign language. Yes, but . . . Brave indeed At Penn State we teach the student a
is the teacher who rises to challenge this limited number of patterns and I have, in
statement of the most cherished dogma of lighter moments, thought of giving each
O the new believers. After all, every teacher student who finishes a particular level a
wants to be teaching "in the new key"; who little card in Russian which he can show
O to the first native speakers he meets; the
card would say: "I know the following
This paper was delivered at the Fall Confer- patterns of your language; please limit
ence at the Pennsylvania State Modern Lan- yourselves to these patterns so that we can
guage Aseoclation at Bracknell University,
communicate?' The trickiness of native
0 Lewisburg, Pa., October 10, 1364.
speakers who will use patterns not in a
0 Dr. Magner is Professor of Slavic Languages
and Head of the Department of Slavic Lan- student's textbook was well illustrated by
0 guages at Pennsylvania State University.
59
(coat. nest page)

J from, The Bulletin of the Pennsylvania State Modern Language Association

Vol. XLIII No. 2 April 1965
 THOMAS F. MAGNER
the experience of a young Yugoslav who
was ad -mdim a special program of Ameri- situation. A good studant, that is, a highly
ean studies, The Yugoslav and his European motivated one, will and must take advantage
colleagues were being introduced to the of the appropriate language club, language
American game of baseball by an American films, and the presence of native speakers
staff member. At what he thought was the to on the campus; by adding these resources
proper time the Yugoslav walked up to the the formal network of courses, such a
American coach and carefully delivered good student can manage to achieve a sur-
himself of the question: "Is it now my turn prising fluency in a foreign language.
at bar to which he received what sounded Folklore Item 3. The language laboratory
to him hie "Yes, Europa" but which was is a necessary component of the
undoubtedly "Yeah, you're up." process. Yes, but . . . We language teachingteachers
A major deficiency of the pure audio- are, I assur.e, generally
lingual method is that it require-r. an in- language lab is usefuL Most txonvinced that the
fantilism on the part of people who are not through attitudinal ;gages inofregard us have gone
to this
in fact infant& I use the word infantilism electronic help-mate:
advisedly, since by the use of the orthodox tical, then awed, then enthused, we have been skep-
audio-lingual technique we are trying to then relaxed, perhaps even fanatic,
even indifferent,
work up from the linguistic ooze, repeated now (hopefully) adjusted. I say "adjusted" and
what we assume were the learning steps of because language labs are :madly
the native speaker of the target language. someone other than the picked by
The shortcoming of this approach is that and so the latter has to adjust to language teacher
on the high-school and college level we are not the lab to him. the lab and
dealing with students whose powers and in- We all want to have a language lab be-
clinations toward rational analysis simply cause it dramatizes
do not "switch off" when the teacher starts like- dull business what otherwise seams
a dialogue on the "Me Tarzanyou Jane" who does not to our principal or dean
level. The student's mental often come from our macs
faculties and who usually feels uneasy around len-
operate all through the drill process, mak- guage teachers, fearing
ing crude contrastive analyses and refining might erupt in perhaps that they
them as new data are presented. some foreign idiom. We of
course are also
And so to folklore item 1 I say "yes" and that he might ask uneasy around him, fearing
without a "but" when the audio-lingual Latin since our other enrollments us to take on a section of
method is particularized as an audio-lingual- modest. No are so
one is a greater believer
visual-scribal method. efficacy of the language lab than theinman the
Folklore Item 2; A foreign language can at the top who can point with pride to this
be learned through language courses. electronic symbol of progrees.
Usually people who are not connected with I want to point out one danger in the use
language teaching are more confident about of the language lab, a danger which can
the validity of this statement than profes- stem from compulsory attendance. A stu-
sional teachers of language. To such a dent can sit immobilized in his electronic
statement I would have to say "No, harness, the dulcet tones of the foreign
but . . . " Let me, if only for shock value, speaker pouring over him, and yet pay no
rephrase the statement in the following, attention. The danger lies in the fact that
admittedly negative way: No sequence of such a student is actually developing a habit
high-school and/or college courses can of disregarding the foreign utterances, a
guarantee even a good student a mastery of habit which will cripple his language learn-
a foreign language or even competence in it. ing potential. Well-structured lab
I omit consideration of FLES here, since will obviate such a danger, but I mustdrills
perhaps- at some time in the future when that well-structured drills in well-structured say
our language programs are better developed, labs in well-structured language programs
the FLES-HS-COLLEGE sequence will in well-structured schools are rarer than
yield impressive results. coelacanths.
What then can be learned in our formal
teaching situations? I tell my students that Fo'klore
than old
Item 4. New textbooks are better
textbooks.
we can equip them with an acceptable pro- We all like new text-
nunciation of Russian, that we will train glossy books. Teachers like them because all that
them to converse wain a limited range, paper looks as if it could not possibly
and that we will help them achieve a basic contain a mistake or a misprint, while stu-
dents like
competence in reading. The rest is up to the art works and the unblemished margins for their
students and we do have gratifying doodlings. But I think that
evidence that some students go far beyond the publishers are leading us astray in one
aspect
the limited possibilities of the classroom in the profuse of new language textbooks, namely,
illustration of such books. In
60
 THOMAS F. MAGNER
one new Italian textbook a big photo of the ticularly if he is middle-aged or above, and
Rome railway station pops up when one of to see him trying to fit himself into our
the dialogue characters mentions la stazione. pragmatic, complicated school system. In
And a page or so later when i/ cameriere, his home country he had a great amount
"the waiter", tens the character that the of status; his wife had special status; the
station is in the center of the city, then we waiters in his favorite restaurant would
get a full-page picture of the center of the know his title and address him by it; in
city. short, he was a person of stature, known and
If a new Russian textbook introduces the respected in his community. Here, if a
word student, then the user will find a covey waiter knew that his customer was a school-
of Soviet students staring morosely at him teacher, he might not render poorer service,
and, incidentally, taking up a whole page. but certainly he would not respond with the
One might think that I am being churlish alacrity which he would show for a lawyer
to complain about pictures which will make or insurance man.
a textbook appealing to our students. I am To be effective, the native speaker must
in favor of picture books which show the be willing (i.e. humble enough) to examine
cultural splendors of other countries, but I his own language from a new angle, that is,
think that the extravagant illustrations in in a contrastive way, so that he realizes that
our current textbooks tend to make the some sounds and grammatical categories
printed language material and exercises look which he assumed to be absolutes are merely
dull by comparison and, in fact, positively arbitrary conventions which will trouble
unappetizing. Put the pictures on the wall, speakers of another language. The Slavic
anyway. languages, for example, are characterized
I would prefer language textbooks so by verbal aspect to which the speaker of a
constructed that they could be used much Slavic language is so habituated that it is
as the celebrated philosopher, Santayana, extremely difficult for him to explain how
used his reading material. Santayana would it is used. To appreciate the difficulty of
leave his house in the morning carrying analyzing a n d explaining grammatical
about ten pages which he had torn out of phenomena of one's own language, simply
one of his books. He would then sit on a try to formulate a good statement for the
bench and start to read, throwing a page use of the definite and indefinite articles
away as he finished it; on a subsequent walk (the, a) or the omission of such articles
he would set out again with some more dis- in a sentence such as this.
posable pages. Using Santayana's method To finish up on this folklore item, I would
but avoiding littering, I would equip stu- say that a native speaker of a foreign lan-
dents with loose-leaf textbooks which would guage who is sophisticated enough to realize
hold only the lessons being worked on. When that the teaching of French, let us say, is
a class finished lesson 5, for example, the and has to be different in Berwick, Pa., than
students would surrender that material to in Besancon, France, who realizes that
the teacher and would receive lesson 6. It is American students, harum-scarum though
all dreadfully impractical, I know, and the they may stem at first, do have considerable
publishers would not stand for it for a ability in language learning, who can realize
minute, but I do like the idea of a student that his own mistakes in English are often
cutting his ties to textual material in the the mirror-images of mistakes which stu-
language learning process. dents will make in the target language,
such a person can be an ideal teacher of his
Folklore Item 5. The best teacher of a native language. However, until this ideal
foreign language is a native speaker of that type becomes more abundant in our country
language. Yes, but only if three other thingsthan it now is, we shall have to depend
are true: 1) that the person is also a good largely on those native Americans who ap-
teacher ; 2) that he is sophisticated enough proach language teaching not just with
about the structure of English and the enthusiasm but with professional zeal.
structure of his own language to be able
to anticipate problem areas for the student; Folklore Item 6. Language houses are
and 3) that he is aware of the special, per- beneficial in language learning. Ah, come to
haps I should say, peculiar psychology of charming New England in the summer, re-
American youth. lax on a bosky campus while imported
One of the problems facing a native natives do the Schuhplattler on the green !
speaker who tries to become a teacher of his Come and, as the attractive brochure puts it,
own language in America is the fact that live the language! I have no desire to ruin
the prestige system here differs radically anyone's vacation, but I would advise any
from that of his native country. It is always potential resident of a language house to
sad for me to meet a teacher, who is an have a clear idea of just how much contact
"intellectual", from a Slavic country, par- (cont. next page)
61
 THOMAS F. MAGNER
he will have with authentic (and co -opera communication; after all, the same language
five) native speakers. Do not be misled into is spoken in Costa Rica and Cuba!
thinking that speaking a foreign language It is often said that a language program
with other non-natives like yourself ("Do should include information about the cul-
you solemnly pledge not to speak a word of tural characteristics of the speakers of the
English during your stay at our target language so that we can thereby be-
Hausicasa/maison/domr) will be of much come more sympathetic towards them.
help; usually it tends to solidify mistakes, Information about novel and interesting
to make available to you the new and more cultural character :sties does not, however,
impressive mistakes of your fellow-stu- develop an appreciation of these features in
dents, to ruin intonational patterns, and in the emotional apparatus of the learner. To
general to make you feel silly. take a humble example: I realize that garlic
In evaluating a language house I would plays a large role in the cooking habits of
suggest three criteria: 1) Are the admis- certain countries, but I myself am condition-
sions policies realistic ?; e.g. do they include ed to respond to it negatively. A minimum
tape or telephone interviews so that elemen- general statement might be this : we have
tary students are not admitted ?; 2) the on this globe about 3 billion people speaking
ratio of native speakers of the target lan- some 3 thousand languages; we want to get
guage to participants should be something along (i.e. to survive), garlic or no garlic,
like 1 to 5; 3) the planning of the program and to do this we must communicate and
must be such that pleasant (Who wants to identify national interests and purposes.
talk to a surly, underpaid native speaker?)
native and non-native contacts are possible Folklore Item 9. Spanish is the easiest for-
through the day. eign language for Americans. This is such
a well-established item in our folklore that
Folklore Item 7. Living in a foreign coun- nothing I say will dislodge or even shake it.
try is the best way to learn a language. This One effect of this wide-spread belief is, I
is the perennial dream of tourists and "study think, that you will find the most cautious
abroad" enthusiasts. The statement has American students and also the least gifted
truth in it only for certain levels of learning. students studying Spanish. Or at least they
For a beginner it is probably the worst way start it. The supposed easiness of Spanish
to learn a language, unless he plans to spend actually derives for the situation of written
several years there. If he picks the language Spanish in that you or I, with no knowledge
up by guess and by golly," he will end up of spoken Spanish, can get the gist of a
with the "gemixte pickles" version of a for- page of a simple Spanish text. Thus for a
eign language which we can hear today in Spanish course which emphasized reading
our large cities from immigrants who simply and translation this folklore item would have
erupted onto our shores and had to do considerable validity. But spoken Spanish
battle with English. Study abroad or resi- is a caballo of a different color. Let us at
dence abroad is best, I think, when a student this point consider a closely related item.
or teacher of languages has reached what
we might call the "take-off" stage, that is, Folklore Item 10. Russian is a difficult
when he already has definite though limited language for Americans.
Here again the
facility in the skills of the target language, writing system is at the bottom
such that he will profit from everything he belief. The Russian orthographyofhas this folk
does in the foreign country. to the
uninitiated the appearance of a forbidding
thicket which probably conceals all sorts of
volklore Item 8. Language understanding linguistic bear traps. And yet the writing
makes for cultural understanding and inter- system, which is actually very systematic,
cultural friendship. I am afraid that I can- can be learned in a few days. And where
not even say "Yes, but . . . " to this state- Spanish has four subjunctive tenses, Rus-
ment. Because you or I understand another sian makes do with a little particle by;
person is no guarantee that we will like him; where Spanish has two types of copulative
sometimes just the opposite is true in that, verb, Russian has none!
when we really understand another person, Writing systems aside, all of our com-
we can really dislike him. The candidates of monly taught languages are of equal
our political parties have no trouble under- difficulty and of equal ease, but particular
standing each other's language, but do have languages may actually be easier or more
trouble in being friendly to each other. And difficult at particular stages. Spanish seems
so it is with peoples and nations: cultural easy at first and increases in complexity,
understanding and inter-cultural friendship while Russian seems difficult at first and
derive from conditions other than mere gets easier later on.

62
 THOMAS F. MAGNER
Fo'klore Item 11. Works of literature worth remembering, but he may even de-
should be introduced in the early stages of velop habits and attitudes toward foreign
a language program. To this the sophisti- languages which will inhibit his progress
cated professional teacher of a foreign lan- in courses of modern foreign languages. I
guage will immediately respond: "Come am aware that there are now "Spoken
now, nobody believes that any more!" Latin" programs, but they impress me only
Nevertheless, it is my experience, limited as does the Indian rope trick, as an illusion
as it may be, that this article of belief is and nothing more.
widely current among language teachers, I think that teachers of Latin are doing
particularly among native speakers of the their subject a disservice when they imitate
languages being taught. I know for a fact the propaganda, materials and techniques
that some native Russians introduce the used by their colleagues in the modern
works of Pushkin ( a poet of the early 19th foreign languages. The problems and goals
century!) into first and second-year Rus- of Latin teaching are different and deserve
sian courses. And look at the textbooks: in different treatment in a high-school pro-
too many you will find substantial portions gram of at least three and preferably four
of elevated (and difficult) literary material years' length. If a high school can only
or, horrible cliche, you will find "gutted" or allot two years for Latin, I would recom-
simplified versions of literary works; of the mend that Latin not be attempted at that
two types of texts the first is justifiable school but that the two years be used for a
from an idealistic standpoint but indefen- second modern foreign language.
sible from a pedagogical standpoint, while
the second or simplified text is justifiable There are undoubtedly other interesting
from a pedagogical standpoint but indefen- items in the folklore of language teaching.
sible from the standpoint of aesthetics or Whether or not the items I have specified
even of fair play. are indeed valid can be verified by reading
Folklore Item 12. Good students should be relevant articles in our journals and by at-
encouraged to study Latin. Yes, but not just tentive listening at our frequent conclaves.
two years in high school! To be very blunt That we have a folklore in language teach-
and dogmatic, let me say that two years of ing has one major consolation : we are a folk
high-school Latin is a waste of time: not or fraternal group with ideals and values in
only does a student not learn enough Latin common.

63 .