BULLETIN FOR TEACHERS OF GERMAN METHODS CHOICE OF METHOD Method in teaching is a way of reaching a given end by a rational, sequential arrangement of the facts of a subject and by employing such means as will secure that end in the most effective manner. No sane person will attempt to teach without some method. To become a slave to method, however, is nearly as bad as to use no method at all. We should not seek to teach the student method for the sake of method; we should use method solely as a means, so that the student may thereby acquire knowledge quickly and with understanding. It should be perfectly obvious that the method of teaching is less important than the teacher himself. A good teacher, even if obliged to use a poor method, can hope for some success; a poor teacher will not succeed with the best method. There is, moreover, no such thing as a perfect method of language instruction, nor indeed any good method that is best for all teachers, all students, and all purposes. A teacher can use successfully only such a method as best fits his training, his knowledge, and his mastery over the language he is trying to teach to others. It is self-evident that a teacher who has an insufficiently fluent command of idiomatic spoken German is at a decided disadvantage in teaching by any oral method. The native-born German, or the American-born of German parents, often lacks a scientific knowledge of German grammar, and is therefore unable to teach with success by the Grammar-Translation Method. man. Choice of method should depend to some extent also upon the purpose for which the students in a given class study GerSome desire to obtain only a reading knowledge of German, in order to use it as an aid in other subjects; others desire solely a speaking knowledge. But for the very great majority of students there should be a threefold aim: (1) a more or less fluent command of the spoken tongue; (2) ability to read readily and with understanding without translating; (3) ability to translate accurately into good English. Does any one question, however, that of these three points the first two are far more important than the third? DIFFERENT METHODS DEFINED We may speak in general of three different methods of language instruction, tho we often find modifications of each type, and also combinations of the different types. 1. The Grammar-Translation Method, with English as the usual medium 2. The Conversation Method, with German as the only medium 3. The Direct or Reading Method, with German as the medium, except perhaps when teaching composition. The Grammar-Translation Method may employ German to some extent, but it is distinctly not an oral method. The Conversation Method, rightly understood, is altogether an oral method. The Direct Method is distinctly an oral method, but written exercises can and ought to form a part of the grammar drill and of composition lessons. THE GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION METHOD The object of this method is a double one, drill in Grammar and skill in translation from German into English and from English into German. It used to be thought that drill in grammar had a great disciplinary value, but modern psychologists no longer admit this. By this method it is possible to obtain a real mastery of a language. But this can not often happen, because of the very fact that the student is forced to learn grammar and not the living language itself. His attention is constantly called to the rules of a literary and grammatically correct language. He reads and knows classic German; the real modern living tongue, the spoken language of the Germans of to-day, he is in danger of never knowing. In consequence, the student comes to know literary German but not the every-day natural idiom. After nine years of Latin study by this method few Germans can read Latin as Latin, fewer still can speak it. It is significant that in our own country protracted drill in grammar and composition has not noticeably improved the English of our children. After a preliminary survey and drill in the essentials of grammatical forms the student is allowed to translate. No one will question the value of the power to translate accurately and with literary finish. But this is just the point where the Grammar-Translation Method, as generally used, fails most miserably of results. The reading matter is used as material for grammatical drill, and when composition is taught it has the same objective. Only after a long period of this drilling is the student permitted to give most of his attention to translating. In the meantime he has lost whatever Sprachgefühl he has gained by a more or less perfunctory "conversation exercise" from time to time. He ends by studying German literature, using a German text but reading it and thinking the content in English. He could do nearly as well if he used good translations in the first place. By this method it is intended to give to students: (a) ability to translate accurately; (b) a better English style by comparing the grammatical structure and syntax of two languages, and by drill in translating into good literary English; (c) a knowledge of German literature, using English as the medium and thus transmitting the cultural value of German letters into English terms for English-thinking minds. By the Grammar-Translation Method a student can rarely be made to acquire any real mastery of German as a living. idiom. He can not hope to enter heart and soul into vital, intimate understanding of German thought and ideals as expressed by the masterpieces of German literature. To obtain such an understanding he must be able to read German as German, to feel "German," as it were, while he is reading it. THE CONVERSATION METHOD This method, as its name implies, aims to give to students a command of every-day, spoken German by oral drill in German itself. It is mainly a method of imitation, depending for its success upon endless repetition and upon memory. It ignores grammar almost entirely and tends to become more and more, as the work proceeds, a mere learning of phrases. All that the student acquires in the end is a weak, halting, uncertain, and, most often, very incorrect knowledge of some every-day idioms, phrases, and sentences. By this method, the student certainly gains very little additional power of thinking and is in danger of missing entirely the cultural value of German literary study. THE DIRECT OR READING METHOD The success of the Direct Method is due less to the fact that it is an oral method than to the fact that it places the emphasis upon reading without translating. Professor Walter in his book, Die Reform des neusprachlichen Unterrichts auf Schule und Universität, (Marburg, 1901), gives in a very brief form the essence of the Direct Method, in the following summary of Professor Viëtor's ideas. "Nicht der tote Buchstabe, sondern das lebende Wort solle in den Vordergrund treten: die neuere Sprache sei nicht an einzelnen unzusammenhängenden Sätzen, sondern am lebensvollen Sprachstoffe zu erlernen und durch das Sprechen und die mündliche Verarbeitung des Sprachstoffes zum festen Eigentum des Schülers zu machen. "Die Grammatik sei nicht mehr an erster Stelle zu erlernen, sondern habe als Abstraction der Sprache ihr gegenüber zurückzutreten und sei auf inductivem Wege aus dem gewonnenen Sprachstoffe abzuleiten. An die Stelle des bisher üblichen Uebersetzens aus der Muttersprache in die fremde Sprache müsse die freie Behandlung der Sprache wie im Wort, so auch in der Schrift treten. "Vor allem zeigt Viëtor, wie wenig Wert man bisher auf die Aussprache gelegt habe, ja wie diese nach dem Wort seines Gesinnungsgenossen Prof. Dr. Trautmann in Bonn zum grossen Teil 'grauenvoll' sei, und zeigt uns den Weg eine genaue lautreine Aussprache zu lehren und wie hierbei stets vom Laut auszugehen sei." If we analyze this statement, the following points stand out. as the objectives of the Direct Method: a. Detached, unconnected sentences, which were the ruling type in our German grammars up to a few years ago, can no longer be defended as pedagogically sound. The Direct Method demands a compact, connected, living, and natural Lesestück. b. This Lesestück must form the basis of oral drill, question and answer, with German as the medium. If it is desired to reproduce the Lesestück in written exercises (i.é. composition) the student should be allowed to express the thought in a form that is natural and spontaneous. Only then will he express himself easily and without the restraint which a constant striving to fit his words into an authoritative, grammar-ruled form puts upon him. He will answer in terms of the living German as he has read it and heard it, and not in terms of the grammar. c. The grammar is not to be studied before reading is begun. From the very first day the student is made to read without translating and the thought content of what he reads is developed into conscious knowledge by means of oral question and answer drill in German. The grammar, however, is not neglected; it is to be taught and learned inductively from the reading text by means of oral question and answer drill. Translation should be resorted to only in case the teacher is certain that this is necessary in order to give the student a clear understanding of a particularly involved or difficult passage in the text that is being read. ADVANTAGES OF THE DIRECT METHOD 1. The student is introduced at once to the language itself. He is forced to understand it and to speak it without first referring to his English, which he will certainly do if he has to think in terms of the grammar. 2. Stress is laid upon a good Aussprache from the start. The student can then best secure this because his mind is not confused and muddled by the demand to learn paradigms as such, and vocabularies, with all the vexations of genders and endings. He learns by hearing, by speaking, by writing. In other words, he can think what he reads and speaks and writes. He utters ideas, not forms. 3. He learns grammar as a means to an end, for the most part unconsciously. Drill in grammar does not take first toll of his strength and interest. Because he is forced to think in German, he feels in German. He gets this Sprachgefühl naturally, and with it acquires the necessary grammatical forms. through actual use in thinking and speaking. 4. It strengthens the initiative of the student and gives spontaneity and pleasure to his mental faculties. 5. The student is first taught to speak of every-day things, but he is very soon ready to enter a wider field, the reading of good literature. No other method introduces him so quickly to reading. He knows this literature through the medium of the |