CAN LANGUAGE BE TAUGHT BY CORRESPONDENCE?
BY PROF. R. S. HOLMES, A.M.
Can a language be taught by correspondence? Unhesitatingly, yes! Experience, though brief, gives warrant for the answer. The constantly increasing number of advertisements appearing in journals of wide circulation gives evidence that teachers at least believe instruction by this method both possible and profitable. It is in this belief that the only danger to the system lies. Incompetency in this field must fail. It can be hidden by no outward show. No would-be teacher, with text-book and printed question in hand, can parade before a class and hear a recitation. Only a teacher, a real teacher, can hope for success in this work, and that must come by methods entirely foreign to the ordinary methods of the class-room. Born a teacher, not made; such must be he who would successfully use the correspondence system in his work of teaching. Such teachers are rare, even in comparison with the multitudes of those who already fill the places in our hundreds of thousands of schools, and still more rare in the ranks of the throng which, filling the avenues leading to them, is expectantly awaiting the constantly occurring vacancies. For this reason we have said that the growing demand for correspondence schools constitutes their principal danger; for persons aware of this demand and allured by the hope of swelling moderate incomes, though they have no peculiar appreciation of the particular requirements demanded to fit one for the work, will yet enter the lists as competitors in this field. The inevitable results must be failure by the teacher, discouragement to honest and earnest students who can find no other means for acquiring education, distrust of the practicability of the system, and discredit for correspondence teachers as a class. To avoid this, to provide only competent instructors, and to arrange and systematize as broad and comprehensive a course of study as is furnished by an institution is one of the purposes of the Chautauqua University. In such a course languages, ancient and modern, must be taught, and must be taught by correspondence, or not at all. But while it will be conceded that instruction by correspondence is possible, in ordinary branches, yet the honest inquirer will ask in view of the peculiarities surrounding the subject of foreign languages, the question which begins this paper: Can a language be taught by correspondence? Again we answer, unhesitatingly, yes! and in no dubious way, but with a measure of success fully equal to that possible by oral instruction. The question of the time necessary to complete any given topic is not germane to this discussion. Yet in passing, it may be said, that of two persons who should be able to devote their whole time to study, one using oral and the other correspondence methods, we see no reason why the first should have any advantage in point of time required for the completion of any prescribed course of study.
We present four reasons in support of the answer we have so positively given:
First—The class of students seeking this instruction is more teachable than can be easily found elsewhere. Its members rank in earnestness and intensity of application with the best of those pursuing post-graduate or special courses in resident and special institutions. They are men already in professional life, physicians, attorneys, pastors, journalists and teachers. They are men who, having long looked wistfully from a distance at our great educational institutions without being able to avail themselves of their advantages, suddenly find excellent educational advantages brought to their very doors and offered on terms which they can easily accept. They are young men and women who during their school days felt the necessity of making the best use of their time, and acquired habits of steady application, of critical study, and of economy in the use of spare moments; but whose school days were limited by unconquerable circumstances to the village academy or high school, or even to the less ambitious country district school. These classes are easier to teach than almost any other, since they are ready to do to the fullest extent the work which alone can make any teaching successful.
Second—More skill is required in the work of preparing and assigning lessons than is ordinarily shown. The art of assigning lessons should form a part in every scheme of pedagogical instruction. Unfortunately, the methods with which most who have memories of the class room are familiar are worthy subjects for criticism. The recitation hour passes rapidly in question and answer over the technicalities of the text. The closing moments are sufficient to direct a continuation of the advance reading, a review of previous lessons, and the assignment of certain portions from the grammar. There is no definite direction as to special points to be examined; no provision for particular work in etymology, or analysis, or comparison; no synthetic outline for the next day’s thought; no aids to help the student to test his own work or to detect his own errors before the next recitation assembly. Such methods or lack of methods in the correspondence school would surely cause its failure. How to assign lessons becomes here the crucial test of the teacher’s power. He must so lay out the work to be done that the pupil whom he has never seen will be stimulated to effort and not grow discouraged; will be led from the world of the known at his feet, into the world of the unknown in which the teacher lives; will be allowed to make no misuse of time in unprofitable study; will be wisely directed in the acquirement of lexical and grammatical knowledge, and will be enabled to test his own work with ever increasing accuracy. Such a teacher can not fail of success in his effort to teach a language by correspondence.
Third—More care is required in the matter of interrogation. Thorough mastery of the art of interrogation is an essential; almost priceless in any teaching—here it is a sine qua non. The presence of teacher and pupil in the class room makes questioning easy; the oral question is quickly given, quickly answered, and many questions may be used to elicit a single truth, or to impress a single lesson. But the correspondence teacher is not so favored. His questions must be so framed that one, or at the most two, shall suffice. Again, the oral teacher through lack of memory and long custom, may allow his questions to become a mere matter of routine, and daily tread the same monotonous round. We speak from memory when we assert of a college class, that it became so familiar with the questions asked during Greek hour in junior year, as to be able to answer the coming question almost before its utterance. This will not do for the correspondence teacher. His questions must be only such as his lesson directions have suggested; they must be committed to paper, in remorseless ink; they are to be subjected to scrutiny; they must not be obscure, or repetitious; and their range must be as wide as his students’ knowledge. Such questioning can not fail of success.
Fourth—More earnest and thorough study is required of the student. He has in a certain sense the work of two persons to perform, his own and his teacher’s; his own, in that he investigates and acquires as directed; his teacher’s, in that he must prove and test that which he has done and is doing, by efforts of memory, by work of comparison, and by strict grammatical rule. He must recite to himself, ask of himself the questions which he must answer, and correct himself before finally his finished work is returned to his teacher for revision.