First a few words on the order in which languages should be taught. I do not think that we should make a change for the better as regards girls’ education, were we to substitute Latin for French, placing that subject first in order of time. It seems to me best to begin with French, a language etymologically related to our own, and having a simple grammatical structure.
Order of language teaching.Secondly I prefer to take German, the grammar of which approaches more nearly to the classical models, whilst the inflections are easier to learn than the French; its etymology too not only throws much light on our own, but is more transparent, which makes it a medium, perhaps as valuable as Greek, far more valuable than Latin, for showing the refinements of language, the poetry and philosophy fossilised in speech. Thus those only take up the classical languages who have some linguistic power. Girls who are unable to master the difficulties of the grammar will never encounter them, and as the languages gradually increase in difficulty, we can better fit the means of education to the power of the pupil. The classics form, it is true, a key to modern tongues, but on the other hand modern tongues lead up to Latin and Greek, and I believe this order is equally logical and answers better with girls; it is something to open to them the literature of France and Germany, something to teach them languages, so that they shall find the study (as they generally do) one of interest. At any rate there are four stages at which we can leave behind those unable to continue their march, and who, if we tried to bring them further, would form only a crowd of stragglers. Those who have a good knowledge of one or two modern languages will have no great difficulty in taking up Latin or Greek say at fourteen or fifteen. They will have a large etymological store, which will make it easy to acquire the vocabulary, and they will have to study only the differentia of the grammars of the different languages—may we not rather say dialects?—of the Indo-European stock.
Nearly all syntax rules will be already known, and a Latin Grammar in which the principles are brought out, may take the place of one written for young boys in whom the grammatical faculty is rudimentary—in which dogmatic rules only abound; dogma should as far as possible yield to principles, which are intelligible and interesting to elder girls, and this will help them over the necessarily considerable labour of learning the inflections. Perhaps few will attain the minute exhaustive scholarship of which some minds are capable, but many will read with keen enjoyment; some girls who have begun late have taken high places in university examinations.
Much has been recently written on the subject of modern languages; in the books edited by Mr. Barnett and Dr. Spenser, just published, to which I have frequently referred, are excellent papers. I shall therefore make my remarks on the subject very brief. In the first is an excellent paper by Mr. Storr, and Dr. Spenser has written a paper of about fifty pages, giving a full account of the modern system of teaching.
It is time that some reform took place. The Oxford Local Examiners of 1896 reported the French as phenomenally bad. In 1897 nearly half the seniors failed. I have tabulated the answers to the few questions set by me to pupils entering over twelve, and I find, taking some two hundred, that not one in ten knows the regular verbs, and scarcely any write very simple sentences without egregious faults.
Only oral teaching at first.The first teaching in modern languages should certainly be oral. In the kindergarten, French and German songs and simple sentences may be taught in the lowest forms. Supposing that children begin about seven or eight, it seems better they should not see written French at first. If they have learned the alphabet, as I have suggested in a former paper, they will take some interest in the new sounds of French and might read from a phonetic transcription.
Phonetic alphabet.There are good papers in the (August and September, 1897) Journal of Education on this subject by Mr. Ware, Mr. Kirkman and Mons. Passy, which I commend to my readers. I give a few extracts. Mr. Ware writes: “In Germany, every teacher has to render himself capable of teaching pronunciation, and results prove that he succeeds. In various German training colleges, there are courses of lectures on phonetics applied to the study of foreign languages. It was owing to the success attending the introduction of phonetics in the French teaching in certain German schools that I was finally induced to try them in the earliest stages of French teaching at Bradford. The results have exceeded my expectations.”
This is confirmed by Mr. Bearder of Nottingham. He writes: “Though I have not used the method in such a thorough and systematic manner as he has done at Bradford, still the results are such as to convince me that I am entitled to support Mr. Ware in his refutation of one argument, letting alone others, which the opponents of phonetic teaching continually bring forward, that time is wasted in learning the two modes of spelling”.
If it is not possible to get the reading taught phonetically, using the international alphabet, the use of the tables of Larousse will be a great help. In any case pieces which are learned by heart, dialogues, etc., should be repeated in the class after the French teacher, before the children see the book. Common errors.Few English people have ever learned to distinguish the sounds of the final syllable in the imperfect and passé défini or the future and the conditional or the gradual opening of the sounds as we pass through e, é, è, ê. Very few pronounce u properly when it precedes another vowel—lui is pronounced looee. Very few observe that a labial nasal before another labial is changed into a dental nasal, thus not impossible but inpossible, and nearly all say leer for lee + r. Children are taught to read so unsystematically, that if they are told these things they forget them, and waste time in repeating easy sounds, instead of working at the hard ones. Children should not be set to learn verbs, etc., without having first repeated them and practised the sounds with their teachers. When they do begin to read, the sound-table should be hanging up, and should be referred to, that they may correct their errors themselves. These pronouncing lessons should go on in a room alone, so that children may speak together in imitating the teacher; then she should single out individuals for different sounds; but the whole class should never sit round, as is the custom in some schools, and hear each of their companions read in succession a piece of French with true British accent. If they listen, their time is worse than wasted; if they do not, they get habits of inattention. The attention must not be wearied, and if two or three sounds are acquired each week, the whole will very soon be mastered, and time saved for the repetition of poetry, for viva voce composition, etc.
Translation.When children begin to read, we should spare them as much stupefying dictionary work as possible, but it is not well to let them learn the vocabularies of the book without comment, and they should be led from their past knowledge to discover the meaning, and as far as may be, get at the root meaning of unknown words, and see the underlying figure. Thorough work is much quicker in the end. Pascal’s father left his son with a Latin book, and no dictionary, to find out the translation. This may be a counsel of perfection suited only to a Pascal, but there are not many words of which children could not discover the meaning. Much more translation from French into English should be got through than is usual; children ought soon to be able to read at sight. Time need not be wasted by hearing all that has been prepared, but each could be called on to translate one sentence, and then translation go on at sight.