How to teach a foreign language

by Otto Jespersen

The teacher is no doubt most tempted to let the pupils translate when he wants to make sure that they know the new selection which has been assigned to them for home-study. But even in this case, if the teacher has only gone through the lesson on assigning it (as indicated above) in a detailed and lively way, and with continual appeal to the pupils, so that the whole does not become a mere monologue by the teacher, the translation test is not as necessary as it would have been if the lesson had either not been gone through at all or if the teacher had merely translated it rapidly. He will often find it sufficient to ask a question now and then about some single point in the selection, especially if the selection is used for such exercises as will be described below, which directly and indirectly show whether the pupils have understood it all or not.

But still, let us assume that the teacher insists on having the selection translated—and of course this may always be a good thing once in a while by way of a change, most so perhaps when the teacher has not been quite able to digest and absorb the new methods. Then the best thing for him to do is to require the translation immediately, before the pupil has read the piece aloud. This is the most reliable test as to whether the lesson really has been learned in time, for the pupil has not the chance while he is reading aloud to speculate about how it is to be translated, and, on the other hand, when he comes to read it in the foreign language, he is not disturbed by irrelevant thoughts in his native language. Besides, the teacher must understand that this translation is not the most important event of the hour; it ought therefore to occupy as little time as possible. The pupil must be required to deliver his translation quickly, and it is not necessary to criticise the English expressions with pedantic exactitude. As soon as it is clear that the pupil understands perfectly, it is better for the teacher himself to give the correct English expression in passing, than to waste time in letting him find it out for himself.

A little turn of expression, a word-formation, or an order of words which is not quite English can very well be allowed to pass unnoticed; it is just when there is no attention paid to these things that they are less apt to be injurious to the pupil’s English than when the translation is treated as if it were the only thing. In case of any unusually awkward expression, the teacher can indulge in a hearty laugh together with the pupils and say: “Well, that is not the very best English you are giving us, but the meaning is clear enough, and all that we are concerned with here is if you understand the French, and that you do. Of course we know that you would never seriously say or write anything like that in your mother-tongue.” No more attention than this, it seems to me, ought to be paid to the English in these oral translations—the less we occupy ourselves with our native language during the French or German lessons, the less will it become contaminated; good English is not to be learned in those lessons, and poor English the teacher must give both himself and his pupils as little occasion as possible to use.

It is a different matter when advanced pupils can get both pleasure and benefit out of occasional exercises in translation. Then these must be chosen so that there are considerable deviations between the foreign language and English, which of course does not mean that the selected specimen of the foreign language itself need be difficult to understand. When the pupils are not daily occupied with translation, but move freely in the foreign language, it would just be great sport for them for a change to have a contest as to who could find the best and most exact English equivalents for foreign expressions. Thus there is no little difference between this kind of exercise and those now prevalent sight translations whose chief object seems to be to test the vocabulary of the pupils. The translation exercise that I have in mind should be conducted on about these lines: the selection should be read aloud to the class; if it contains any unfamiliar words, they should be explained in the manner described above, or, if they are translated instead, there should be given (as in a dictionary) perhaps five or six English equivalents to choose between; thereupon the pupils (in class under supervision) write their translations, which the teacher afterwards reads aloud and compares, so that the pupils themselves may judge as to whose translation has come nearest to the original and as to whether that rendering is to be preferred where every little element in the original has been taken into account but where the English has thus become a little bit long drawn out, or that rendering which in pith and euphony can stand comparison with the original, but where every detail has not been strictly included, etc. In short, the exercise is not to test the pupils’ knowledge in the foreign language, but to give them some idea of the difficulties which the art of translation has to contend with; and for the same reason the pupils might also be asked sometimes to try their skill in a metrical translation of a piece of poetry, but perhaps only in such a way that all participation in the contest is quite voluntary. Such selections might be chosen where we have good poetical translations in our literature, which could then be compared with the efforts of the pupils.[15]

Some few exercises in artistic translation, which the teacher carefully goes through with them, will help to give the more advanced pupils a vivid perception of some of the most delicate shades of variation in the languages as means of expression for human thought—but as the daily bread of language instruction that kind of exercise is not to be recommended, especially not for beginners.

In the daily teaching of languages it is in a number of cases quite superfluous to let the pupils translate. If the reading selections are as easy as is desirable, there will be some sentences in each lesson where neither the vocabulary nor the construction presents the slightest difficulty. In other sentences, the difficulty is simply due to a new word, but if the teacher just devotes a few minutes right away to hearing the new words, it is not necessary to have those sentences translated either. There are, as we know, many sentences which can be understood without any difficulty at all, but which are still difficult to translate; if the pupil knows the meaning of schwören, he will readily understand “er hat hoch und teuer geschworen,” but it will not be so easy for him to find the best way of rendering the adverbs, and it is really purposeless to waste time over them. (See also above, p. [50]).

Then finally there remains one or another really complicated sentence, which can be separated out from the rest and translated by the pupils—if the teacher in order to save time does not prefer to translate the whole of it himself. To test the pupil’s comprehension of single words by letting him explain them in the language is not very practical except to a limited extent; it might only be useful in dealing with clever advanced pupils where it would not necessarily degenerate into a mere committing of definitions to memory. It is therefore more properly in place in university instruction than in schools.

If any one now says that this method of procedure by which translation as a test of the pupils’ comprehension of what they have read is limited to the least possible, and in many lessons even the very last remnant of it is done away with, is far less satisfactory than the old-fashioned translating over and over again of the whole lesson, and that the teacher thus has no means of knowing what the pupils understand and what not, I answer that, in the first place, the pupils’ comprehension of a piece which they have even translated several times in the old way is often poor enough; the most incredible thoughtlessness can thrive under the shelter of rehearsed translations. In the second place (and this is more important) the new method, when applied in the right way, offers such an abundant variety of means by which to sound the pupils and test how deeply they are penetrating into both the language and contents of their reading, that the teacher can easily feel sure of all essentials. This will be made perfectly plain in the following description of the manner in which the lessons ought to be conducted.

The selection must be read aloud. This had best be done—at all events as a rule—by the teacher first; of course he read it yesterday when he went through it for the first time, but he did it more slowly, interrupting himself with explanations, etc., for it was new for the pupils, and it was necessary for them to comprehend the meaning. But now the teacher may read it quickly, fluently, with the proper “expression,” in short, in a lively and natural manner. Then the pupil (the pupils) reads the same. At the beginner-stage, the teacher must read each sentence by itself and then get the pupils to repeat it while they have the teacher’s pronunciation fresh in mind. Later on the teacher may take larger sections, which may be parceled out to the pupils in not too small portions. And one cannot be too particular with the way in which this reading is done; such stuttering, with pauses between words belonging closely together, and neglect of natural and necessary pauses, which used to be the rule, ought never to be tolerated, not even as an exception. Even the first beginners ought to be required to read each sentence connectedly with natural expression; the teacher will not regret any trouble taken on this account, even if it involves ever so much repetition. The more attention that is paid to this in the first few months, the easier will it be later to require the pupils to read well—that is, intelligibly and intelligently. This reading aloud, besides being an exercise in pronunciation, also has its other advantages for teaching purposes. Milton, already, said that it is easy to hear only from the way in which a piece is read, if the reader understands it or not. A really good reader can in the most delicate manner lay bare his appreciation, and vice versâ it is not difficult for a teacher quick of hearing to detect, through a pupil’s uncertainty, false emphasis, etc., what he has not understood (or learned) in the piece he is reading—and then he can pounce on him and get him to disclose the gap in his knowledge. When this is filled up, of course he must read the piece again better than the first time. The reading (or reciting) of dialogues, with the parts assigned to various members of the class, is always amusing, and can easily be used as a means of encouraging natural emphasis and expression.

Reading in unison ought not to be neglected; it has the advantage of occupying the whole class at once, so that the pupils get more practice in producing the foreign sounds than when each one reads separately. Of course the teacher cannot exercise so sharp a control as when he hears one at a time, but yet he has by no means lost his control; by practice, he can learn to detect single mistakes through the whole chorus, and can even be tolerably certain as to where they come from, and then he can get the suspected pupil (or pupils) to read the difficult part alone. A help of a similar nature in language-instruction is singing. When a teacher knows how to get his pupils to learn to sing some of the verses in the reader, such class-singing will be found to be both beneficial and enlivening; the words are more easily remembered and the pronunciation is improved. Singing in a foreign language as a factor in teaching was already a number of years ago used by Paul Passy; it plays an important part in the well-known “Palmgrenske samskola” in Stockholm and in several German schools, and has now of late years also been put into practice by some Danish teachers in a very enjoyable manner; on several occasions, the pupils have even given up a part of their recess in order to sing foreign songs, when the teachers in adjoining classes have looked askance at the singing during the lesson-hours.