EXAMPLE.
Part I.—Teacher: "We shall learn about opening the door." General subjective phrase, "Pay attention." Explanation of the phrase through stories.
Teaching of verbs.
First subjective phrase before recitation, "Please begin." Explanation through stories.
Recitation.
First subjective phrase after recitation, "Very good." Explanations through stories.
After the teaching of the sentences, the subjective phrases are spoken by the pupils.
It lies in the intelligence of the teacher to recognize the moment for introducing phrases.
The lesson then proceeds to the movements of the door as Part II, and to our leaving the door as Part III. The scheme is the same.
All this is a copy (systematized, of course) of the method employed by the mother. Now, first, can the grammarian be useful to us? Let us remember that to begin with his method is to put the cart before the horse. He must play the second but also an important part. The child learns to speak first, but he also learns to read and to write. We will give the same lesson to the pupil in printed form; he will be asked to read it, and then to copy it or write it from dictation. He will receive the new speech through the sense of hearing; it will then be communicated to the sight, and then to the touch. In this manner a class of twenty girls of about thirteen years had been taught English. After about thirty printed lessons had been mastered with the anecdotes, riddles, etc., which had occupied about half a German school year, they were not only able to read and write without many mistakes, but showed a strong desire to express themselves in the new tongue, and were, indeed, able to do so very satisfactorily, as compared with the results obtained by the grammarian after a seven years' course.