DOCUMENT RESUME ED 055 500 FL 002 601 the Language Learner
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 055 500 FL 002 601 TITLE The Language Learner: Reaching His Heartand Mind. Proceedings sr the Second International Conference. INSTITUTION New York State Association ofForeign Language Teachers.; Ontario Modern LanguageTeachers' AssociatIon. PUB DATE 71 NOTE 298p.; Conference held in Toronto,Ontario, March 25-27, 1971 EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$9.87 DESCRIPTORS Articulation (Program); AudiolingualMethods; Basic Skills; Career Planning; *Conference Reports;English (Second Language); *Instructional ProgramDivisions; Language Laboratories; Latin; *LearningMotivation; Low Ability Students; *ModernLanguages; Relevance (Education); *Second Language Learning;Student Interests; Student Motivation; TeacherEducation; Textbook Preparation ABSTRACT More than 20 groups of commentaries andarticles which focus on the needs and interestsof the second-language learner are presented in this work. Thewide scope of the study ranges from curriculum planning to theoretical aspects ofsecond-language acquisition. Topics covered include: (1) textbook writing, (2) teacher education,(3) career longevity, (4) programarticulation, (5) trends in testing speaking skills, (6) writing and composition, (7) language laboratories,(8) French-Canadian civilization materials,(9) television and the classics, (10)Spanish and student attitudes, (11) relevance and Italianstudies, (12) German and the Nuffield materials, (13) Russian and "Dr.Zhivago," (14) teaching English as a second language, (15)extra-curricular activities, and (16) instructional materials for theless-able student. (RL) a a CONTENTS KEYNOTE ADDRESS: DR. WILGA RIVERS 1 - 11 HOW CAN STUDENTS BE INVOLVED IN PLANNING THE LANGUAGE CURRICULUM 12 - 24 TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF A LANGUAGE TEXTBOOK WRITER 25 - 38 PREPARING FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHERS: NEW EMPHASIS IN THE 70'S 39 - 52 STAMINA AND THE LANGUAGE TEACHER: WAYS IN WHICH TO ACHIEVE LONGEVITY 53 - 64 A SEQUENTIAL LANGUAGE CURRICULUM IN HIGHER EDUCATION 65 - 81 NEW TRENDS IN TESTING THE SPEAKING SKILL IN ELEM AND SEC. SCHOOL 82 - 94 WRITING AND ODMPOSITION: A GRADUAL TRANSITION 95 - 108 LANGUAGE LABORATORIES: USE AND ABUSE 109 - 121 LA CIVILISATION CANADIENNE-FRANGAISE POUR LES SALLFA DE GLASSE iDE LIETAT DE NEW YORK 122 - 138 CLASSICS: ON TRANSLATING PETRONIUS and REACHING THE HEART AND MIND OF THE STUDENT OF CLASSICS THROUGH TELEVISION 139 - 141 LES DEVELOPPEMETTS RECENTS ET LEURS EFFETS SUR L'ENSEIGNEMENT ET L'APPRENTISSAGE DU FRANCAIS 142 - 172 THE RELEVANCE OF ITALIAN IN AN AGE OF SOCIAL STRESS 173 - 193 SPANISH: STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARD FOREIGN LANGUAGES 194 - 212 GERMAN: THE HERITAGE OF DES KNABEN WUNDERHORN and THE NUFFIELD FOUNDATION GERMAN MATERIALS "VORWARTS" 213 - 231 RUSSIAN: DUALISM, DUPLICITY AND PARADOX IN PASTERNAK'S DR. ZHIVAGO and THE LANGUAGE LEARNER, REACHING HIS HEART AND MIND 232- 20 TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE 246 - 256 GERMAINE BREE: WHAT THE UNIVERSITIES ARE DOING TO DEVELOP THE KIND OF PERSON NEEDED IN THE SEC. SCHOOL CLASSROOM AS A TEACHER 257 - 265 EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES MAKE LANGUAGE LEARNING COME ALIVE 266 - 270 ACTIVITIES AND SPECIFIC CURRICULUM MATERIALS WHICH HAVE PROVED SUCCESSFUL WITH THE LESS ABLE STUDENT IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 27] - 283 SIMON BELASCO: LANGUAGE TEACHING, HELP OR HINDRANCE 284 - 296 2, THE LANGUAGE LEARNER --REACHING HIS HEART AND MIND COGNITION RELATIONSHIP RELEVANCY DR. WILGAIC RIVERS UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 2JBANA I am pleased to see that at this conferenceof teachers we begin with the learnex the language learner. But are we to have another conference entre nous or are wegoing to invite the learner in? To set the tone I will do just this. Recently I have been reading a very interestingbooklet -- the student evaluation booklet of a very well-knownuniversity -- and I read some very provocative things in it. As teachers we have been deploring the dropping of the foreign languagerequirement in many universities: What does the student say? __"Le$ Miserables got its title from all the luckypeople taking (Zulu 101). Many liked the course, but few liked havingto take it." -- "Of course,?.,7,,.:rybody despised this course, although afew of the instructors we,rifine people and didn't deserve to have toteach under such absurd circumstances." -- "As a foreignlanguage requirement this course containsall the necessary grammar and vocabulary exceptfor words of frustration, hostility and anger. A good dictionary will fill in thoseeducational gaps." --"(This course) ruins most students' averages, it ruinstheir morale, it ruins their social life by stayingin and studying so much, and it really ruins any desire that anywauld have to learn a foreign language." -- "Most feltthat if they had an interest in thesubject they would take it anyway, so to drop it as arequirement. One student suggested hijacking the whole department to(Zuluville)." Well!!! So we want to fight for the retention ofthe foreign language requirement in all colleges tokeep us in business! Hadn't we better listen to these voices becoming moreand more clamorous and look into - -ourraison d'etre -- that is, our genuineeducational contribu- tion, - -And our programsin relation to our $tudents and the community? students considered (Zulu) irrelevant tothemselves and their interests." Page 2 It isn't Perhaps this comment shouldbe our starting point. have had to rethinktheir the first time thatforeign language teachers lag -- the wayinstitutions tend position. ge all know about cultural with the changes incommunity thinking andliving, to get out-of-step We seem to be and the period ofdislocation that inevitablyfollows. entering into such a periodagain. of rapid change, 4e all know very wellthat ours is a period known. At this accelerating change, such asother centuries have not of a belayed leaderof stage I would ask youto listen to the voice Stephen Freeman writing in1942: He our foreign-languagecommunity: Commissioner of the New YorkState Department ofEducation, quotes the then for Commissioner Loomis, as sayingin 1940: "It is probably unfortunate for so long they enjoyedpositions so impregnably the foreigh languages that the necessity of givingthought protected that . teachers were free from they did it, or whatthe outcomes were, ifany." to what they did, why teachers must be adds: 'Now, we modern language To which Stephen Freeman and how to getthere.1 alive, on our toes, mustknow where we are going, How "relevant" that soundstoday! We foreign language teachers crises -- they come withgreat regularity, and each are accustomed to how to get there." time we have to rethink"where we are going, and Rationale and content must brre-examined. service Perhaps the universities(and the students) are doing us a to them in college ofrequired foreign language by questioning the value Shouldn't we see Perhaps such courses shouldn'tbe there? courses. junior high schools, and that the battle is foughtin the high schools, Shouldn't we bring thewhole weight of ourprofession elementary schools? relevant language to support oar colleaguesthere? Shouldn't we see that a part of their generaleducation, at an experience is provided for all as position there where age when they canmost benefit from it,and maintain our it is already established? late 20th Or should foreign languagesbe taught at all in our century situation? and "Most students considered(Zulu) irrelevant to themselves their interests." to the inflexibilityof this --"It is a disgusting testimony input that the foreign university and to itsunresponsiveness to student Most people forgetwhat they language requirement stillexists . finished that even thosewho someday make learned so soon after they've Besides, in this electronic it to Europe or SouthAmerica can't use it. of a multi-lingual Renaissance manis pitifully camp. age, the ideal cultures' on acid You can travel farther andlearn more about 'other than on a world tour." Page 3 Are these complaints rather about the content than the subject itself?Beside them, we can put several other quotations like the following: --"Too many books, too mull stress on grammar, too little emphasis on their culture." Perhaps we have been unable to get a-way in our thinking fromthe ideal, which comes from the days of selecUve high schoolsand privileged undergraduates, that all foreign language students should be expectedto attain near-native mastery of the language -- in all skills -- anideal which is impossible in the time available to us in most situations(and here I am not thinkirg of courses for foreign-languagemajors). We aim at near-native mastery for all and design our coursesaccordingly, then we leave up to eighty percent of thestudents sPlmewhere along the way, sometimes not very far. When they realize how little they know and how little they can use it, they became frustrated andhostile, and they grow into parents and community leaders opposed to such anexperience for their children. How familiar this 1.3 to all of us! Can we claim any longer that all students need toattain this kind of language mastery? And, if we don't, does this mean an abandoning of our positionthat foreign language study has a place in the general educationof all students. I don't think it does. In a recent paper, I have already stated my conviction that foreigh language study has such aplace in the following terms: "The unique contribution of foreign language study which is truly educational in the sense that it expands the student's personalexperience of his environment, and truly humanistic in that it adds a newdimension to his thinking is the opportunity it provides