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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 038 879 FL 000 223 Moultoa, William G DOCUMENT RESUME ED 038 879 FL 000 223 AUTgOP MoultoA, William G. TITLE Linguistics and Language Teaching inthe United States, 1940-1960. PUP DAm7 [63] rOTI7 30p., Offprint from Trends in Europeanand American Linguistics EDPS PRICE EDPS Price MF-$0.25 HC-(P1.60 DESCPIPTORS *Annotated Bibliographies, *AppliedLinguistics, College Language Programs, *EducationalHistory, Educational Strategies, Educational Trends,English (Second Language), Federal Programs,Instructional Improvement, *Language Instruction, Language Programs, *Modern Languages, ProgramDescriptions, Teaching Methods, Teaching Procedures ABSTRACT The history of the involvement oflinguistics in the teaching of languages is presented in terms of adescription of contributing events, a pinpointing of important programs,and a running bibliography. Some remarks on the statusof foreign language study in the 20's and 30's preface adiscussion of the far-reaching effects of the U.S. Army's adoption of theAmerican Council of Learned Societies' Intensive Language Program,The pamphlet concludes with observations on the teaching of English as a secondlanguage. (AF) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION CT N. CO THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE co PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT.POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS reN STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. CO CD LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE TEACHING W IN THE UNITED STATES 1940-1960 WILLIAM G. MOULTON a1 02 40 0 C) OFFPRINT TRENDS IN EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN LINGUISTICS il. Reprinted with permission of the author and of the publishers, Spectrum Publishers, Utrecht, Netherlands. For sale by the Superintendent of Document, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington 25, D.C. Price 15 cents 1 LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGETEACHING IN THE UNITED STATES 1940-196o WILLIAM G. MOULTON The interest of American linguists in languageteaching extends overa period of many years. One of the earliestand certainly one of the greatest of American linguists, William Dwight Whitney,was the author not only of a scholarlygrammar of Sanskrit but also of school grammars of English, French, and German. A great American linguist of a later period, Leonard Bloomfield,began his career asa teacher of German and also wrotean elementary German textbook. And in his book Language (New York, 1933), which servedas a guide to a whole generation of American linguists, Bloomfieldnot only presented his theory of linguistics but also, ina final chapter on 'Applications and Outlook,' discussed theways in which the findings of linguistics could be applied to the teaching of foreignlanguages. Despite this long interest in language teaching, however,it was not until 1941 thatany considerable body of linguistsas imed the role of active language teachers and attempted whole-heartedlyto apply the findings of their science to the practical problems oflanguage teaching. In orderto understand how and why thisattempt was made, we need first to consider the status of foreign languageteaching in the United States during the immediately preceding decades. Three factors characterize thestatus of foreign language study during the 192o's and 1930's. First of all, therewas very little foreign language learning goingon at the time. In the high schools, relatively few pupils studieda foreign language; and of those who did, relatively few kept it up formore than two years. Pupils who were learning French, for example, often dropped it aftertwo years of study because, as was the common phrase, 'I've already had French.' Thosewho wished to go on to collegewere generally required to offer no more than this smattering ofa foreign language; and where the college entrance requirement was higher, it seldomwent beyond three years of one language or twoyears of each of two. In the colleges themselves 82 LINGUISTICS LANGUAGETEACHING IN UNITED STATES1940-60 the study of one foreignlanguage (rarely two) was widelyrequired for graduation; but here again therequirement was seldom morethan could be learned in two yearsof college study. There were,of course, small numbers of studentswho through a combinationof high school and college study gained agenuinely useful knowledge of one or more foreign languages, but nowherein the educational system wassuch a knowledge made a requirementfor anyone. A second characteristicof foreign language studyduring this period was thefact that it was limited to veryfew languages. In the high schools the only languageswidely offered were Latin,Spanish, and French; to these thecolleges added German, Greek,and to a lesser extent Italian; butthese six languages were theonly ones commonly studied or even offered.There were many otherlanguag!...s offered at but instruction in them was one place oranother in the United States, limited to very few institutionsand they were studied onlyby very small numbers of students. The third feature characteristicof foreign language study wasthe type of instructiongiven. Though manyindividual teachers placed varying degrees of emphasis onspeaking and understanding,certainly the most common typeof instruction was by the'grammar and translation' method, used inmuch the same form forboth ancient and modern foreign languages.One of its aims was to teachthe 'grammar' of the language, bywhich was meant itsinflectional paradigms (taught in terms of spellingrather than of speech) andcertain rules for combining words intophrases and sentences. Theteacher spent a large part of his timeexplaining the grammar; thestudents learned it by memorizing theparadigms and the rules; andthey applied the grammar bytranslating English sentencesinto the foreign language. The second aim was to teachthe student to read theforeign language. The teaching methodemployed was that of more orless word-for- word translation from theforeign language into English,accompanied sometimes by the memorizingof lists of words. A full explanation of howthis status of languagestudy came about would go far beyond thebounds of this report, but atleast a few reasons need tobe mentioned. Heavyemphasis on explication of grammar andmemorization of grammaticalrules was a traditional approach to language learning,and was matched in manyother parts of the world. The choiceof reading ability as aprimary objective was at least in partbased on the so-called'Coleman Report' : Algernon Coleman, 7 he teaching ofmodern foreign languages in theUnited States (New York, 1929;Publications of the Americanand Canadian 83 WILLIAM G. MOULTON Committees on Modern Languages, vol. iz). The argument given here was that, since the typicalhigh school pupil studied a foreign language for only two years, he could not possibly attain more than oneob- jective; therefore only one objective should be aimed at, and the most widely useful one was a reading knowledge. As for the small number of languages studied, and the few pupils studying them,both of these factors were symptomatic of the United States during theperiod between the two wars. Though the nation had, in fact, already become a world power,the average American was quite unaware of this change, and ne felt no particular need to enter into closer contact with foreign cultures and countries whether through language study or otherwise. To be sure, a few languages were considered to hold some value: the learning of Latin was thought to sharpen one'slogical powers and improve one'sknowledge of English grammar; French was considered an adjunctof culture; Spanish was good for trade relations; and German was useful for the study of the sciences. A knowledge of other foreign languages, however, was little more than evidence that a recent immigrant had failed to become properly Americanized. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 and, more particularly,the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought an abrupt end to this linguistic isolationism. Within the armed forcesit was realized that vastnumbers of young Americans would soon be scattered throughout a large proportion of the globe, and that they would have need of many languages whose very names were unknown to most Americans. Furthermore, though the armedforces appreciated a reading knowledgeof any of these languages, they were far more interested in a practical speaking knowledge, and not interestedin grammar as such at all.Since the schools and colleges of the nation had produced few persons with a practical control of the familiarlanguages (a situation deplored by none more than the language teachersof the country), the armed forces realized that they must establishlanguage training facilities of their own. The armed forces were not the first to anticipate thecoming need for speakers of a wide variety of unfamiliar languages. Largelythrough the foresight of its Executive Secretary, MortimerGraves, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) had in early 1941 established an Intensive Language Program. Graves believed thatthe first essential task was a sound linguistic analysis of each language to be taught, followed by the preparation of learningmaterials based on this analysis; and he wasconfident that the linguists of the country, 84 I LINGUISTICS LANGUAGE TEACHINGIN UNITED STATES 1940-60 though few in number, were the persons best qualifiedfor this work. With the aid of funds provided by the RockefellerFoundation, a small number of linguists was put to work on descriptiveanalyses of a num- ber of languages for which no adequateteaching materials existed, and preparations were made for a number of intensivelanguage
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