Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools
For those who measure achievement through examinations, I will now estimate what can be expected after one year of study of a language through this approach. In an oral examination, most direct questions about oneself, one’s education, one’s family, travel, etc., should obtain answers that are correct, expressed with ease and a good accent. Any mistakes will be simply minor slips or else due to a misunderstanding of what was communicated. If a picture is provided, whether in a written or an oral examination, the student will be able to describe in the foreign language most of what he sees, including the existing relationships that concern space, time and numbers. As writing has been catered for with the charts, with the color-code and various texts, spelling should be more than reasonably good, and, in the case of non-phonetic languages, it should show a definite insight into why alternatives are reduced. As structure has been practiced in a variety of ways (through the ear, Visual Dictation, use of word-cards, reading, writing and talking), grammar should be adequate, which will be implicit in the correct usage, even if all the candidates are not able to formulate it explicitly. Idiosyncrasies of each language have been met as natural features and accepted as given, without comparison and memorization. So candidates would know what to do even if they did not yet know why. Translations are possible, for in this approach, rather than understanding the text through words checked against words, the learners have passed from text to reality (sensed or
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