Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools
individually or by the class as a whole. These can be added to as new words appear. Later, grammatical labels can be attached to these lists and gradually the students can write their own grammar books. Students can be asked to make their own list of words that replace people and things. When teaching English speakers French it is easy enough to explain directions for an exercise using words which correspond closely to the English words for substitute, replace, personal, list, category, description, etc. A few examples done by the whole class should be enough to get the exercise started. Jane Orton
2 I began my work with classes of beginners and of more advanced students who had already learned some French through The Silent Way. Their different levels helped me to discover the steps I had to take in order to make them go from a restricted functional language to an expanding vocabulary. The beginners still help me understand the difficulties which the intermediate students encounter when trying to use words, expressions or structures which do not seem difficult to me. The time they take to understand the meanings, to produce or to feel at ease with the sounds allows me to become aware of the complexity or the ambiguities of the language itself. (For
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