Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools
The adequacy of a statement results from a matching of what is evoked by the words with the supporting dimensions (perceptive and active) of the corresponding situation. If we wish to maintain the integration of the three criteria as it exists in the spontaneous use of a language by natives, we must practice rightness through the ear, correctness through practice in specific situations, and adequacy through actions in those situations. It is not necessary to use the whole of the language for that, nor even to suggest that patterns are often met and are thus the recurrent part of the language which should be practiced. It is enough to develop means that will give the learner facilities to form inner criteria that operate spontaneously and which will later on be extended to include ever-widening chunks of the language. (This extension will require separate attention, as it is a function of general experience and not of training in the language alone.) To close this chapter, it may be helpful to study further the notion of inner criteria, which play such an important part in one’s education throughout all of one’s life, and seem neglected by the majority of educators in schools. It is today common in engineering to reserve a part of the energy used by any piece of machinery to indicate that it is functioning well, and to act upon the flow of energy through it so as to keep it working according to the program. A similar control mechanism has been found in our bodies, controlling physiological phenomena in order to maintain health. It has been sought in the brain, but no one has undertaken to find
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