The Common Sense of Teaching Foreign Languages
But our selection of what to put in the various charts is intimately related to the demands of each particular language, which may be very different from those of languages the students already know. Above all we want students to behave spontaneously like native speakers. We can only achieve this by generating in them all the inner criteria which are automatically at work in the natives. These criteria will make them responsible and autonomous. Hence we begin with what is unique in the new language that makes it so different. Our use of the rods to create situations frees the students from having to guess what words mean and from translating, since the truth that triggers the words has been made visible and students can concentrate on the verbal material put into circulation and on becoming swift, accurate, and intelligible to others through clear and correct sounds. One of the remarkable findings that comes from working in this way is the ease with which the students’ minds relate only to the new language, by locking the mechanism that triggers all the others. So, the native languages of the students can be as varied as possible, without affecting what goes on in the learning. All students, whatever their origin, are treated alike. Students know that they do not make up the language they are studying. They know that they have no right to ask it to behave differently from the way it is shown to them. They accept that “rightness� rather than truth justifies its usage and move as
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