But for all that translation might still be a useful and indispensable means in the service of language instruction. In order to judge of this we must have a clear conception of the different ways in which translation can be and really is used:

It is clear that a and b are right closely connected, likewise c and d; yet it will be seen later that the one does not necessarily presuppose the other, as is no doubt generally assumed.

Advocates of the routine-method will throw a, b, c, and d together indiscriminately and say about them all that translation is an excellent and indeed the only practical means.

But their opponents, now, maintain that in none of these four cases is translation the only means—very far from it!—and that besides it is not equally valuable in all instances.

These assertions must now be made good, especially by the suggestion of other means which may be substituted for translation. I shall not continue strictly to observe the distinctions between the four categories, a, b, c, d. In order to avoid tedious repetitions of expressions like “the foreign language in question,” I shall in the following pages say in short “the language” in contrast to English.

Are there other means by which I can get the pupil to comprehend the meaning of foreign words and sentences? Yes; in the first place by means of direct observation or immediate perception (what the Germans call anschauung). This applies to substantives which designate objects, etc., to be found in the school-room: fenÊtre, porte, banc, chaise, tableau (noir), craie, livre, plume, crayon, montre, ÉlÈve, maÎtre (professeur), etc. All that is necessary is to point to the objects with such remarks as c’est (or voilÀ) la craie, on appelle Ça le tableau noir, etc., and the pupil cannot mistake the meaning of each word. Furthermore, this is the best way to teach the most necessary words relating to the human body: tÊte, cheveux, nez, yeux, bouche, lÈvres, barbe, joue, oreille, bras, main, doigt, etc. But in addition to the many substantives there are also a number of words of other classes which can be learned in this manner: voilÀ une fenÊtre, et voilÀ une autre fenÊtre; Pierre est un ÉlÈve, Paul est un autre ÉlÈve; words like ici, lÀ; especially a number of verbs of action: j’Écris; Victor Écrit. je prends la craie; Jean prend la craie. je me lÈve; Pierre se lÈve. je m’assieds, je marche (vers la porte), j’ouvre la porte, je ferme la porte; je donne le livre À Pierre, Pierre me donne le livre, etc. At the same time as the teacher or the pupil says something or other, the teacher illustrates the action. In that manner, already in the first stage, before the pupils have any French vocabulary to operate with, a number of words and sentences may be learned without the use of a single English word. Yes, even the various tenses of the verbs can be explained by this method. If, for instance, in the course of their reading, the pupils come across il a pris and they do not understand it, the teacher can show what it means—this of course does not apply to the very first lessons—by first taking the chalk and saying: je prends la craie, then a book: je prends le livre de Jean, then his hand: je prends sa main, and then saying: d’abord j’ai pris la craie, puis j’ai pris le livre de Jean, et enfin j’ai pris sa main. With a little ingenuity a good deal can be brought in in this way; some material in French has been well arranged in P. Passy and T. Tostrup, LeÇons de choses. I shall later come to the question as to whether and how the pupils are to repeat what the teacher says in this way, as likewise to the objection that the pupils in reality understand these words in English. Here I shall merely caution against taking too much material of this kind at a stretch; it is best to intersperse it with other things.

In the second place, the meaning of the words may be communicated through mediate perception, through pictures. This is what Miss Goldschmidt with so much energy has put into practice in her “picture-words” and in other books on the same plan, which have been edited partly by her and partly by others. Each page contains a collection of pictures representing a series of objects belonging to the same sphere of ideas. Sometimes they are joined together to make a whole scene; sometimes the objects remain separated, without being brought into connection with each other; some of the pictures are well put together; others present several curiosities, as, for instance, a telescope freely hovering in a rainbow. Each object is supplied with a number referring to lists where the corresponding French (English, etc.) words are given. In many German schools, and in several places in Denmark now too, large picture-charts are used to hang upon the schoolroom wall, especially the HÖlzel charts, where, for instance, on a winter-picture are collected representations of the most important things belonging to winter. Then the teacher can point to one of these things and at the same time explain it in the language which is being studied. Finally pictures can also be used to illustrate a narrative or descriptive text, as in the English primers published by Sarauw and myself.

There have been several objections raised against the perception-method. Thus Sweet says that the idea is not so sharply defined as in the case of translation. If we see chapeau by the side of (the picture of) a silk hat, we do not know if it merely designates that kind of hat or other kinds too, so that the translation “hat” is more apt to suggest the correct idea. Or if the teacher points to his mouth and says bouche, the pupils might just as well think that it means lip, etc. The objection comes from a closet philosopher, who has not seen the thing in practice; there is almost no danger except for one who would try to learn a language by himself and exclusively through pictures. In oral instruction, such mistakes are scarcely frequent enough to be worth mentioning, even if it might be a good thing perhaps for teachers to realize that they are possible—they even occur now and then in a child’s apprehension of his native language, which in large part follows exactly these same paths. If the teacher understands his business, no mistake at all occurs or else it is soon corrected, for of course he will never stop at merely pointing to the object and giving the word, but he will immediately use it in sentences and connections in which the meaning becomes perfectly clear; for instance, if he only says tu as une bouche et deux lÈvres, or, after having pointed to his mouth and said bouche, he asks one of the boys: Combien as-tu de bouches? there will be no danger of such mistakes; indeed all danger is generally precluded from the very beginning, for when the teacher points to his mouth, he is not apt to say merely bouche, but voilÀ la bouche or voilÀ ma bouche, where the singular form la, ma unmistakably indicates the correct meaning. Such misunderstandings as in the case of chapeau are no doubt of rare occurrence, but at all events, the teacher may prevent them too by talking about his own and the pupils’ hats with the use of the same word.

Another opponent of the perception-method has said that it causes disturbance in the class when the teachers in modern languages now get up, now sit down, open the door, close the door, blow their noses, pull their boots off and on (?) etc.

A third opponent carefully depicts all the asides a pupil will think of when the teacher, in order to teach him the word gants, pulls his gloves out of his pocket: “They are pretty bad specimens,” or “Oho! he has brought his best ones along to-day because he knew he was going to use them,” etc. Of course the method can be driven to caricature, and of course the discipline can become lax if the teacher goes through the various actions with too much restlessness, but in general the method does not require very different or more disturbing movements than those which take place in every or every other lesson: a pupil goes to the blackboard or the door or opens a window. And if there is any spirit in the teaching, the pupils indulge in no more irrelevant asides than in other lessons.

There seems to be greater weight in the objection that only apparently is the foreign word directly attached to the idea by means of the perception-method, since either a real hat or a picture of one immediately suggests to the pupil the English word hat, so that after all we do not avoid the roundabout way through the native language, as we desire; the hobgoblin moves with us. Well, if we think it is possible entirely to prevent English words from turning up in the children’s consciousness, we certainly deceive ourselves. But if we are more modest in our demands and simply want the foreign language to be kept as much as possible in the foreground and English in the background, then it cannot be denied that it must make for this end when it is not necessary for either the teacher or the pupil to mention the English word. And the more they both become accustomed to this method of teaching, the more previously learned words there are for the new ones to be associated with, and the more ingenious the teacher is to vary the whole, the more seldom do the English words occur to the pupil.

With the pictures as a basis of suggestion, there can and ought to be conducted talks in the language, at least after the very first lessons are past. It is but seldom necessary to resort to the native language, and the time is almost exclusively occupied in hearing and saying something in the language. But this can best be done when the pictures not only suggest single words but are rich in content. Thus Mrs. Freudenthal, in Finland, has to a large extent in her teaching used reproductions of genre paintings, which give occasion for spinning out whole narratives suggested by the pictures. Perhaps it is still better, as Sarauw and I have done in our book for beginners in English, to supply the tales (or other selections) with little illustrations; they may occasion conversations which have more or less to do with the text and which can be conducted with essentially the same vocabulary; and the teacher ought also to return now and then to previously discussed pictures, which may be treated more fully than before on account of the progress made by the pupils in the meanwhile.

Pictures, then, are of undoubted significance in the teaching of languages, even if their scope must not be overrated and they must not be used as the only means of explanation—all one-sidedness is hurtful. But the pictures ought to be characteristic of the foreign land and people, especially when they are to be used beyond the beginner stage. I am not the first one to reproach Miss Goldschmidt because she gives pictures showing, for instance, a Danish sitting-room, a Danish postman, etc., and lets the pupils use the same pictures in learning all three foreign languages, something which is not exactly calculated to win interest but must be pretty monotonous whereas exactly what should be done is to open the pupil’s eyes to the manifold and characteristic differences existing between the various nations. Schools ought to be well supplied with pictures on the walls and illustrated works which may serve to give the pupils some enlightenment about French and German conditions of life, natural scenery, buildings, art, institutions. Foreign illustrated papers will be found to contain much useful material, and the teacher ought frequently to use 5–10 minutes or more of the lesson to discuss such a picture in the language with the pupils. That would be an excellent way in which to supplement the teaching based on the text-book.

But not only such ready-made pictures may be used in teaching languages. The teacher can often, by means of rough chalk-drawings on the blackboard, illustrate various things in the text which is being read and base his explanations (in the language) on them. The few times I have done it, the pupils immediately took to it, so that I began to deplore my great lack of skill in drawing. If there was any subject that was neglected when I went to school, it was drawing. Now people have, fortunately, begun to get their eyes open to the importance of this branch, first and foremost for teachers of all subjects as a help in their teaching, and, secondly, for the pupils as the good thing it is from an educational point of view for them to learn to see an object correctly and to reproduce what they see in a drawing. And just as in the case of natural history and geography, the drawings of the pupils now are an important feature of the instruction, so they might play a similar part in the teaching of languages. It is a splendid idea that has been put into practice in “Det danske selskabs skole.” I shall quote from its “Beretning,” 1900:

“Exercises in drawing have also played an important part. Before the lesson begins there is written on the blackboard one subject for each pupil to illustrate by a drawing. Each one has a certain amount of space apportioned to him. The pupil is ordered to draw only such things as he can mention and explain in German. But of course the intention is that much more is to be drawn. For instance, if the subject is a wagon, the pupil naturally draws both wheels, wagon-pole, stud-stave, side pieces, seat, driver with whip, horses, harness, etc. The pupil has to explain his drawing to the class, and of course he gets into a tight place; the result is that his interest is aroused for what all the things are called, and he pays close attention to the words when the teacher says them. Fourteen boys in a class can finish their drawings in 10 minutes, and it takes 30 minutes to go through the 14 drawings.” (C. Lambek.)

Here it looks as if the subject were given in Danish; and perhaps the words learned in the exercise have been taken up too much in detail. I should think it might be still better to announce the subject orally and rather fully in the language, to say, for instance, to a Danish pupil who is learning English—You draw a picture of a two-storied house with three windows in each story and one door; outside the house a man is to stand smoking his pipe; or, you draw a carriage and pair, inside the carriage is a gentleman, but you see only the tip of his nose; a dog is running fast behind the carriage. If there is—as there always ought to be—blackboard space enough for several pupils to execute their drawings at the same time, so much the better; the rest of the class can be occupied with something else until the drawings are finished; then they are first explained by the drawer, thereupon by one or several of the other pupils; of course both the teacher and the pupils call attention to anything that has been forgotten in the drawing, and new points are brought up, as suggested by Mr. Lambek. Also in connection with little stories, the pupils may be asked to make drawings to show that they have understood what they have been reading. In speaking about the use of pictures, I have wandered a little from my point of departure, namely, the ways in which (aside from translation) the pupil may be taught the meaning of a foreign word.

All of us who are further advanced must confess to ourselves that in reading foreign books we have often omitted to look up an unfamiliar word in the dictionary, because its meaning was perfectly clear from the context. And we have all learned thousands of words in our mother-tongue in the same way. Then why not use this experience in the teaching of foreign languages? Because it leads to guesswork, to carelessness in studying, to an approximate and uncertain comprehension, is the answer we get. Granted—as far as some cases are concerned! There are many combinations where the meaning of a word may be “scented” through the context, and where a conscientious teacher cannot remain satisfied without some proof that the pupil really understands the word; and there are cases where the teacher imagines that the pupils cannot help seeing the meaning immediately, and yet their guesses are all wrong. But still the ability to arrive at the meaning of an unfamiliar word through the text is valuable and does not deserve to be neglected, but should, on the contrary, be cultivated—under control, of course. At all events, there can be no danger in using really self-interpreting sentences where the meaning of an unfamiliar word may be assumed with unfailing certainty and without guesswork. In a sentence like “Il y a douze mois dans l’annÉe,” the pupil who is acquainted with any two of the three italicized words will be able to reason out the meaning of the third with as great accuracy as in the equation a + b = c the unknown quantity may be found when the two are given. And if you continue: le premier s’appelle janvier, le second s’appelle fÉvrier, le troisiÈme s’appelle mars, etc., then it is no guesswork at all if the pupils gather both the ordinal numerals and the names of the months. The same may be said of the following sentences—

Le jour se divise en vingt-quatre heures; l’heure se divise en soixante minutes, et la minute en soixante secondes.

Soixante secondes font une minute; soixante minutes font une heure; vingt-quatre heures font un jour; sept jours font une semaine; cinquante-deux semaines et quelques jours font une annÉe; cent annÉes font un siÈcle.

Here the pupil can infer the meaning of a number of words without needing the teacher’s translation. So it is only a waste of time to let the pupil himself translate such pieces—for he can do that half-asleep without looking very much at the French, and he does not learn much that way. No; let him repeat them in French until he can say them fluently, then let him isolate the ordinals: le premier, le second ..., thereupon the names of the months: janvier, fÉvrier ...; thereupon go through both series backwards, and then finally answer questions at random: Comment s’appelle le troisiÈme mois? Quel est le dixiÈme mois? etc. Or in connexion with the second selection, let him go through all the divisions of time, first beginning with the smallest and then with the largest (with the use of the article un, une); then ask: Comment se divise l’heure? Comment se divise le jour? Combien de secondes a une minute? Trois heures, combien de minutes? Deux annÉes, combien de mois? etc., etc. In this way it seems as if a teacher can with complete confidence continue for a long time to keep even those pupils occupied who do not know much French, without needing to mention a single English word.[11]

Now of course there are only few subjects which can thus be talked about in one self-interpreting sentence after the other: Sweet has, in his Elementarbuch, got hold of more of that sort of thing than any other author of similar text-books that I know of; but almost any text will be found to contain sentences where the general sense unmistakably indicates the meaning of the new words; the more of that kind of combinations the pupil commits to memory the better for him. The ability to infer the meaning from the context ought rather to be encouraged and practised than ought the tendency to go by resemblances to words in the mother-tongue or in other languages; even if much may be learned in this way (Eng. send, German senden; Eng. ruin, Ger. French ruine, etc.), yet there is still reason to caution against too much confidence in resemblances, for they often lead us astray (even in the case of “etymologically identical words”). Most of the really valuable associations of this kind come of their own accord.

But to continue, the new words may simply be explained in the language to the pupil—this of course really means that the teacher puts the word into a self-interpreting sentence, so it is merely a subdivision of what we have just been speaking about. Anyone who has been accustomed to use the excellent French and English dictionaries, large or small, all the way from LittrÉ and Murray to the little Larousse or Annandale’s Concise, knows how often he has been able to find in them quite sufficient explanations of unfamiliar words. Why not use this experience too in the teaching of foreign languages? Thus, for instance, explain veuf: Un veuf est un homme dont la femme est morte; une veuve est une femme dont le mari est mort. This explanation, to be sure, contains no more information than is to be got out of the simple translation “widower” (“widow”); but there are cases where an explanation gives better information than a translation. It is not improbable that many Englishmen, when given the translation primage or hat-money for German kapplaken, will remain just as wise as they were before, but they will immediately understand it if it is explained in German: prÄmiengeld, das frÜher dem schiffskapitÄn ausser der fracht gezahlt wurde, ursprÜnglich freiwilliges geschenk, dann vertragsmÄssig bestimmt. The English word dentil is in English-German dictionaries translated by kÄlberzahn, but I suppose that most Germans would get more out of Annandale’s definition: “the name of the little cubes or square blocks often cut for ornament on Greek cornices,” or Funk-Wagnalls’ definition: “One of a series of small square tooth-like ornamental blocks in the bed-moulding of the cornices of some Ionic and other entablatures” (here even an instructive illustration). Well, such technical words, where we do not even know the English term, we shall scarcely have much use for in school; but sometimes on account of the chance vagaries of language a translation does not give as exact an idea as an explanation. If I say that stockwerk means floor, I run the risk of getting an exercise with stockwerk used where there ought to be fussboden; but if I explain it as “eine der horizontalen einteilungen eines hauses,” or something like that, there is no danger of any misunderstanding.

On the other hand, it must of course be admitted that there are many words where an English translation gives the information required more quickly and more clearly than it could be given in a long explanation in the foreign language; and the teacher ought to consider in each separate case which of the two ways of helping the pupil is to be preferred. Still he must not let laziness influence him to give the translation, which of course is always easiest for him, but he must remember that an explanation in the language always has the great advantage that the pupil, in addition to the new words, hears a number of others which he thereby reviews, as it were, and that the pupil is for the time being wholly occupied with the foreign language. Besides, these explanations amuse the pupils because they get more intellectual work out of them than out of translations, which are given to them gratis.

However, such explanations ought perhaps not to be used to any great extent in the glossaries of text-books, especially in readers for beginners; here it is best to weave them into the text itself. In the first place, in such glossaries or notes, the explanations naturally become drier and more like definitions than is necessary; in the second place, the pupil who does not feel inclined to read those few lines through is tempted to get some comrade, a parent, or a sister to tell him in short the meaning of the word: that is, to translate it. To counteract this by always requiring the pupil to commit the given explanation to memory is not exactly a wise plan, since it may easily lead to mere thoughtless memory-work. For the glossary ought to play no more important part in really good teaching for beginners than as a help to the forgetful pupil in his home-preparation, where he can look up the meaning (and pronunciation) of a word which he cannot remember, I do not hesitate to use translation there.[12]

The explanations in the foreign language are especially in place when the teacher assigns the lesson and goes through it orally. This must be done with the greatest care and with a view to giving the pupils a really full and all round insight into the new selection to be read—with as much life and as few English words and sentences as possible. Much depends upon the way in which the teacher reads the piece; many pieces can be read in such a way that the pupils cannot help understanding them: for instance, by the use of stress, emphasis of contrasts, change of voice, etc. And then he can point to various things by way of illustration—and it does no harm to point at the window, for instance, on coming across the word fenÊtre, even if the class has had that word before. Many words can be made clear by means of gestures, etc.; scie, for instance, can be illustrated by a sawing movement accompanied by a wheezing sound; for tailler, it is only necessary to cut for half a second with an imaginary knife; thus the meaning of boire, chanter, coup de pied, grimper, joyeux, mÉcontent, pleurer, dormir, taper, and many other words can be given; as a rule, merely little (not noisy!) suggestions are necessary for the class to understand immediately.

Finally there are circumlocutions in the language, not straightforward definitions as in the dictionaries, but also other explanations; often it is only necessary to lead the thoughts of the pupils in upon the right track. On coming across German hauptstadt, for instance, the teacher can say: London ist die hauptstadt Englands, Paris ist die hauptstadt Frankreichs, und Kopenhagen ist die hauptstadt DÄnemarks—and then ask one of the pupils: Heinrich, weisst du jetzt was hauptstadt bedeutet? Perhaps he will answer, “Capital,” but then the teacher can say: Ganz richtig, aber kannst du nicht das wort auf deutsch erklÄren? The pupil: Ja, die hauptstadt ist die grÖsste stadt eines landes. The teacher: Ja wohl, es ist die erste stadt, die grÖsste stadt, die wichtigste oder bedeutendste stadt eines landes. Then he may add: Nun, Johan, kannst du andere hauptstÄdte Europas anfÜhren, and when he has mentioned a few, the teacher says: SchÖn, das genÜgt, and passes on. Even if many words are used, yet they are not superfluous because they are foreign words, and therefore a few minutes’ conversation in this manner is about just as useful as if a whole page had been read in the language. And the pupils will ever after remember the meaning of the word hauptstadt much better than if the teacher had simply told them the translation and then continued with the reading. In every separate case, the teacher must feel his way to decide where there yet remains something that is not understood, and where further explanation would be superfluous or tiresome; that is also one of the reasons why such circumlocutions had better be left to the teacher than included in the text-book.

Of course it is necessary to have practice and a good deal of tact in order to give this kind of explanations naturally and well, and carefully adapted to the needs and standpoint of the class; the teacher must have a pretty good idea of what the class knows beforehand, and thereby which words and expressions he may use with certainty; the easier and the more colloquial the words are which are used in the circumlocution, and the more concretely it is expressed, the better. It is better to explain too much than too little, and one must not be afraid of using a number of words when they only are in the foreign language. There is some truth in Gabelentz’ remark: “GesprÄchige leute von engem gedankenkreise sind fÜr den anfang die besten lehrmeister”[13]; the teacher must not exactly make himself stupid, but he must admit that no matter how high he himself stands intellectually, he can very well learn something from the nursery-method of teaching languages: for instance, that taciturnity or conciseness of expression do not lead to the goal. It pays to give some attention to this form of instruction and to find out what kind of explanations are of the greatest linguistic benefit to the pupils. It is not difficult, as a rule—even without direct questions, which, however, the teacher ought not to be sparing of[14]—to feel what is understood and what is not, just as the boys can easily be trained to say so immediately when there is something that they do not understand. All that is necessary is to make them feel confident that their teacher is always willing and glad to answer their questions, and that they will never be made fun of for asking. Sometimes, of course, he may also make another pupil answer the question if it is an easy one.

The following may serve as a connected specimen of the method of procedure, even if I have, perhaps, explained a word or two which for an English class would need no explanation.

It is best to go through the lesson for the next time in the beginning of the hour, when both the teacher’s and the pupils’ powers are freshest, and when there is sure to be plenty of time for it; at the end of the hour the teacher may be too hurried and nervous in his anxiety to get through the proper amount before the bell rings. In going through it, the teacher may either let the pupils look at their books or require all books to be closed. The latter is the better way, since then the pupils can give more undivided attention to the teacher; for they must drink in all his words and follow his slightest movements. In that case it is no doubt always best for him to write down on the blackboard each new word as he explains it, and after everything has been explained he may close either by reading the piece aloud himself (without interpolations) or by letting one of the pupils read it. Yet it is not well to follow one method of procedure all the time; and if the piece is easy, so that there are only a few new words, it may immediately be read aloud by one of the pupils (slowly, not in a forced way!), who may stop and ask whenever there is anything that he does not understand. If a sentence contains two or three unfamiliar words or some other difficulty which has given occasion for a question, it must by all means be read again connectedly without interruption as soon as a period has been reached. Finally the teacher can, if it seems necessary, as a further guarantee, let one of the pupils give a free rendering of the contents in his native language; that is a sort of control, at all events until the class has become quite accustomed to having the lesson gone through in this way.

Let me suggest here that, in going through the new lesson, the teacher can also counteract the injury which an unusual order of words or expression occurring in a selection of poetry might do to the pupil’s instinct for the natural language, by giving the prose order of words and explaining it. For instance, the lines: “And everybody in the house On tip-toe has to creep” can first be explained as if they ran: “And everybody in the house has to creep on tip-toe”; again, such an expression as at eve may be altered to in the evening. Then when the pupil sees the changed order of words and the unusual expression in his book, he will understand that they are due to the poetical form. Therefore he will not be tempted to imitate them; if he should do so in later exercises, the teacher must correct him, since there is no earthly reason why the pupil should practise using anything else but everyday language. It is, however, a matter of course that whenever I have used verses in my own books for beginners in English, I have tried to find such as contained very few deviations from the usual form of the language.