  ADVERBS AnalysesAgain the exercise consists of sentences analyzed by means of colored cards and commands. The grammar box contains six compartments having, like the others, the names of the different parts of speech on title cards of proper color. The card for the adverb is pink. In the rear compartment are six slips for each exercise, and in the sections the usual number of corresponding colored cards for the necessary words. Group A(Adverbs of Manner) —Walk slowly to the window. Walk rapidly to the window. —Rise silently from your seat. Rise noisily from your seat. —Speak softly into the ear of your nearest comrade. Speak loudly into the ear of your nearest comrade. —Take five steps toward the door; turn abruptly to the left. Take five steps toward the door; turn gradually to the left. —Take your nearest comrade lightly by the arm. Take your nearest comrade roughly by the arm. —Look smilingly into the mirror. Look scowlingly into the mirror. Group B(Adverbs of place and time) —Place your pencil there. Place your pencil here. —Lay your book somewhere on the table. Lay your book elsewhere on the table. —Walk to the window constantly clapping your hands. Walk to the window occasionally clapping your hands. —Drink the water in the glass now. Drink the water in the glass by and by. —Carry the pink tower upstairs. Carry the pink tower downstairs. —Write a word on the blackboard immediately. Write a word on the blackboard soon. Group C(Adverbs of quantity, comparison) —Walk along the hall swinging your arms somewhat. Walk along the hall swinging your arms a great deal. —Bend your head a little. Bend your head much. —Walk slowly to the window. Walk less slowly to the window. Walk more slowly to the window. —Place on the table your most beautiful drawing. —Place on the table your beautiful drawing. —Make a broad mark on the blackboard. Make a very broad mark on the blackboard. Group D(Adverbs of comparison, correlative adverbs) —Look for a piece of cloth softer than velvet. —Find among your colors a shade as black as the blackboard. —Find a piece of cloth not so shiny as satin. —Find among the plane insets a rectangle as broad as half the square. —Bring a rod longer than your copy-book. —Bring a rod as long as your copy-book. —Bring a rod not so long as your copy-book. —Find a piece of cloth less rough than the canvas. PermutationsThe sentences to be analyzed are reproduced as usual by building the first sentence on each slip; and then, by changing the adverb, the child gets the second or third sentence. One of the first permutations is to remove the adverb from those sentences where it performs the function of an adjective to the verb, thereby causing one action to be changed into another. For example take the two sentences: Walk slowly to the window. Walk rapidly to the window. Taking away the adverb we have: Walk to the window. The child can perform the action which, now, is a simple one. The adverb, however, changes, modifies, the action. If the teacher in play puts the two adverbs together in the same sentence the child has the problem of interpreting two contrary movements. That is, he is to go to the window slowly and rapidly at the same time. Taking away the adverb cards the sentence left is Go to the window. This action the child can perform. But how shall he perform it, in what way? With the help of adverbs! Similarly in the following sentences: Bend your head a little. Bend your head much. Written without the adverb they indicate one action. What slight changes in the position of the head can be brought about by these adverbs! It is the adverb which really shows fine differentiations in movement! In other sentences also where the adverb is, so to speak, an adjective to an adjective and therefore really affects the object (noun), similar permutations may be made. Make a broad mark on the blackboard. Make a very broad mark on the blackboard. Here by the use of an adverb two different objects (nouns) are distinguished which, though they have the same quality (breadth) differ in degree (broad, very broad). Take, for instance, two objects belonging to the same series: Place on your table the prism which is most thick. Place on your table the prism which is least thick. If the adverbs are taken away the factor determining the degree of quality (thickness) disappears and we have sentences which are far less precise in their meaning: Place on your table the prism which is thick. As the teacher proceeds to make permutations in the different sentences she should remember (for Italian) that the normal position of the adverb is after the verb (in the compound tenses it comes between the auxiliary and the participle). (Note: In English the position of the adverb is much freer than in Italian; it often stands at the end of the sentence and even between subject and verb,—something In the sentences analyzed by the child it is sufficient to recall that the adverb modifies the verb and follows the verb it modifies. Take the sentence: Bend your head a little as you write. If the adverb is placed after the second verb the meaning changes: Bend your head as you write a little. The same is true in the following: Walk along the hall swinging your arms somewhat. Walk somewhat along the hall swinging your arms. General shifting of position would give results as follows: Bend a little your head as you write. A little bend your head as you write, etc., etc. Somewhat walk along the hall swinging your arms. Walk along somewhat the hall swinging your arms, etc., etc. The child is quick to recognize by ear the accurate, the normal position of the adverb. On the other hand, adverbs of quantity and comparison precede the adjective: Make a very broad mark on the blackboard. Place on your table the prism that is least thick. Permutation gives the following results: Make a broad very mark on the blackboard. Place on your table the prism which thick least is, etc., etc. Adverbs of time and place often ring like trumpet calls to attention at the beginning of the sentence: Drink the water in the glass now. Now drink the water in the glass. (Note: In English the adverb of time, placed at the end of the sentence, gains quite as much emphasis. So for adverbs of place.) Lessons and Commands on AdverbsSubject: straight, zig-zag (diritto, a zig-zag). Command:— —Run straight into the other room; return to your place walking zig-zag. Subject: lightly, heavily, sedately (leggermente, gravemente, pesantemente). Command:— —Walk lightly into the other room; return to your place walking sedately as though you were a very important person; walk across the room and back again resting heavily on each step as though it were hurting you to walk. Subject: suddenly, gradually (ad un tratto, gradatamente). Command:— —Form in line and walk forward beginning suddenly to stamp with your left foot. Return to your places letting the stamping gradually cease. Subject: meanwhile, frequently, occasionally (sempre, spesso, raramente). Command:— —Form in line and march slowly into the next room, stopping frequently. Return to your places stopping occasionally. —Walk into the next room and back again, meanwhile keeping your eyes closed. Subject: back, forward, to and fro (avanti, indietro, su e giÙ). Command:— —Form in line and walk forward to the other side of the room; then come back to your places. —Walk to and fro across the room with your heads lowered and your hands behind your back. Subject: forwards, backwards. Command:— —Stand in the middle of the room; then walk backwards to the window, being careful to walk in a straight line. Return to your places walking forwards. Subject: slowly, abruptly (lentamente, bruscamente). Command:— —Rise slowly from your seats. —Rise abruptly from your seats. Subject: politely, cordially (gentilmente, garbatamente). Command:— —Offer your chair politely to your nearest neighbor. —Shake hands cordially with your nearest neighbor. Subject: alternately, in succession, simultaneously (successivamente, alternativamente, simultaneamente). Command:— —Raise your two hands alternately above your heads. —Raise your two hands simultaneously above your heads. —One of you children walk around the room bowing to each pupil in succession. Subject: Well, badly, fairly, best, worst (bene, male, meglio, peggio, cosÌ cosÌ, benino, maluccio, benissimo, malissimo). Command:—
Subject: away, back (via). Command:—
Subject: here, there, somewhere, elsewhere (qui, qua, costÌ, costÀ, lÌ, lÀ, altrove). Command:—
Subject: thus, likewise (cosÌ). Command:— —One of you walk around the room holding his arms in a certain position. The rest of you do likewise. —All of you hold your hands thus, as I am doing. Subject: up, down, upward, downward. Command:— —Roll your handkerchiefs into balls and throw them up to the ceiling. —Pick them up and throw them down again to the floor. —Look upward to the ceiling. Now look downward to the floor. Subject: crosswise, lengthwise. Command:— —Lay two rods crosswise on the table. Then lay them lengthwise on the table. Subject: sharply, sullenly, gently, kindly. Command:— —Sharply order your nearest neighbor to rise from his seat. —Ask him gently to sit down again. —Sit sullenly in your chair with your eyes lowered. —Smile kindly at your nearest neighbor. A Burst of Activity:The Future of the Written Language In Popular Education In our own private experiments when we reached the adverb there occurred among the children a veritable explosion into a new kind of activity. They insisted on making up commands themselves. They invented them and then read them aloud to their companions or had their companions interpret the slips which they had written. All were most enthusiastic in performing these commands and they were rigorously scrupulous in acting them out down to the minutest detail. The executions came to be a literal, intensely real dramatisation: if a word was inexact or incorrect, the interpretation of the command threw the error into noisy relief, and the child who has written it saw before him an action quite different from what he had in mind. Then he realized that he had expressed his thought wrongly or inadequately and immediately set to work to correct his mistake. The revelation seemed to redouble his energy. He would hunt Walk about the room (sempre) always on tip-toe. meaning that the child should all the while go on tip-toe; if the child began to walk on tip-toe and continued to do so for a long time, trying to express sempre (always—forever) he would find himself facing a serious problem. Hence the spontaneous query: "What must I do to express myself correctly?" A little girl once wrote "Walk around the tables," meaning that the children should form a line and walk in and out around each table. Instead she saw her companions form a line and walk round the entire group of tables. Red in the face and out of breath she kept calling: "Stop, stop. That isn't the way," just as if this difference between the thought she actually had in mind and the way it was being executed were hurting her intolerably. This is only a passing suggestion of something which, I think, will merit much further development later on, after more thorough experiment. It will suffice, however, to bring to the teacher a notion of a most fertile field for the development of the written language in its most rigorous purity. It is evident that the experiment shows the possibility not only of having spontaneous compositions without grammatical errors (just as the mechanical writing was spontaneous and without errors), but of developing a love for clearness and purity of speech which will be a potent factor in improving the literary appreciation of the masses, and popular culture generally. When the children are seized with this passion for accurate expression of their thoughts in writing, when, spontaneously, clearness becomes the goal of their efforts, they follow the hunt for words with the keenest enthusiasm. They feel that there are never too many words to build with exactness the delicate edifice of thought. Problems of language come to them as a revelation. "How many words are there?" they ask. "How many nouns, how many verbs, how many adjectives? Is there any way for us to learn them all?" They are no longer content with their little copy-books of words. They ask for a wealth of word material which they now enjoy with all the delight of attractive and orderly interpretation. They never get tired of it. These developments in our work suggested to us the idea of giving the children a large vocabulary comprising a sufficient number of nouns, verbs, and adjectives and containing all the words of the other parts of speech. The difference in bulk between the real content of language (substance and modification, that is, nouns with their adjectives, and verbs with their adverbs) and the other words which serve to establish relations and consolidate this content, is something very impressive to children of eight. It is for them that we tried to prepare our word charts and the dictionaries of synonyms for nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Here, meanwhile, are some of the commands which the children wrote themselves—things which they improvised all of a sudden, by an explosion of energy, as it were, developed as the result of inner maturity. Compare the aridity and uniformity of the commands we invented ourselves with the variety and richness of ideas appearing in the children's commands! We very evidently show the weariness the preparation COMMANDS IMPROVISED BY THE CHILDREN—Build the pink tower very badly. —Make accurately a pose for each of the pictures in the room. —Pretend you were two old men: speak softly as if you were very sad; and one of you say this: "Too bad poor Pancrazio is dead!" And the other say: "Shall we have to wear our black clothes to-morrow?" Then walk along silently. —Walk along limping heavily; then suddenly fall prostrate on your faces as though you were exhausted. Return tripping lightly to your places, without falling and without limping. —Walk slowly with lowered heads as though you were very sad; return then joyfully and walking lightly. —Take a flower and run eagerly and give it to the lady. —Go half way round the room limping; the rest of the way on all fours. —Silence immediately; silently act out poses for the pictures in the room. —Go from your seats to the door on all fours; then rise and limp lightly half way round the room; do the other half back to the door on all fours; there rise and run lightly back to your seats. —Walk silently into the next room; walk three times around the big table and then return to your places. —Go into the next room running quite fast; come back gradually reducing speed until you reach your places. —Go to the cabinet immediately; take a letter-chart, and walk twice around the room with the chart on your head, trying never to let it fall; go back to your places in the same way. —Walk around the large hall, walking wearily; sit down, as though you were tired, and fall asleep; wake up shortly after and go back to your places. —Form in line and march forward till you reach a clear |
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