What is the best method of language-study? This fundamental question is one which is continually asked by all those who are seriously engaged in teaching or in learning a foreign language. We say ‘seriously’ and lay stress on the word, for among teachers and students there are many, unfortunately, who are not disposed to take their work seriously, who see no necessity for any earnest consideration of the ways and means to be adopted. They are content to teach as they themselves have been taught, or to learn as others have learnt before them, without inquiring whether the plan or the programme is a sound one, without even inquiring whether the method is one which is likely to produce any good results whatever. But the serious teacher or student, who wishes to perform efficient work, must of necessity ask himself whether the path he has chosen is one which will lead anywhere near the desired end or ends. He may experiment with various methods and try a number of different systems in order to ascertain which of these secures the best results, and after many such trials he may either hit upon what seems to be an ideal type of work and stick to it, or, dissatisfied with everything he has tried, he may once again seek counsel and ask once more the old and hackneyed question: What is the best method of language-study?

The first answer which suggests itself is: “The best method is that which adopts the best means to the required end,” and indeed this is perhaps the only concise answer which can be furnished off-hand. But the answer is not satisfactory; it is too general, and so true that it ranks as a truism; it is resented as being a facetious manner of shelving the question. The inquirer has every right to return to the charge and to put the supplementary question: “What is the method which adopts the best means to the required end?”

In the present book we shall endeavour to find the best answer or the best series of answers to this most legitimate question. In doing so we shall set forth, with as much precision as is consistent with the claims of conciseness, the conclusions arrived at by those who have specialized in the subject and have obtained positive evidence bearing on it.

Fundamental as the question appears, there is yet a previous question of which we must dispose before going further, for we cannot determine “what is the best method adopting the best means towards the required end” until we know more precisely what is the required end.

For there are many possible ends, and many categories of students, each with a particular aim before him.

Many desire a knowledge of the written language only; they wish to be able to read and write, not to understand the spoken language nor to speak. Some may limit their attainment to a capacity for reading the language; they wish to have direct access to technical or other books. Others conceivably may wish solely to become able to write letters in the language. Many are only concerned with spoken language; they wish to be able to speak and to understand what they hear. Some wish to possess an ‘understanding’ knowledge only, while others are content merely to make themselves understood.

The student may limit his requirements to a very superficial knowledge of some pidgin form of the language, and will be perfectly happy if he just succeeds in making himself understood by using some atrocious caricature of the language which he is supposed to be learning. Or he may be more ambitious and set out in earnest to become master of the living language just as it is spoken and written by the natives themselves. The phonetician will wish to attain absolute perfection in the pronunciation of the language; the etymologist will concentrate on the historical aspect; the philologist will not be happy unless he is comparing the structure with that of cognate languages; the grammarian will specialize in grammar, and the lexicologist or semantician will study the meanings.

The clerk or merchant will specialize in the commercial language and learn how to draw up bills of lading or to conduct business correspondence. The hotel-keeper or waiter will concentrate on hotel colloquial, as also will the tourist or tripper. The littÉrateur will aim straight at the literature and disdain any of the non-Æsthetic aspects or branches. Every calling or profession will seek its own particular line, and for each there will be a particular aim.

Many students have as their sole aim the passing of a given examination. Whether they come to know the language or not is a matter of comparative indifference to them; their business is to obtain as many marks as possible with the least amount of effort, and what does not lead directly to this aim is not of interest. It is the duty of many or most teachers to coach or to cram their pupils in order that satisfactory examination results may be obtained; they cannot afford to do anything else, nor have they any desire to do so. If the examination includes questions on phonetic theory, the pupil will be crammed with phonetic theory; if it includes a test in conversation, the pupil will be crammed with conversational tags; if it requires the capacity of translating, the pupil will duly be coached in the art of translating; if it requires a knowledge of a given text or series of texts, these will be the subject of study. If the pupil or his teacher knows something of the particular examiner, special efforts will be made to please that particular examiner. But this has little or nothing to do with the serious study of languages.

Some people are professional translators or interpreters; it is their business to render a faithful account of a speech or a sentence uttered in another language or to interpret the thoughts of some foreign writer. This work requires very special qualifications and necessitates a very special study, so much so that those who are perfectly bilingual experience a great difficulty every time that they are called upon to render a faithful translation of any document or a faithful interpretation of any oral communication. The task of the translator is quite distinct from that of the ordinary student of language, and is to be dealt with as such. Generally speaking, however, the language-learner will have comparatively little to do with the profession of interpreter or translator, and even in the exceptional cases he will do well to leave this particular branch until he has attained a certain proficiency in using the foreign language independently of any other. We have already alluded to the special requirements of the technician; we have seen that some require a knowledge of the structure or of certain aspects of one or more languages.

Such people, having entirely different aims, require entirely different methods; they must be furnished with everything that will facilitate their work of analysis or synthesis, and we may omit from their programme everything which does not lead directly towards the limited and special end they have in view.

Yet another factor is present and must be considered before we can draw up any definite programme of study. Are we giving a three months’ course or a three years’ course? If we are to obtain concrete and definite results in a limited space of time, our course must necessarily be an intensive one; we shall have to make a generous use of studial methods; we shall not be able to afford anything like an adequate period of preparation; we shall be forced to take short cuts and we shall reluctantly be compelled to sacrifice a certain measure of soundness to the requirements of speed. If, however, at the end of the short course to which circumstances limit our student’s opportunity, he has a chance to continue his studies by himself or to reside in the country where the language is spoken, we may devote the whole of our time to preparatory work. We may give him an intensive course of ear-training, articulation, or fluency exercises, cause him to memorize a certain number of key-sentences, and drill him into good habits of language-study. If we adopted this plan we should be laying the foundations upon which the student would build later by his own initiative, but the drawback would be that the student would have made but small progress in the actual process of assimilating vocabulary; he would be well prepared, but would have little to show as a result of his two or three months’ work.

If, on the other hand, we know that we have a clear period of two or more years before us, our task will be much easier. Instead of proceeding at a breathless rate to produce immediate concrete results, we may go to work in a more leisurely and more natural way. We may sow, and be assured that the harvest will be reaped in due time; the natural powers of language-study work surely but not rapidly; nature takes her time but yields a generous interest. With a long period in front of us, we may afford adequate intervals for ‘incubation’; it will not be necessary for us to accelerate the normal process of assimilation, but merely to let it develop in a gradual but ever-increasing and cumulative ratio. At the end of, let us say, the first year, our student will easily outstrip those whose initial progress seemed more satisfactory.

Evidently it will not be possible to draw up a programme of study which will be suitable for all the diverse requirements we have set forth. Nor will it be possible for every teacher to consider the individual requirements of each one of his pupils. We cannot have a specially printed course, nor even a manuscript one, for every student; but in the case of private lessons or of self-instruction we may certainly give a large amount of consideration to individual needs. The bad pronouncer will concentrate on phonetic work, the bad speller on orthographic work, the bad listener on devices leading towards immediate comprehension; the clerk will work with texts of a commercial nature, the tourist will specialize on hotel colloquial, etc. No student will ever be expected to work with one book only; each will gradually acquire a miniature library, and this library need not be the same for everybody.

In the case of collective courses and class teaching, individual requirements will be less observed, but in drawing up the programme the teacher will aim at the average result desired by or considered desirable for the average member of the class. As we shall see later, it is quite feasible to design lessons suitable for a class containing pupils of different capacities; we can arrange that some shall take an active part while others are assimilating more or less passively.

We see, in short, that when starting a new course under new conditions the teacher must draw up a programme. This programme will be divided into so many periods or stages, and for each period certain forms of work will be specified, these being designed to lead in the most efficient way to whatever the aim may happen to be. Without such a programme the teacher will never know exactly where his class stands, the work will be too much of a hand-to-mouth nature, and there will be loose ends. This programme may of course be more or less experimental or tentative; it may be modified in accordance with the teacher’s experience and with the results he has so far obtained. The idea of a hard-and-fast programme does not commend itself; it should, on the contrary, be more or less elastic in order that it may be expanded or contracted according to circumstances. Anything in the nature of a ‘patent method’ (guaranteed to work within so many lessons) suggests quackery. Our programme should be something other than a rigid procedure based on any one particular principle, however logical that principle may seem to be. There are many logical principles, and we must strive to incorporate all of them into whatever programme we design. We shall treat of these in the next chapters.