This is the first of four posts based on an old book by C.J. Dodson called Language Teaching and the Bilingual Method (Pitman Education Library).. Each post will be based on one of the four chapters of the book. The first chapter is entitled Experimental Data.
A little background first, though. Dodson, at the time his book was written, 1967, was a Senior Lecturer in Education at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. His work was to inspire later books and articles by Wolfgang Butzkamm (for example here), another proponent of the bilingual approach. Both Dodson and Butzkamm were breaking with what they saw as orthodoxy. Dodson, in particular, as we shall see, was set against both the Grammar-Translation Method, still widely used in British schools in 1967, and the Direct Method, that approach to language teaching developed around the turn of the twentieth century and still influential today.
By 1967 it was uncontroversial to be critical of Grammar-Translation - too focused on writing and translation, terrible at developing listening and spoken skill, unmotivating, even for most grammar school pupils.* It was more controversial to argue against direct approaches, since these were a growing trend in modern language classes in the UK, in a sort of adapted form of Direct Method, called the Oral Approach (also known as the Oral-Situational Approach). The Oral Approach, traceable to a number of sources, but notably H.G. Palmer in the first half of the twentieth century, was championed by the University of London and was, incidenatlly, the way I was taught to teach languages myself.
The Oral Approach was essentially a type of Direct Method, but founded on a grammatical syllabus as Grammar-Translation had been before. Teaching was delivered very largely in the target language principally through a process of question-answer drilling. It featured in influential textbooks used in grammar schools, such as Cours Illustré de Français by Mark Gilbert. That widely use course came out in 1967, so when Dodson criticised direct methods, he was out of sync with a common approach at the time. The Oral Approach was a huge improvement over Grammar-Translation, but still had serious shortcomings.
At root, Dodson's criticism of direct methods was that they assumed that learning a second language was like learning a first. In this respect direct methods resembled communicative language teaching or the type of natural approach favoured by Stephen Krashen. Dodson explains in his book that first language learners are simultaneously learning about the world around them and acquiring a language as part of that process. In contrast, primary and secondary school language learners come with a growing, established knowledge of the world, plus knowledge of a first language. Second language learners do not have that same need to discover, and have already acquired the grammar and phonological habits of a first language. When teaching a new language, therefore, we should take advantage of the first language and be prepared to 'teach bilingually'.
Now, Dodson begins his book by arguing that in language teaching education we tend to be conservative and fail to improve methods when they clearly do not work for most children. To address the failure of methodology, he uses an appeal to science and experimentation which was quite unusual at the time.
In Chapter 1, therefore, he describes in some detail experimental data from the classroom to support the method he will later recommend. Primary and secondary school children studying modern languages in Wales took part in classroom experiments. Dodson wished to find out a number of things, for example how pupils acquire the meaning of sentences most efficiently. Interestingly, Dodson makes clear from the outset that acquiring the meaning of spoken and written language is a fundamental aim. In this he reflects the general consensus of contemporary researchers - 'comprehensible input' is at the heart of language acquisition.
Where he departs from the orthodoxy of the time, however, is that he argues that using the first language to help learners acquire meaning is more efficient and successful than, say, using pictures or hoping that learners will work out meaning over the course of a lesson.
His apparently meticulous experiments uncovered some interesting findings which are still relevant today:
- It is better to show the printed word, not just a picture, if you want students to remember language. Using the first language is not a 'last resort' solution, but a principled way to establish meaning. (Think of how translation is used in Conti-style sentence builders or Knowledge Organiser parallel translation booklets, as favoured by Barry Smith.)
- Oral reading of sentences and passages (in the traditional sense) is a hindrance to learning. Pupils are so focused on the form of the language and reading accurately, that they fail to comprehend meaning.
- Most students forget sentences very quickly and have trouble retaining language. (Although Dodson does not use the contemporary language of cognitive science, what he writes about is the weakness of working memory - especially phonological working memory - forgetting and cognitive overload. The methods he will later advocate aim to mitigate these problems which put off pupils so easily.)
- Pronuncation was not hindered by seeing the printed word, as long as showing the word was delayed a little after initial imitation. (A very interesting point for tyeachers who are concerned about if and when to show the written word when teaching new vocabulary - there's nothing wrong with showing the written form as long as you make sure pronunciation is sound first.)
- Writing should be limited for the simple reason that for most pupils of average ability, especially at primary level, copywriting takes so long. It therefore takes time away from the more important activities of listening and speaking.
- Even after pupils have correctly establihed a sound-spelling link for one word (e.g. German 'neun'), if they encounter a word in print with similar spelling, for example in this case 'neu', they promounce it wrongly - failing to transfer their previous learning. (This makes the case for focusing a good deal on sound-spelling correspondences in the early stages, though not necessarily in a systematic, structured way.)
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