series material as seen in Frankfurt, Germany, in the classes of Director Walter, one of the greatest advocates of the direct method. The German students were studying English. A boy was told to describe a trip to Marburg, à la Gouin. [He proceeded as follows:] I. I go to the door. 2. I open the door. 3. I go out. 4. I go downstairs. 5. I walk across the hall. 6. I leave the house. 7. I am in the street. 8. I see a car passing. 9. I motion to the conductor. 10. The car stops. The catalogue of successive actions now gives place to conversation more natural in character. Another pupil acts the part of the conductor and asks how far he is going. (4: 82-83) Another example of the modified Gouin method as used in Frankfurt is the following: As the teacher enters the room . . . the movements of the teacher are either described by individual pupils or by the class [as follows:] 1. You are entering the room. 2. You are stepping onto the platform. 3. You are pushing back your chair. 4. You are sitting down. 5. You are opening the inkstand. 6. You are taking the pen. 7. You are dipping it into the inkstand, etc. (4: 83) Includes conversational phrases for class routine. — The Gouin method also includes series of sentences to be used in the ordinary routine of class work. For students who are learning English these include the following: Pay attention. Say the sentence. Good; very good. I am very well pleased. Is that enough? No, not yet. Yes, thank you. Have you understood everything? Occasions are arranged so that pupils will be required to use these. For example, one pupil calls on another and says, "Give the next sentence." After the sentence is given, another pupil may say, "Very good" or "I congratulate you" or "How well you repeat it." Each of these pupils is made responsible during a portion of the period for contributing some specific sentence to the conversation. Printed sheets distributed after oral presentation. — These examples give some notion of the type of material used by the Gouin system and the method of using it. The difficulty of commercializing it is somewhat greater than in the case of a textbook method, inasmuch as the material is not placed in the hands of the students until it has been presented orally by the teacher. This necessitates having each lesson printed upon a separate sheet. These sheets are kept unbound. After the teacher has taught a given series (for example, the one on opening the door), the printed sheets of the lesson are distributed to the class. Each pupil copies it into a blank book at home, studies it, and returns it next day, when he is supposed to be able to recite it completely. Such a procedure usually necessitates the mimeographing or printing of the sets of lessons that are to be used in a given school. However, in view of the discussion given above on page 39, this is a step that should be taken if the superiority of the educational results is apparent. Reference to history of Gouin method. The teacher or prospective teacher of German or French who desires to begin to use an organized direct method should read the article by Professor C. H. Handschin of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, which was published in the School Review for March, 1912, and is entitled "A Historical Sketch of the Gouin-Series System of Teaching Modern Languages and of its Use in the United States." After reading the article it would be well to write to its author for further assistance. Another valuable source of suggestions for using direct methods is E. W. Bagster-Collins's excellent manual of method entitled "The Teaching of German in Secondary Schools" (4). The general suggestions offered in the book apply to the teaching of French as well. Objective oral lessons primarily preparatory to reading. — Inasmuch as learning to read a foreign language is much more important for Americans than learning to speak it, the relation of direct oral methods to learning to read should be made clear. This relation is brought out by Bagster-Collins in the following quotations. In spite of the objections we have raised to making an oral command of the language anything more than a subordinate aim (compared with the general aim-reading), we must not forget that conversational exercises occupy an important place in modern language teaching, pedagogically considered; although not to be regarded as an end in themselves, they are an indispensable means to an end. Experience teaches us that a just proportion of time spent on oral exercises gives a firmer grasp of the grammar and vocabulary. (4: 23-24) This relation of oral work in the foreign language to learning to read is brought out in the following quotation from Handschin's article. This method does away with the use of the mother tongue in the classroom, and it gives Sprachgefühl [language feeling]. In the Miami adaptation of the Gouin method one hundred lessons (of from eighteen to twenty-five sentences each) in German, and one hundred and seventy-five in French, are taught. This number is considered sufficient to give Sprachgefühl. Here the plan differs from Gouin's in that his plan was to teach the entire vocabulary of the foreign language by means of the series before allowing the student to go on to literary study. In the Miami plan the reading of an easy text is begun about the second week. In the teaching of grammar Gouin is forsaken, and the grammar is taught inductively, many devices of the reform method being used, such as reproducing the lesson in various persons, numbers, and tenses, etc. After the principal forms have been taught inductively, a regular grammar is taken up little by little. In reading-texts, likewise, the reform textbooks are given the preference. The advanced work is conducted as in other schools, except that the foreign language is used almost exclusively in the classroom." (6:174-175) Systematic mastery of all phases of language provided.— This quotation suggests the gradual systematic mastery of the foreign language in all its aspects by beginning with a correct, direct, objective, oral approach. A small working vocabulary having been acquired in the first few weeks, reading is begun, but not translation. The reading being simple, it may be discussed and rehearsed in the foreign tongue. New words can often be explained by gesture, synonym, reference to the context, or discussion in the foreign language. Occasionally it will be necessary to give the English equivalent, but in such a case the foreign word immediately gets its setting or meaning in the foreign context, and the tendency to think of the English equivalent does not persist very long. Meanwhile the oral series lessons are continued and correct grammatical usage established. As the general grammatical terms become useful they are introduced in the foreign language. Very few general grammatical statements or rules will be necessary. At all stages of the work charts and objective devices of all sorts are used. One of these charts is shown below and is intended to teach the list of German prepositions (an, auf, in, hinter, neben, vor, über, unter, zwischen) which govern either the accusative or the dative. The meanings of the prepositions are suggested directly by their positions on the picture of the wagon (except for neben and an), and the device is helpful in providing a means of almost instant recall. Grammatical usage established by the direct method. The general principles of association upon which this chapter is based are further illustrated by the training in grammatical usage provided in ÜBER \AUF tions that we desire to build up are associations between words in sentences. This is true in the case of all grammatical relations such as the relations between the forms of adjectives and nouns, the forms of verbs and subjects, etc. This being the case, it is evident that extensive training in actual use of the forms in their natural connections is much more important than the study of tabulated forms in connections which are unlike the associations that occur in the actual use of the language. An example of such specific training in grammatical usage in learning German is given by BagsterCollins in the following words: The method will be largely oral. Instead of asking questions about grammar or being content with listening to the recitation of paradigms, we will talk grammar. That is to say, we will arrange a kind of conversation, rather oral exercise in the form of question and answer, of such a nature that the manner of the question will |