OCR Text |
Show ORAL ENGLISH IN II GRACES Of THE CITY SCHOOLS At the last regular meeting of thi city school principals, the- question o "OthI English In the Grades' wat discussed and the following paper or the subject wan read by MIbs Ina E Craven, supervisor of language. "Since our school syftem Is now established on the new basis, that it that serondary education begins with the Seventh grnde, it will be neroa snry for us to discover what founda tlon work should be done in Eugllsh luring the first six years. "The test of a thing is In Its use and the value we attach to our Eng llsh work needs no great argument VI success In life depends upon effective ef-fective human relations and thesf in turn, depend upon our ability iu handle the tool which we call 'Language 'Lan-guage ' Someone has said that the pernuasive ana explanatory tongue is one of the chief levers of life because be-cause people desire to do things only w hen thev are persuaded and he who can exDlain himself can persuade "As we speak several hundred times for every oncp we write. It Is obvious obvi-ous that our work should be largely oral English until the child becomes saturated with good form Our educational edu-cational lecturer says, From ear to mouth is the short circuit; from ear through arm to mouth is the long clr- uit ' We need this reminder. To attempt to establish habitual use of correct speech forms by correction nf errors on paper is not only thf long circuit waste of energy and time, but it is as futile an the child's attempt to check the incoming tide with his toy spade. To the pupil it becomes a tiresome, mechanical task without Initiative on his part to continue to correct on paper the mistakes mis-takes which he 'knew better' than to make but which 'wrote themselves' out of his daily speech "All literature Is founded on llvlnp, utterance (women are supposed to be great talkers and I believe that three of the great periods of English literature litera-ture were coincident with the reigns of the three English queens ) Children Chil-dren should he taught as though they were horn with 'tongues In their mouths instead of pens in their hands "Their attainments during this perl od must be measured largely In terms of habit and the work of these years should be the formation of right habits. hab-its. "Before entering school the child acquire his voeabulary by listening and the number of words he knows depends entirely upon his home environment en-vironment the time given to storytelling story-telling and reading as well as the home vocabulary. Upon his entrance to school he should be trained to form the habit of word-getting, not incidentally, inci-dentally, but as a conscious process, and the drill should be so thorough that the habit will continue through life. "This done, his adult vocabulary will not be so meager as to make it necessary to describe the party, the concert, the play the lecture, the new gown, all as "grande" or to lump all annoyances as 'maddening' no mat- peratlng displeasing, disgusting, offensive of-fensive or aggravating. ' Good English is necessarily exact English and one's vocabulary should be such that his speech will fit his Ideas 'Language is caught, not taught, is an old expression and the poverty of words in many vocabularies vocabula-ries would lead one to think that a strict quarantine had been placed on a! sources from which now words might have been 'caught.' It Is through 'exposure' to the exquisite poem, the splendid story, the careful speaker that the child catches a rich vocabulary "Another habit which needs to be formed Is that of habitually using correct cor-rect speech forms. The work must be oral From the time the child enters the kindergarten he must be drilled to speak correctly. He cannot can-not be taucht that certnin forms am objective, that the subjunctive mode requires careful handling, nor can you explain to him the 'why' of the use of did or done, but he can be drilled so that he will say 'It is she,' 'If I were' and T did It.' These are matters mat-ters of ear training and of motor habits hab-its and nothing but persistent oral drill can possibly overcome these grammatical errors It is absurd to allow them to persist till the child reaches the point where he reads from a text book the reason for their correction and to expect him then to handle the English language so that It will not grate upon the ear. "The boy said. 'Can I have an orange?' or-ange?' 'May I' corrected his mother 'Ye6. may I have an orange9' said the bov and his mother replied, 'Yes. you can ' The knowing mind said 'may.' but the spinal cord said 'can. Early habits of UBlng poor English otten persist in spite of credits and degrees. "The habit of talking in sentences not fragments must become fixed The 'sentenre-eense' Is one of the first things to be developed in composition work This also Is done by the short circuit' method. The child should form the habit of talking In a free and natural manner, articulating distinctly, pronouncing correctly, mod ulatiug his voice, and assuming proper prop-er postures of the body "No mention has been made of methods or materials. They are not relevant The point is that In the first six years, pupils must form right habits of enriching their ocabularies, of using correct forms, of talking in sentences, of speaking distinctly, of modulating their voices, and of sitting or standing conrectlv when talking, and that only through oral English work can these things be accomplished." accom-plished." oo |