A course of study in language for elementary schools

Front matter

Book

Class ^-^ CJ /'J 7 ^^

Copyright N°.

Preface

FIRST GRADE WORK .5-22

SECOND GRADE WORK •. 24- 43

THIRD GRADE WORK 44-74

FOURTPI GRADE WORK 75-103

FIFTH GRADE WORK 106-119

SIXTH GRADE WORK . 119-133

SEVENTH GRADE WORK 133-143

EIGHTH GRADE WORK -. 143-154

APPENDIX ^ 155

HANDBOOK TO STATE SERIES TEXT, BOOK ONE 157-169

HANDBOOK TO STATE SERIES TEXT, BOOK TWO 170-172

Index

PREFACE.

It has finally come to pass that the principles upon which existing courses of study are founded and methods of teaching based are being openly questioned. As teachers become less and less an isolated class and mingle more with intelligent citizens who are actually carrying on the work of the world, they are beginning to awaken to the fact that many of the notions which they have held as self-evident truths are such, nowhere except within the walls of the schoolroom. The purpose of this preface is to show some common sense principles which may be employed in effective language teaching. The author has also attempted to make plain that the tenets underlying the majority of the language text-books are merely pedantries which would long ago have been discarded by any class of people except those who relied upon their ancestors to do their thinking for them.

Language teaching has long consisted in the learning of a series of definitions and rules. While these may he good as pedantic ornaments, yet neither case enables a pupil to choose the correct language forms.

I. Children only learn eorreet written forms by the habit of writing them — there is no equivalent for habit.

Aristotle years ago pointed out that the learning of the definition of wealth never made a man wealthy. Pedagogues, who as a class have spent their lives learning definitions, should long ago have discovered this simple truth by inspection of their own bank accounts.

If a man secured a book, learned all the rules for guiding and controlling an automobile, and had all the terms explained so that he understood them thoroughly, then presented himself as a chauffeur, would the owner of the machine hear him recite his rules and definitions, and, upon finding him letter perfect, send him out to give his wife and children a ride ? Yet this same method is the common one now used in teaching language. "A sentence is a group of words expressing a complete thought. ' ' the book tells the child. "Begin it with a capital letter and close it with a period," and the child having learned the definition and rule is expected ever afterwards to obey its dictates. Lie is a transitive verb. Its parts are lie, lay, lain. Remember this," says the book, "and you will make no mistakes," and yet high school graduates, knowing and writing the above statements, give iis an illustration : ^Mother laid down to rest yesterday.

One can go out any day and watch a carpenter mark out and fit two boards together at an obtuse angle, but the carpenter knows no definition for an obtuse angle. He has learned to do^ the thing and that is what counts. A little girl watches her mother as she sits sewing. Soon the child, too, wishes to sew, but her mother does not give her a definition for sewing, nor teach her any rules therefor. Instead, she gives her a needle and thread and the little girl learns to sew by sewing.

The definition habit is a relic of the times when examinations were given to ascertain how much the children had committed to memory. Grive the definition for this, that, and the other was a short, easy form in which to send out the questions. Not being familiar with the facts in the case, the examiners took it for granted that, if a child knew the definition, he could do the thing, and so would be able to write correctly what he was called upon to do.

And it makes no difference how well the definitions and rules are understood, or how thorough has been the drill upon them, they will never make correct writers or speakers. The memorizing of the words of a definition is inexpressibly easy as compared with the acquirement of the application. Yet the schools have ever stopped short with definition and rule learning upon the silly assumption that their task has been completed, whereas it has never even been begun. Therefore, since the only thing of value is the doing of the thing itself, let us commence with teaching the doing, and the matter of definitions, if necessary in the pedagogic conscience, may follow afterwards where there is time for frivolous adornment.

A few illustrations from the teaching of language may serve to make the point clearer. The contracted forms of various words like / am and do not are to be taught. The children are not asked to learn the rule that ih.Q apostrophe must be used to denote a letter or letters omitted, but instead are given the actual contraction to learn, just as they would any spelling lesson. This being accomplished, sentences containing these contractions are written, followed by dictation paragraphs and compositions.

Yet again, we teachers have the notion that if a pupil continually sees the apostrophe and s added to show possession, and if he says often enough that it must be added, he will somehow or other do it. Experience proves the contrary. In certain forms, of which the possessive sign is a good example, mistakes are not made except in writing, hence any exercise or device that requires anything but written work is time thrown away.

Within these pages will be found many sentences, paragraphs and other devices for written work on written forms. The application to composition, which is the essential feature, will be found in a separate Bulletin.

While the attempt to teach language through definitions and rules is the most profitless practice of pedagogy, yet it is not the only one. With an impatience for the child to know a multitude of things at once, so many new forms are introduced at a time that the whole thing becomes a meaningless series of words. This is essentially wrong.

II. Only one new form should be presented at a time.

This necessitates very carefully graded sentences and paragraphs, instead of extracts from the masterpieces or lessons based on nature study, geography, etc.

Most books, within the knowledge of the writer, for grades beyond the Second, contain at once directions for writing, which if fulfilled would

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bring in forms that belong only in the grammar grades, and indeed many are used sparingly in the high school age.

Onr present State text in its first few lessons for a Third Grade uses sentences that require a class to be familiar with the capital letter for the beginning of the first word of a line of poetry ; the contraction for amid, never, there is; a comma to separate a clause out of its natural order from the rest of the sentence ; commas to set off a nonrestrictive clause, etc. This is clearly impossible.

This course of study offers a graded series of exercises, each containing, besides one new form introduced, a review of the previous forms. Paragraphs for dictation occur with headings denoting exactly what forms are reviewed, as : This paragraph contains capital letters for the names of the days of the week, months of the year, and holidays ; a date ; three contracted forms ; and nouns showing ownership.

• III. Children learn coppeet language forms by correcting the errors of themselves or others..

The author is quite familiar with the pedantic saw now frequently put forth as an emblem of modern psychological erudition which says: "Never permit a child to see or hear an incorrect form. The children are drilled every day in the schoolroom to say, I satv it, It is I, or I have no. If an error in speech is made, no attention is directed toward it for fear some child who hadn't noticed might probably become guilty of the same error. After the erring child has forgotten his wicked words, the teacher calls him to one side, and without any reference to the error puts him through various drills on It is 1. The child knows not why, but it takes it all as part of the day's work.

If he misspells a word at the board it is quickly erased. An omitted period is as quickly added. The teacher burns midnight oil and wastes the city's ink blotting out the errors on his spelling paper. She never returns a composition nor marks a language paper, for fear that he might be impressed with his own errors.

If the above maxim were really true, how is it that children have ever learned to speak at all? The baby's first attempt at words is wholly unintelligible to any one, even to the mother. He very often can not say at all his s's or k's. Yet he is not discouraged from talking on this account. How does he learn that there are certain places where he must not go, certain things he must not touch, that lying and stealing are not conducive to social safety and well-being, unless he is told that they are wrong?

Teachers are perhaps the most critical people with regard to correct English and there isn't a class that sees and hears as many errors per day as they. They are having it continually forced upon their attention that this is wrong and that is right, and some how they become peculiarly sensitive to errors.

Isn't it possible that this same method will work with younger people?

The child in the schoolroom says I saw it, J have done it, etc., because he has learned them there and associates them with schoolroom work. The

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same child in the yard says I seen it, I have did it, for he has learned them in the school yard and thinks them proper expressions for the yard. How should he know that they are wrong since the knowledge that they are incorrect has been carefully withheld from him ?

A small boy who was considered the model language student of the class was one day seen by his teacher at play on the street. His language there was a marvel of errors and slang. The teacher could stand it no longer. "Why "do you say ain't got and have saw here, when you never do in the schoolroom?" "Why isn't it right?" asked the child. "All the fellows say it here. " Like the baseball enthusiast, he has one language for the game and quite another for the parlor.

The errors commonly made are not so many, but the children may learn at least that they are errors. When this has been accomplished he is at least started on the road toward eradication.

It, of course, does not follow that we should, as the old Goold Brown grammar did, insert a complete inventory of incorrect language forms, — • possible, probable, and current. If the errors are not current, then there may be justification for the maxim. But for that class of errors which are in such common use that every one hears them constantly there need be no fear in catching them and branding them, severally and separately, as wrong.

The first lesson in this book, and, in fact, the first lesson for each grade to use for daily work is an exercise in which the children correct errors that have crept into their speech before entering school. The teacher gives the incorrect form and says that it is incorrect, then gives the correct form. It is felt that this daily practice in correcting common errors will so impress the children that they will at least recognize that certain forms are wrong, and experience has demonstrated that the constant association of the correct form with the knowledge of the incorrect one eventually leads the child to flee from the evil and accept the good. Directions will be found also for making the first part of the daily written lesson a correction of the errors of the preceding day.

When drills fitted to forming correct habits have been substituted • for the oldtime definition and rule, when forms suited to the needs of the child have been introduced one at a time, when his daily errors have been corrected as they occur, the goal is not yet reached. It is not sufficient to learn a thing well once.

IV. A system of reviews must oeeur systematically in ordep to fix what has already been learned.

It very often happens when children have a different teacher upon entering a higher grade that some fact learned in the lower grade comes up and the children fail on it.

The teacher of the lower grade is amazed and says, ' ' Well, I taught it to them and they knew it, ' ' and the accusing teacher fears for the soul of such an untruthful person. The fact is true, however, that the lesson was taught, and no doubt well taught, and the children knew it once, but that does not mean for always. There must be reviews and many of them. The

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interval between the reviews must be short, at first, getting longer little by little, until at last the children are living in real life where use will deter^ mine how much shall be remembered.

V. The teaching- of the various language forms must be speeifle to

the errors we undertake to correct. The notion of a cureall is equally absurd in education as in medicine.

Throughout this course of study the drills which are employed are effective, to any practical degree, only to those errors to which they are applied. General "eye training," general "ear training," and all the other generalities belong to the kind of popular pedantries that grew out of faculty psychology. It is, of course, true that the eye is trained by drawing, but the product is specific to the special form of drawing upon which the training is given. No one except a pedant Could suppose that an eye trained to note accuracies or inaccuracies in drawing would by this training be materially aided in noting omitted periods, misspelled words, forgotten apostrophes, or misused capitals. That the ear can be trained to detect the least discord in music is doubtless true, but this same training can not be used to prevent the use of "I havn't got no pencil."

A tea-taster does not taste coffee in order to become an expert tea-taster; no sane man commits street car signs to memory to help him remember the names and faces of the people he meets, a sheriff does not take lessons in water color before going along a mountain road to look for a criminal; nor does a piano tuner listen to the sound of the sad sea waves to learn his business. So, also, in a finer sense, we must not expect to get rid of disagreeing subjects and predicates by training the eye and ear upon comparison of adjectives or right use of pronouns. Each error must receive its specific drill, and such work this course of study undertakes to carry out.

VI. Each type of composition requires speeifle drill in this type and

one kind of exercise will not sufflee for all kinds of composition.

Many teachers have had the experience of preparing a class for examination, of being morally certain that the class was well informed on the subject in question, and then to have that class fail utterly when the test came. A reason is always in order, and it usually is the timeworn one of nervousness, when in reality it is quite another. The teacher prepared her class orally, thinking that what they had said so many times they could write. The result showed her error. Or, perhaps, she drilled them by means of written c^uestions and answers. The test came asking for discussion. The children knew the content thoroughly, but they had never been trained to organize their material in this form, and hence failure was the outcome.

A newspaper reporter whose training has enabled him to write up the market reports, suddenly determines to take up another line and finds himself at a garden party, and his account usually goes into the waste paper basket. . In the same way the story writer who attempts to do the telegraphic reports has his articles so cut, if they are accepted at all, that the author himself would not recognize them.

Should we expect more of children? .If the composition teaching is to be of any value, training must be given in every line that will be necessary for him to apply in school or that will be used by a person in the ordinary walks of life.

Many attempts have also been made to give children correct English through the teaching of word analysis, Latin, interpretation, and so on. Paragraphs from the prose classics and stanzas from the poets have been used for dictation, many of which are too often beyond the child's comprehension, and all of which contain a phraseology far more involved than any that will ever be used by the majority of children.

No such means have here been employed. The author believes that if the child is to learn the forms of the English language, he will do so by writing the forms of the English language specific to the purpose he wishes to employ them for.

There is a feeling also that all forms within the covers of the largest book should be taught to children in the elementary school. Like the contents of the Bible, all language forms are sacred. To teach some and not others would be heresy. And those few rules that are omitted, might not some one of the forty children some day have occasion to use them?

Therefore children are drilled with just as much care to begin the first line of poetry with a capital, to choose between consonant to or consonant with, and to write essays, as they are to begin a sentence with a capital, to choose between their and there, or to write a letter to a friend. Some forms are used over and over again in the schoolroom, only to be forgotten later, because they are never used outside. How fortunate that we can forget !

In preparing this work, Miss Louise Carlson and Miss Nettie B. Duncan, assistant supervisors in the teaching of Language, have rendered invaluable assistance.

Thanks are also due Miss Ethel Smith, assistant supervisor of Composition, and the student teachers for their assistance in writing the stories for dictation.

EFFIE B. McFADDEN.

State Normal School at San Francisco.

June, 1909.

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METHOD OF TEACHING LANGUAGE AND HAND- BOOK TO STATE SERIES TEXTS.

FIRST GRADE,

DAILY DRILLS.

While this Bulletin contains much material worked out at length, the author feels that a few drills given every day will help more toward acquiring correct forms than the study of too many details. The exercises should be given daily. In a country school they may be given to all the classes at once. The teacher gives the incorrect form, the children responding in concert with the correct form. After they have become fairly proficient, vary the exercise by having the children respond individually. Sides may be arranged and the sentences responded to, first by one side and then by the other.

The second exercise consists in answering the cpiestions correctly. As soon as the children have learned to do independent work, these questions may be written on the board and answered in writing. The responses in the first exercise may also be given in writing if the teacher has the time.

Teacher.

I seen a man.

He eat some candy.

I come to school yesterday.

She drunk a glass of water.

I done my lessons.

I ain't got no chalk.

It is me.

It was them.

It was him.

It was her.

There is two books on the desk.

There was two apples on the table I have saw a man.

They haven't came yet.

I have rode to school every day.

They have went away.

I have drank some milk.

— First Grade.

Pupil.

I saw a man.

He ate some candy.

I came to school yesterday.

She drank a glass of water.

I did my lessons.

I have no chalk.

It is I.

It was they.

It was he.

It was she.

There are two books on the desk.

There were two apples on the table.

I have seen a man.

They haven't come yet.

I have ridden to school every day.

They have gone away.

I have drunk some milk.

What did you see this morning?

What did you eat for breakfast?

Did you come to school yesterday.

What did you drink this morning?

Did you do your work?

Who is knocking at the door?

Who took my book?

Who was talking?

What are there on the desk?

Were there two apples on the table?

What have you seen to-day?

Have they gone away?

I saw a horse this morning.

I ate some mush for breakfast.

Yes, I came to school yesterday.

I drank some milk this morning.

Yes, I did my work.

It is they.

It was he.