Language in the primary grades

Chapter I

I. Evidences op lack op success in teaching oral

LANGUAGE, p. 9.

II. Causes op lack op success, p. 9.

III. Requirements por securing oral language training: 1. Favorable environment, p. 17. 2. Acquaintance, p. 20. 3. Interest, p. 21. 4. Participation, p. 24. 5. Vocabulary, p. 30. 6. Ear-training, p. 32. 7. Thought, p. 36. 8. Spontaneous expression, p. 39. 9. Individual expression, p. 39. 10. Reproduction, p. 40. 11. Picture-reading, p. 41. 12. Dramatization, p. 42. 13. Oral reproduction — literal version, p. 47-

14. Oral reproduction — individual version, p. 52.

15. Oral adaptation, p. 54. 16. Oral composition — description, p. 55. 17. Description and exposition — individual work, p. 57. 18. Oral composition — imaginative narration, p. 58. 19. Narration, p. 60. 20. Picture story, p. 63.

IV. The play impulse, p. 63.

V. The correction op errors in written work, p. 71.

VI. The point op view, p. 77.

Chapter II. Obal Language Wobk In Gsade Ib

(First Term's Work.) I. Acquaintance, p. 88. Learning names, p. 90.

II. Vocabulary — 1. Woman, boy, girl, p. 92. 2. Review, p. 92. 3. Pictures, p. 92. 4. Making a picture, p. 93. 5. A cutting lesson, p. 93. 6. A pasting lesson, p. 94. 7. Seat-M^ork, p. 94. 8. Man, p. 95. 9. Girls, boys, p. 95. 10. Men, women, p. 95. 11. Review, p. 95 12. Composing a picture, p. 98. 13. A home, p. 99. 14. Courtesies, p. 99. 15. Action words, p. 99 16. Names of objects, p. 100. 17. S form of verbs, p. 100. 18. Can, cannot, can't, p. 101. 19. Do, does, does not, doesn't, p. 101. 20. Size, shape, color, etc., p. 103. 21. Reading vocabulary, p. ]03.

III. Oral expression — 1. Picture reading, p. 104. 2. Dramatizing a story, p. 105. 3. Reproduction — literal version, composite version, p. 105.

Chapter III. Wsitten Language In Gsade Ib

(First Term's Work.) Aim of seat-work exercises, p. 107.

Seat-work exercises — I. Recognition of words of rhyme, p. 108. II., III. Building the rhymes from memory, p. 110. IV. Building the rhymes with letters, p. 112. V. Dictated sentences, p. 113. VI. Building individual sentences with seat-word cards, p. 113. VII Individual sentences built with letters, p. 120.

Chapter III. — Continued.

Standards for good work, p. 121.

Inspection and correction of seat-work, p, 122. Care of seat-work materiai;, p. 123.

Securing good results, p. 125.

Chapter IV. Language Ivoek In Gbade I A

(Second Term's Work.) Review and application of previous work, p. 127.

Aims in oral work, p. 128.

Aims in seat- work, p. 129.

Seat -WORK exercises (continued from Chapter III) — VIII. Word-building, p. 131. IX. Pupil's name, p. 147. X. Using the reader as a dictionary, p. 147. XL Building original sentences with the printed letters, p. 148. XII. Silent reading with oral response, p. 149. XIII. Silent reading with seat-work response, p. 153. Correction of seat-work, p. 154. Sentences confined to one subject, p. 155. Illustrative sentences, p. 156. XIV. Working from topics, p. 165. Oral exercises — 1. Introduction of topics, p. 166. 2. Application of topics, p. 166. 3. Studying the sentences to secure variety, p. 168. XV. Seat-work. Description from topics, p. 171. Description of a fruit, p. 171. Illustrative sentences, p. 175. XVI. Reproduction, p. 177. XVII. Picture-reading. Free expression, p. 178. Illustrative sentences, p. 179.

Chapter IV. — Continued.

Obstacles to good work, p. 180.

Means of securing good work, p. 181.

Testing for good work, p. 182.

Essentials for accomplishing the work outlined, p. 183.

Outlines for Language Work in Primary Grades.

While these outlines have been prepared for the schools of New Bedford they are in no sense to be considered as instructions to be followed here under compulsion. They are the outcome of many conferences with teachers and of requests that the suggestions offered in these conferences might be put into permanent form. The didactic style chosen, which seemed the most direct and compact way of conveying the information requested, may suggest an arbitrary imposition of methods and devices but no such compulsion is intended. The following pages contain suggestions and directions which have been followed by many teachers with successful results and are now offered in this form with the hope that others may find them useful not only in throwing light upon the aims and results outlined in the course of study but by showing at least one welltrodden path by which these aims may be followed and these results reached.

Teachers who use these outlines are requested to look for the "Why?" which underlies each direction given and to substitute in practice any plan by which the pupils can gain the same results by easier or shorter paths, bearing always in mind that no method, of and by itself, will give any specified results. The method is merely a tool which must be wielded and guided by the teacher's mind and, as is the case with every workman and his tools, the results will be commensurate with the worker's intelligence and skill.

Chapter I. LANGUAGE IX THE PRIMARY GRADES

/. Evidences of lack of success in teaching oral language.

To the question, "What seems to be the chief hindrance in the teaching of oral language!" the replies may vary somewhat in phrasing but almost without exception they voice but one idea, "The children won't talk." "I can't get the pupils to talk." Perhaps no other recitation brings such discouragement to the teacher as does the attempt to secure good results in an oral lesson in language. In addition to the pupil's unwillingness to speak at all, the teacher is confronted with the monosyllabic replies which bring the oft-repeated injunction, "Make a complete sentence." In the rare instances in which the pupil speaks freely his inaccuracy in the use of the English tongue is often accompanied by such imperfect articulation and poor quality of tone that the teacher finds it hard to choose her first point of attack in correcting his mistakes. Usually she takes up each error in turn with the result that all spontaneity is nipped in the bud and each succeeding oral language exercise becomes more dreaded by teacher and pupil. Sometimes a teacher thinks she has found the way out of the difficulty by drilling the pupils in the responses she expects them to make and consoles herself with the reflection that their statements are accurate and are expressed in good English though they may not be the spontaneous expression of the pupil's own thought. But as a result of this she finds her pupils even less ready in spontaneous expression.

II. Causes of lack of success.

To the query, "What are some of the chief causes of this failure to secure voluntary speech on the part of the child?" the answers vary somewhat. The teacher of the foreign-born child feels that the pupils' lack of knowledge of the English language is an insurmountable obstacle in the oral language exercise, while the teacher of native-born pupils equally unwilling to talk will answer frankly, "I don't knoAv the cause." It is a well known fact that little children pick up a new language with surprising rapidity if they have the opportunity to hear and to speak it constantly. If it be true that the pupils' ignorance of the language is such a bar to thought and expression then there rests upon the teacher of these classes the imperative duty to teach the pupils to speak English before any other language work is attempted. We must grant that these children sometimes appear to be wrapped in a mantle of ignorance which resists every effort of the teacher to penetrate to their intelligeuce. May not this be due in part to the power of suggestion? The doubt of the pupil's power which the teacher so frankly voices to visitors cannot fail to react unfavorably upon the pupil's confidence in his own ability.

Many instances of these inhibitions by suggestion may be found in a day's visit to the classrooms, but other inhibitions have their effect in robbing the pupils of a desire to speak freely in school. An unsympathetic attitude on the part of the teacher, too many commands and prohibitions, an insistence upon a rigid routine of procedure without explanation of its purpose, each of these tends inevitably to the inhibition of individual thought and speech on the part of the pupils. Some one has illustrated the effect of this inhibition by quoting the remark of a teacher. "My children are always wellbehaved for they know I ivon't stand any nonsense, but they are the dumhest set you ever saw!"

Another frequent cause of unwillingness to speak freely in the schoolroom is the pupil's fear of offending the teacher's more refined standards of speech, and this is increasingly in evidence as the pupils grow older and is particularly noticeable in boys whose out-of-school time is spent mainly upon the streets. The fear that some familiar but questionable word or phrase ma^' slip out- — and not infrequently it does slip out if the child is speaking freely — prompts him to seek safety in silence.

Another cause of the pupil's unreadiness to talk freely is a mental inertia which is the result of out-of-school environment. In many cities the majority of the pupils in the lower grades come from homes in which the adults are workers and not thinkers. In some families both parents spend long hours away from home in exhausting toil, returning at night too tired to think beyond the range of their immediate imperative needs or duties even though possessed of minds capable of enjoying reading and thought ; in such a home the child learns to work with hands and body, but to stand still and think, as he is required to do at school, is a new art to him and one which must be patiently taught.

This art can be approached only through the pupil's interest, his interest in the subject under discussion or his interest in the mental progress he is making. It is the absence of interest that marks so many recitations in which the pupils stand before their teacher listless, unresisting, patient, bored, responding briefly when forced to do so but in the main mentally deaf and blind to the teacher's instruction. It is chiefly to these two causes, mental inertia and lack of interest, rather than to ignorance of the language, that we may trace the foreign-born pupil's failure to respond to the teacher's instruction. Awaken the pupils' interest and they will surprise the teacher with their ability to follow her directions.

Children are proverbially quick to interpret the meaning hidden in the remarks of adults even when the latter resort to the use of a foreign tongue or to spelling the words when they seek to hide their meaning. It is also said that little children can often read the mind of the adult regardless of the words he uses. But each of these is true only when the child desires to read the message. When the foreign-born pupil's interest is aroused the teacher's inflections, her gestures, the rapport existing between her mind and the pupil's.

will often convey the meaning of her words in spite of the child's ignorance of the language in which she speaks. Hence the chief essential in classes of foreign-born pupils is a friendly relation between teacher and pupil and a subject which interests them both.

Two serious barriers to the pupil's freedom of speech in the recitation are built by his lack of practice in speaking in the schoolroom and by the natural self-consciousness resulting from the size of the audience. The remedy for the second difficulty is to make the oral language groups quite small at first, increasing them to include possibly a third of the class when the pupils have become sufficiently acquainted to feel at ease in the larger group. In the lower grades an oral language exercise with the entire class is usually a waste of time as far as practice in oral language is concerned. The remedy for the other difficulty mentioned is harder to apply. It consists in curtailing the time occupied by the teacher in talking and in giving the pupils more opportunity to talk. It is probable that, without exception, we would be startled if in a reproduction of one of our oral recitations w^e could count the number of words spoken by the teacher and those spoken by the class. Stenographic reports have been made showing high percents for the teacher's share.

Again, the exceedingly low standards concerning the mental activity required of the pupils in these exercises tends to reduce the out-put. We are content to have him say instead of requiring him to tell. To tell means to communicate, to impart, while to say means to recite, to utter or express in words. Telling implies comprehension, the presentation of a thought which the pupil has made his own or a statement which he understands and accepts. The teacher who allows her pupils to say instead of requiring them to tell may be recognized by her practice of passing her question to another child when the first child questioned fails to give the expected answer. Wlien this answer is secured she feels that her purpose is accomplished, and though she may administer reproof or other correction to the pupil who failed, she neglects her opportunity and her responsibility in the matter of the mental activity which is the main reason for the recitation. If with each failure she probes to find its cause, if the pupil knows and expects that he alone will be held responsible for the answer to any question asked him, if he recognizes that no state of masterly inactivity will enable him to evade the work required, that no more gifted or more faithful pupil will be asked to furnish the answer he failed to give, and if he knows that this probing for the cause of his failure is intended to be both sympathetic and helpful, not infrequently this process will result in a gain in the mental ability which will surprise not only the pupil himself but his teacher as well.

"But this takes so much time!" protests the teacher. As well might w^e say, "It takes too much time to mend the hole in the purse, the leak in the water-canteen, the break in the mechanism of the machine," for as long as these are allow^ed to continue our most strenuous efforts fail to produce results. We continue the futile method which secures answers from only the bright children and leaves the dull child still duller, when the habit of insisting upon personal responsibility from each pupil will not only develop mental ability but -will in the end result in a saving of time which will profit both bright pupils and duller ones.

One more cause of our failure to secure results in oral language lies in the practice of using the oral language period merely as a means of preparation for the written work which is to follow immediately. No practice more injurious to indiAdduality in oral or written work could be devised. This oral preparation as usually conducted sets a mold and prevents originality in the written work which follows it.

Sometimes teachers are so blinded to the unfortunate effects of this preparation that they will accept an entire class set of papers identical in word and thought. When these are presented for inspection as "good papers" they indicate clearly that the teacher's aim is narrowed to include only the mechanical phases of the work, faithful reproduction, technical correctness, and good penmanship, and that she is ignoring the chief aim of all language work, i. e., training the pupil to think and to express his thoughts in his own words.

This aim does not exclude the lesser aim, technical accuracy and good penmanship. Good oral work will furnish an excellent preparation for all written work, in fact, in primary grades good written Avork can rarely be secured without previous oral presentation, but this preparation should seek to secure individual thought and expression in written work from each pupil.

An illustration of the difference existing between these two aims may be found in the methods of two second grade teachers. Each is preparing a set of written papers describing a flower. One teacher selects the daisy as the subject of the paper and in an oral exercise gives the preparation she thinks the pupils may need for the written work. This includes the spelling of such words as daisy, field, color, flower, white, and the oral discussion of such topics as the name of the flower, where it grows, what color it is, etc. The pupils write from these topics and, naturally, each paper states with but few verbal changes, ' ' This is a daisy. It grows in the fields. The color of this flower is white." No other result could be expected or required under these conditions. It has sometimes happened that a visiting official has interrupted this plan just as the pupils were taking pencils to write and has substituted a red rose or some other flower at hand, requesting the children to write about that flower instead of about the daisy. Both teacher and pupils are disturbed, the teacher protesting that "they haven't had any preparation for describing the rose." The pupils write doubtfully, frequently asking for help, not only for the spelling of words but for facts. Some trust blindly to the previous preparation and write confidently, "This is a rose. It grows in the fields. The color of the flower is white, ' ' knowing that these sentences were what they were expected to write when the visitor interrupted the exercise.

The second teacher's plan difl'ers materially. As a part of the oral work of the grade the pupils had for weeks been playing the game of ' ' Guess What " as a nature review. This was played by calling some child before the class to describe a flower, tree, insect, bird, or other animal without giving its name. If he had chosen a flower he used the topics, "color, height of stem, where it grows," etc. and having completed his description, asked, "What is its name?" Another phase of the preparation given was found in the exercises in oral spelling in which the children volunteered to spell hard words they knew. It required only a hint from the teacher to introduce into these spelling lists the names of the flowers recognized in the nature lesson and such words as roadside, meadow, field, garden, swamp, to describe the locality where they were found. The nature records consisted chiefly of lists upon the blackboard and of crayon drawings by the pupils. These drawings served later as a means of recognition and review.

Having received this previous training the pupils are now ready to take up the oral preparation needed for a written description of a flower. The teacher displays as many different flowers as it is convenient to procure and supplements the supply with the pupils' crayon drawings of flowers previously studied. The aim of the coming written exercise, to describe a flower, is explained to the children and they are asked to suggest the topics it would be well to use. They supply these from their memory of the guessing game and other exercises and are careful to use only the topics which would apply to the description of any flower. Each child is then asked to select some flower and to use the name of the flower as the title of his paper, the selections being made ^^ithout any oral expression. Each child then mentally reviews the topics, selecting those he considers most appropriate to the flower he has chosen, but not attempting to include all the topics in his description. (Four topics out of six or seven would be a good selection as far as the length of the paper is concerned. Too many topics to select from are not so helpful as a smaller number more definitely outlined).

His next step is to consider what help he- may need in spelling or in other ways and to ask for it before he begins to write. His earlier preparation has covered most of the points on wliieh he might ask for assistance and his request ■may indicate a lack of self-confidence rather than a real need. While encouraging self-confidence and self -direction by telling the pupil very little, referring him to the word-families in spelling, to his earlier experiences or to his textbook when he can find the desired information there, the teacher stands ready to give any help he cannot gain by his own efi'orts.

These pupils are now ready to write the description of any flower they can recognize and the resulting papers will be marked by an individuality that is the product of the pupil's intelligence, information, and power of expression. Not only has he produced a good paper but he has acquired all that the pupils of the other class lacked when they were found unable to write about a red rose because, too truly, "they had had no preparation for it."

In this second class of pupils the child Avho wrote about a daisy may have produced a paper which Avould appear to be no better than any one of the papers on the daisy written by the pupils of the class first described. The value of the second papers is disclosed only Avlien the entire set is considered. When we contrast the variety of phrasing, each accurately applied, "by the roadside," "in the woods," with the poverty shown in the first papers, each with its reiterated "in the fields," used automatically whether correct or not, we get a glimpse of how a set of papers should be read. An isolated written paper rarely shows either the aim or the method of the exercise, it merely shows a result which may have been obtained in one of several ways, some of them legitimate, others not.

It is in our estimate of results that we may find the fundamental cause of our lack of success in teaching language and of the low standards which our narrow aims have forced upon us. In all the history of education until the present, scholarship has been the chief aim of the schools and all results of instruction were estimated in terms of scholarship. The acquisition of learning regardless of what use the student might make of it in future years was the purpose of the instruction in all elementary schools, and the aim of school discipline was conceived to l)e to prevent interference with this acquisition of knowledge, no matter what the pupil might be and do so long as his acts and character did not interfere with the required routine of the school. It is but fair to say that many notable exceptions have been found among the teachers of all times and the standards of these men and women of higher ideals have advanced the theories of education during and after the times in which they lived.

But in practice the schools were judged by the scholars they produced, not by the men and women of character and efficiency they had helped to mold, and the administration of discipline, the ranking system, promotions and diplomas were considered solely with a view to their relation to the amount of knowledge to be acquired. The ordinary acceptation of the term education meant knowledge, learning, facts acquired from books.

The present day interpretation of the term includes all this but it means vastly more. Knowledge, instead of being the end and aim of education, is but the tool by which it is wrought, indispensable, but useless unless properly tempered, adapted to the worker's hand, and wielded by him. But methods have much inertia and practice frequently lags behind them.

The present day uncertainty in methods, standards, and measurements is due to the fact that the modern change in point of view is of but recent development and that the thinkers and the doers must blaze the trail before the followers take up the work and convert trails into main traveled lines.

III. Requirements needed to secure oral language training.

1. Favorahle environment.

These requirements are merely the reverse of the causes of failure. If as a rule children do not usually speak freely in the presence of strangers but will chatter for hours with those they Imow intimately, if they usually remain silent under criticism and antagonism, if they lose interest when they are compelled to be onlookers for much of the time, if a lack of knowledge of the English tongue is a bar to their comprehension of the teacher's instruction, then the remedy is clearly indicated. In the following pages exercises intended to furnish the required conditions are outlined step by step. It is needless to state that unless the teacher perceives the purpose of each step, unless she furnishes the sympathetic environment, the atmosphere which encourages spontaneous expression, and unless she adapts each step to the needs of her pupils, satisfactory results cannot be expected.

No mechanical attempts to furnish these requirements will accomplish the work. These requirements demand on the teacher's part a purpose, a state of mind, a definite aim, an ability to estimate results and a personal individual interest in each pupil, — conditions which no mere method can furnish though it may help to secure them. Even in the lowest grades the teacher does not need to resort to the vivacity of manner which frequently degenerates into gush, she does not need to use terms of affection and endearment (though every woman who loves children finds it hard to refrain from showing her feeling in this way), she does not need to make each recitation a period of entertainment, nor does she need to spend long hours out of school in the preparation of instructive seat-work or to use any portion of her salary in its purchase.

On the contrary, the recognition of the reasons for failure to secure good results in oral language discloses the fact that half the difficulty will be solved when the teacher learns to refrain. If she wishes spontaneous expression from her pupils she must put herself to school and learn, first of all, to talk less herself and to allow her pupils more opportunity for speech. She must refrain from making her discipline conspicuous, from impatient or unfriendly comment, from unreasonable or arbitrary commands, from punishments which are based upon the pupil's acts and not upon his motives or his needs. She must refrain from appropriating to herself the opportunities, too few at best, for physical relaxation through supplying the pupils' needs in the matter of paper, pencils, crayon, etc., since not only do the pupils who may be assigned to attend to these matters gain the refreshment which comes from the physical activity, but they gain in efficiency and in feeling more at ease and at home in their surroundings. Not all the pupils can be given a share in the work at each recitation, the others may be required to sit in position while it is being done, but it should be recognized that too much "sitting in position" is an excellent preparation for a state of passive inactivity on the pupil's part in the recitation which follows.

The teacher who insists upon an arbitrary and elaborate routine of filing, dismissals, and other matters of administration without explanation or discussion of the purpose or the value of the exercise is training her pupils toward a state of unthinking, silent acquiescence which will not only check the promptings of thought but Avill help them to regard school as something apart from their lives and interests.

On the positive side the teacher who explains and discusses with her pupils the best ways of eliminating confusion, waste of time and of energy, and the best ways of securing safety and efficiency in the administration of the routine matters of the class room has provided not only a good oral exercise in thought and individual expression but has helped to create the friendly relation which is the first requisite of good oral work. If to this she adds friendly greetings in school and out of school, story-telling, dramatization, and unfailing courtesy, patience, justice and truth in all dealings with her pupils, she needs only to add a personal interest in the welfare and progress of each child and she will find that the dullest and most hopeless among them will not fail to respond. Her work consists in so planning and conducting the exercises of the school that each day this response grows more spontaneous, more thoughtful and more accurate ; and until she has removed all the impediments mentioned above she should hold herself responsible for her pupils' failure to respond and to progress. This may seem a severe arraignment but it is so uniformly the result observed in every classrooin where the causes of success or failure to create a sympathetic environment have been studied that the conclusion is warranted.

2. Acquaintance.

Exercises to secure acquaintance should find a place in the oral langnage recitations during the first days or weeks of the new term, especially in the lowest grade where the pupils are not only strangers to each other but strangers to school life in all its aspects. Not a little of the feeling of strangeness may be removed if the teacher is careful to illustrate the meaning of each order she gives during these first days. A lesson for us is contained in the remark of the little girl who boasted to her mother at the end of her first day of school, "I can do everything the teacher tells us to do but only just one thing. I can't do that yet for I don't know how to do it. Wlien the teacher tells us to ' Sit-a-wreck ' I watch the other children to see if I can find out how they do it, but I haven't yet." "Wliat do you do?" her mother asked. The reply w^as, "Oh, I clasp my hands and sit up tall the way the other children are doing and the teacher hasn't found out yet that I can't 'Sit-a-wreck.' " And a neM^comer in one of our classes asked her mother, "Wliat makes the teacher look at me and say, 'Cigarette'?"