Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

nation that the initial p is made by opening the lips and that the final 'p' is made by closing them. Remembering, is also essential to the language-learning process; we "internalize" the systemic noises we learn and can utilize them long after our first experience with them. What are the best conditions for language learning to take place? Obviously, for learning your first language, the only possible condition is to be an infant. We have all heard e.xperts state that we can learn a language just as a child does, the "natural" way. Don't believe it! We cannot leani as a child does: whereas a cliild has no pre-established linguistic (or other) behavior patterns, we do have a very rigid set of habits and what we learn to do while adding a different set of habits will always constitute an overlay and an interference. After the child goes to school, we teach him about English, although we call it English teaching. We teach him about different kinds of English: we tell liim he should not sav "hunh," we tell him he should lot say "he come over last night," and so forth. We instill in the school child the notion of usage, a con ept which involves the choice of a more acceptable pattern over a less acceptable one. There is nothing ,vrong with the concept of "correctness," but it does ead to a confusion as to the nature of language. Usage and "correctness" are essentially problems f prescription and they ignore description. For ex imple, how do you make nouns plural in English? Vdd an s. Everyone who has been to school can tell ou that. Now let us talk about speech. Using non ense words, which will evidence that we are apply ng a rule: one "teyz," two "teyzes;" one "blawp," wo "blawps;" one "driy," two 'driys." We can all agree in what the plural forms of these nonsense nouns re. Rewriting them so that the sounds are consistently epresented, we discover: Singular /blawp/ /teyz/ /driv/ Plural /blawp s/ /teyz iz/ /driy z/ Without making a deiaileii analysis, we can sec already that the pattern for English plurals includes three endings. Here is the rule: 1 ) after sibilants and affricates ( the final sounds in words like base, buzz, bash, beige, hatch, and badge), we add the noise /-iz/; 2) after voiceless consonants (the final sounds in words like slap, slat, slack, slough, sloth), we add the noise /-s/; 3) after every other sound, we add the noise /-z/. Without being able to formulate the above rule, we have just proved that we are all able to apply it. If we were adults learning English, the rule could be very useful, whereas the traditional rule of adding s would not only be useless but inexact. Excepting the relatively few unpredictable plurals such as women, men, children, geese, etc., our rule lias accounted for the plural formations in English speech. Of course, you do not need the formulated rule in order to speak English, but the man who prepares a course in English as a foreign language does need that rule, which has implicit in it that the texts you learn mus-t come into your ear rather than into your eye, since language is speech. The Application When there is no native-speaker teacher available, the best place in a school in which to learn a second language becomes not the book nor the traditional grammar-translation classroom, but "the electronic classroom." When there is a native-speaker teacher, the electronic classroom can be an excellent supplement. Even at this primitive stage in the development of courses for teaching speech using audiovisual aids, there exist two books that every language teacher who is willing to admit that language is spoken should know about. One is the Council of Chief State School Officers' Purchase Guide. The other is the September, 1959, issue of Audio-Visual Instruction, which is entirely devoted to the teaching of modern foreign languages.-' Although already out of date by virtue of newer, more refined machinery, they still present the essence of the potential contributions of audiovisual riiattrials and equipment. Not only do these volumes contain sound theoretical information but they explore some of the multitudinous problems of administration, room location, furniture, equipment and costs. The Purchase Guide claims that audio is essential, but visual is not. I would prefer a statement that audio must have priority over visual. Since language learning is primarily noise making, it is more important to project sounds than pictures. If you are teaching French antl not France, then you must have the audio. If you are teaching French and France (and they are Dr. Di'shrrj! 2 Council of Chief State School Officers, Purchase Guttle for Programs in Science. Mathematics, and Modem Foreign Languages (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1959). ^ Audio-Vi.sual Instruction, IV, 6 (September, 1959). t tUL'CATlOINAL SCREE.N AND AuDIOVISLAL GuiDE — ApRIL, 1961 173