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The art of teaching and studying languages
The art of teaching and studying languages. 444 Pages.
429 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 18, 2024
Charlotte Mason writes glowingly about the works of M. François Gouin on language learning. I was delighted when I got my hands on a reprint a couple years ago.
Gouin is learning a language, German, so he (like so many students in public schools and universities) sits down and learns a whole bunch of grammar. Goes out in public: useless. He can neither understand nor speak. Undaunted, he heads home and *memorizes the whole dictionary*. But still can't understand what's going on around him. So he goes home.
He goes home --and discovers that in the same space where German has defeated him, his young nephew has conquered French! So he studies his nephew, and forms his ideas around immitating nature: after all: save for the most profoundly disabled, EVERYBODY learns at least one language, and we do it fairly effortlessly, before we know anything about studying.
These days, this is called "acquiring" a language, and having studied languages both in the typical classroom manner, and with an eye toward acquiring, let me tell you: acquisition is more pleasant and *worlds* more effective: Miss Mason is right to think M. Gouin's onto something big.
The trouble with the book is that, while the ideas and principles are solid.... it reads like it was written by the sort of man who could memorize a dictionary. It's a slog, and I only read about 3/4 of it. We did use some of his syle of lessons, modeled after the examples in the book. Again: it's a good concept... but it feels like it's designed by a man who could memorize a dictionary. Once I started tweaking it away from a "lessons" mode and toward learning high frequency sentences, things went MUCH better: we started playing Uno, and over a period of about a year enlarged our collection of usable sentences. (The HiNative app was invaluable.) We found long playlists on YouTube in our target language. (You would not believe how much Japanese we've learned watching Minecraft videos.)
So. If I was grading on principles alone, I'd probably give him 4 stars: the keys to the language learning universe are in this book. It's just that they're gonna require so. much. patience. to actually get through and dig them out: I feel generous giving him 2 stars for readability. Which I guess works out to 3 stars.
Gouin is learning a language, German, so he (like so many students in public schools and universities) sits down and learns a whole bunch of grammar. Goes out in public: useless. He can neither understand nor speak. Undaunted, he heads home and *memorizes the whole dictionary*. But still can't understand what's going on around him. So he goes home.
He goes home --and discovers that in the same space where German has defeated him, his young nephew has conquered French! So he studies his nephew, and forms his ideas around immitating nature: after all: save for the most profoundly disabled, EVERYBODY learns at least one language, and we do it fairly effortlessly, before we know anything about studying.
These days, this is called "acquiring" a language, and having studied languages both in the typical classroom manner, and with an eye toward acquiring, let me tell you: acquisition is more pleasant and *worlds* more effective: Miss Mason is right to think M. Gouin's onto something big.
The trouble with the book is that, while the ideas and principles are solid.... it reads like it was written by the sort of man who could memorize a dictionary. It's a slog, and I only read about 3/4 of it. We did use some of his syle of lessons, modeled after the examples in the book. Again: it's a good concept... but it feels like it's designed by a man who could memorize a dictionary. Once I started tweaking it away from a "lessons" mode and toward learning high frequency sentences, things went MUCH better: we started playing Uno, and over a period of about a year enlarged our collection of usable sentences. (The HiNative app was invaluable.) We found long playlists on YouTube in our target language. (You would not believe how much Japanese we've learned watching Minecraft videos.)
So. If I was grading on principles alone, I'd probably give him 4 stars: the keys to the language learning universe are in this book. It's just that they're gonna require so. much. patience. to actually get through and dig them out: I feel generous giving him 2 stars for readability. Which I guess works out to 3 stars.
August 13, 2015
I was surprised by how entertaining it was in the beginning, for a book on teaching foreign language. But I have to admit I am starting to glaze over as he goes through the technicals.
This mother tongue philosophy is one I am found of as I am a fan of the Suzuki method and Andrew Peduwa's writing method. And if you didn't already know, Gouin's method is what Charlotte Mason used and endorsed. Gouin struggled with learning languages as an educated man, yet humorously expressed childish jealousy when seeing children pick it up so quickly while playing.
I am encouraged by the method's ease of execution. It's simple, natural, flexible, and can be easily tailored to the needs of the child. Prep time is minimal. The way it taps into the imagination is powerful.
The Gouin method is mostly oral/audio. It uses logical sequences to engage the imagination while speaking. A sample sequence would be:
I approach the door, I approach;
I open the door, I open;
I step through the door, I step;
I close the door, I close.
Or
the seed is planted;
the seed is watered;
the seed sprouted...
These sequences are recited and the child can visualize or even act out the sequence. The emphasis is in the action verbs, but can be applied elsewhere by manipulating the sentence structure or tense.
That is the objective aspect of the lesson. The subjective half is when the teacher provides feedback like "very good","what happens next", "please go on." This all spoken in the target language of course.
My littles and I are doing these sequences in German. They like to think of topics and help with the writing process, as they always respond well to any invitation to contribute input, partnering with me in their educational endeavors. We are also translating simple, repetitive books from the thrift store like Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Ask Mr. Bear. I simply write the translation under the words with a sharpie. I add the children's book translations for reading aloud to my children as extra immersion. They are not doing any reading or writing at this point, but I think we could get to it quickly with these sequences. They are 7 and 5. I plan to guide my 15-year-old through this too.
Overall, I have gained some very valuable knowledge. So even if you never get to this book, I highly recommend looking into the method!
This mother tongue philosophy is one I am found of as I am a fan of the Suzuki method and Andrew Peduwa's writing method. And if you didn't already know, Gouin's method is what Charlotte Mason used and endorsed. Gouin struggled with learning languages as an educated man, yet humorously expressed childish jealousy when seeing children pick it up so quickly while playing.
I am encouraged by the method's ease of execution. It's simple, natural, flexible, and can be easily tailored to the needs of the child. Prep time is minimal. The way it taps into the imagination is powerful.
The Gouin method is mostly oral/audio. It uses logical sequences to engage the imagination while speaking. A sample sequence would be:
I approach the door, I approach;
I open the door, I open;
I step through the door, I step;
I close the door, I close.
Or
the seed is planted;
the seed is watered;
the seed sprouted...
These sequences are recited and the child can visualize or even act out the sequence. The emphasis is in the action verbs, but can be applied elsewhere by manipulating the sentence structure or tense.
That is the objective aspect of the lesson. The subjective half is when the teacher provides feedback like "very good","what happens next", "please go on." This all spoken in the target language of course.
My littles and I are doing these sequences in German. They like to think of topics and help with the writing process, as they always respond well to any invitation to contribute input, partnering with me in their educational endeavors. We are also translating simple, repetitive books from the thrift store like Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Ask Mr. Bear. I simply write the translation under the words with a sharpie. I add the children's book translations for reading aloud to my children as extra immersion. They are not doing any reading or writing at this point, but I think we could get to it quickly with these sequences. They are 7 and 5. I plan to guide my 15-year-old through this too.
Overall, I have gained some very valuable knowledge. So even if you never get to this book, I highly recommend looking into the method!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews