Word: orally
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...oral-aural method started under strange conditions. Just before the outbreak of World War II, the American Council of Learned Societies attempted to find a better way to teach esoteric languages, such as Mongolian or Hindi. With a paucity of teachers understanding these tongues, the Council hit upon the use of tape recorders and a direct approach to the language: Submerge the student in an atmosphere of the language from the very first by use of a recorded master voice and let him absorb the language gradually as does a child. This experiment rapidly expanded, however, with the start...
...training to become language teachers") concerned with lower-level German instruction. Stein came to Harvard convinced of the value of the direct method of instruction, and in the last year he has made several significant changes within the department. Most important, of course, is the establishment of the oral-aural system for German sections...
...oral-aural method, however, has not been limited exclusively to a few but has been adopted to a certain extent in most language classes. For example, Stein has completely revamped German B this year. Using a text published only a few months ago, based upon sucessful linguistic studies, members of the course commit a basic reading to memory, learning grammar to a large extent by osmosis. Learning becomes a "dynamic process." Sections in German B are conducted almost entirely in German, although the course is specifically intended to help students gain a greater reading than speaking knowledge; from the very...
...perfect German. "I definitely do not want my students to translate the question into English, formulate an answer, and then translate this back into German; I want them to think directly in German," Stein states. Although it is yet too early to evaluate the success of this limited oral-aural approach in reading courses, the new method certainly represents an advance over the tedious--and less educational--process of grammatical exposition. With the rapid fire of question and answer, classes become both challenging and interesting...
Repetition enters into the classroom as well as into the language lab. After all, the exponents of the oral-aural method state, a child learns his language habits only through constant exposure to and practice of a single tongue. The child does not think consciously, "Does this preposition take the dative case? Is the definite article placed before or after the past participle? What is the gender of this noun?" Rather, he learns almost instinctively what is correct and what is not. And it is precisely this sort of semi-innate knowledge which the direct method seeks to inculate...