Nichols School - Verdian Yearbook (Buffalo, NY)

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J J. HERLAN LANGUAGES A graduate of but a few years ago returning to our foreign language curriculum would find fundamental changes in almost every area of language learning. Gone are the vocabulary sheets C105 of them, remem- ber?J and the grammar sheetsg gone too is translation from one language to another, a technique which took up two thirds of our time in advanced classes, gone are the silent Cnumb'?J students listening to learned lec- tures on grammatical structure Cin English, of coursejg gone is Latin for two years and a foreign language for two years-the smattering which amounted to noth- ing. What have we now? First, an expansion of the cur- riculum at both ends: every sixth grader chooses his foreign language and studies it for a compulsory six years, with a seventh year optional, while at the upper level the long desired fourth year is now offered every year. The effects of this expansion are the delight of the foreign language faculty. Language learners coming into the Upper School have most fundamentals under control, allowing much greater progress in the upper levels. The fourth year courses mean the study of liter- ature and civilization to a degree never possible before. ALBERT R. SUTTER Chairman This year, students of French V are devoting them- selves to an in-depth study of the literature and ideas of the eighteenth century, that glorious flowering which made France the undisputed intellectual leader of the world. Also new is the abandonment of the grammar-trans- lation method of language learning in favor of the audio-lingual method. The philosophy and techniques of the new method are too complicated to describe here. Suflice it to say that each student speaks about one hundred times as much foreign language in one year as former students did in threeg that translation is out, out, out, as is the memorization of columns of words and ffor the first two years, at leastj the study of grammar as an abstract set of rules in lieu of prac- ticing the language itself, that class activities are rapid, varied, and, best of all, as much participated in by the student as by the teacher. From the teacher's point of view, audio-lingual classes are much more fun to teach: something happens, someone speaks, things move. But does the method really work? See the Verdian for '67! Albert R. Sutter 26

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GUY M. JOHNSON, JR. RODNEY F. DASHNAW GEORGE B. TRUSCOTT 25

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