Lakeside Languages: 2013

Revisiting Francois Gouin's Series Method of Language Learning.
Presented by Teresa Knudsen. terryk@mfwi.edu

Spokane Regional ESL Conference.
Saturday, February 23, 2013.
Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute. Spokane, WA

Page 1

This session revisits the Series Method of teaching and learning languages, developed by Francois Gouin (1831 to 1896). Presentation includes the background and principles of the method, followed by examples of updated applications for modern classrooms. Additional discussion explores the benefits of providing students with linked, related sentences and readings. Paper / report (45 min)

L’Art d’Enseigner et d’Etudier les Langues. (The Art of Teaching and Studying Languages.) Francois Gouin. Second Edition. George Philip and Son.

https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=SbI8AQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en

Language teachers strive to create optimal learning conditions, materials, and methodologies to enhance their students' language acquisition. Yet, many reading, listening, and grammar materials include exercises that do not link to each other, or build, but instead present a haphazard set of sentences, or short, unrelated readings.

Sample of Non-Series Language Task:

This book is about grammar. It’s a grammar book.

My garden has vegetables. It’s a ______________________.

The soup has beans. It’s _____________________________.

I read a lot of articles in magazines. I read a lot of __________________________.

The factory makes toys. It’s a ___________________________.

The villages are in the mountains. They are _______________________________.

Fundamentals of English Grammar. Betty Azar. Pearson-Longman. 2011. P. 162.
Note that many other of Azar's examples are sequential.

Other examples can include placement tests, pre and post grammar tests, and achievement tests such as TOEFL and TOEIC.

Page 2

Francois Gouin (1831 to 1896) a French teacher of Latin, was one of the first formal language learners to write about using connected ideas to learn languages.

In an effort to learn German, he moved to Hamburg, holed up in his lodgings, and began studying German by using the same method that he used to teach Latin:
the “classical process” using a grammar book, a dictionary, and practicing translation. (Page 10).

· Gouin memorized 248 irregular German verbs.

· He memorized German grammar books.

After a few weeks, Gouin felt confident that he had learned the language, and visited a German university to try out his newly acquired knowledge. He reports on the result:

“But alas! In vain did I strain my ears; in vain my eye strove to interpret the slightest movements of the lips of the professor; in vain I passed from the first classroom to a second; not a word, not a single word would penetrate to my understanding. Nay more than this, I did not even distinguish a single one of the grammatical forms so newly studied; I did not recognize even a single one of the irregular verbs just freshly learnt, though they certainly must have fallen in crowds from the lips of the speaker.” (p. 11).

Refusing to give up, Gouin returned to his room, and planned his next study:

· He memorized 800 German word roots.

· He translated German writers, such as Goethe and Schiller.

Gouin then returned to the university to test his additional knowledge:

“Imagine then, if it be possible, the astonishment at first, then the stupefaction, then the degradation by which I was overtaken after the first quarter of an hour at the lecture I attended, when I had to submit to the evidence, and to confess to myself that I was, so far as regards the spoken language, exactly in the same state as upon the first day; that I did not understand a word, not a syllable, and that all my efforts had been made in pure waste, or at least had produced no appreciable result. This was no longer a mere deception--it was a failure; nay, more than this, it was a defeat…For the first time in my life I dared to question the efficacy of the classical methods of the university. (p. 14 and 16).

“Alas! I can say it now; it all depended upon a very small error. I had simply mistaken the organ. The organ of language--ask the little child--is not the eye; it is the ear. The eye is made for colours, and not for sounds and words. Now all I had hitherto learnt, I had learnt by the eye. The word was in my eye and not in my ear. The fact expressed by it had not penetrated to, was not graven upon, my intellectual substance, had never been received by my faculty of representation. This was why I was deaf though yet I heard, and both deaf and dumb though I was able to speak. Fool that I had been! I had studied by the eye, and I wished to understand by my ears.” (p.33).

Page 3

Gouin’s epiphany came when returned to France and saw that his 3-year-old nephew had learned French, seemingly effortlessly.

Gouin saw that his nephew was curious about the world, wanted to know the names of everything and asked questions about how things worked. After learning vocabulary and gaining knowledge, the nephew would play, re-enact the learning situation, and discuss the experience.

“This language, so living and so thoroughly real, within the power of such a tiny mortal, handled with so much ease, applied to everything with so much surety, so much precision, so much relevancy--this phenomenon could not but strike me forcibly. It was impossible not to make a comparison at once between the child and myself, his process and my own.”

“What!” I thought, “this child and I have been working for the same time, each at a language. He playing round his mother, running after flowers, butterflies, and birds, without weariness, without apparent effort, without even being conscious of his work, is able to say all he things, express all he sees, understand all he hears…” (p. 34).

“The classical method, with its grammar, its dictionary, and its translations, is a delusion--nothing but a delusion. Nature knows and applies another method. Her method is infallible; this is an undeniable , indisputable fact…” (p. 35).

“To perceive anything, we must first have light upon it. Falsehood cannot be well distinguished but in the light of truth…I required a term of comparison. This term of comparison was a better method--in the present case, the method of Nature…”

To surprise Nature’s secret [method], I must watch this child.” (p. 35).

Page 4

Analysis of Gouin’s Series Method

One language specialist, Dr. Ataillah Maleki-Assistant Professor of TEFL at University of Medical Sciences at Zanjan-describes the epiphany that Francois Gouin experienced upon seeing his young nephew, only a young child, learning French rapidly and with great success.

"Observing his three-year-old nephew, Gouin came to the conclusion that language learning is a matter of transforming perceptions into conceptions. Later, he devised a teaching method that was premised upon these insights. The Series Method taught learners directly a series of connected sentences which were easy to understand."

Gouin concluded that language is learned in "series" or in themes. Often the themes are observable and involve the five senses.

Chapter XII

“Transformation of a perception into a conception.” (Page 39). To see with the “mind’s eye. http://archive.org/stream/artofteachingstu00gouirich#page/38/mode/2up

Chapter XIII

http://archive.org/stream/artofteachingstu00gouirich#page/42/mode/2up

Principles of Classification Employed by the Child

Order of Succession in Time

Relation of End to Means
The Incubation
Secret of the Child’s Memory

Explanation of My Failures by Francois Gouin

Avoid working at “hazard” learning in the greatest disorder possible. p. 44

The Art of Learning and Studying Foreign Languages. Francois Gouin. 1880. 1894 Published: London by G. Philip and Son.
http://archive.org/stream/artofteachingstu00gouirich#page/n5/mode/2up

Page 5

Gouin’s Method Involves Sentences and Verbs, the “Soul of the Sentence.”

Chapter XIV

The child assimilates the mother-tongue sentence by sentence, and not word by word
Revelation of the high value of the verb, the “soul of the sentence.”

Series of Verbs
The acorn sprouts
The oak plant takes root.
The shoot sprouts out of the earth.
The sap rises.
The sapling throws out leaves.
The stalk buds.
The stalk blossoms.
The flower blooms.
The fruit forms.
The fruit ripens.
The fruit falls.

Success
Gouin was able to access and produce the target language through the series method.

Concession, addressing opposition:

Didn’t all his previous study of grammar/vocabulary, etc help him?
No, he said it hindered him.
http://archive.org/stream/artofteachingstu00gouirich#page/56/mode/2up

Part Second

Construction and Application of the System

Objective, Subjective, and Figurative.
http://archive.org/stream/artofteachingstu00gouirich#page/60/mode/2up

Page 6

Sequential Learning in Psychology

“Sequential learning is a type of learning in which one part of a task is learnt before the next.
Serial organization is fundamental to human behaviour. Most of our day-to-day activities involve sequencing of actions to achieve a desired goal, from sequencing words to form a sentence, to driving an automobile or following directions on a roadmap, to making a recipe following instructions in a cooking manual (see Sun and Giles 2001). Lashley (1951) has highlighted the ubiquity of sequentiality or serial order in our behaviour

“ ... the coordination of leg movements in insects, the song of birds, the control of trotting and pacing in a gaited horse, the rat running the maze, the architect designing a house, the carpenter sawing a board present a problem of sequences of action ... ”

“Sequential Learning.” http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Sequential_learning

Some Additional Considerations:

Multiple Intelligences from Howard Gardner

The notion that one approach may not work for different types of learners.

Metacognition, Cognition, Affective, and Psychomotor, with Learning Strategies

Knowing that one is applying a specific method to learning.
Selecting cognitive tools for a specific learning task.
Being aware of one’s feelings about a language task.
Being aware of psychomotor influences.

Application of the Series Method using E-Cards

The following is an excerpt from Jacquie Lawson's first Christmas e-card:

“Here is your Christmas Card.

Click on the Stamp to open it. [Use of infinitive]
I’m hoping [that] you will help me to bring my Christmas Card to life.
Click on the chimney to light the fire. [Smoke begins coming out of the chimney.]
Click on the Pear Tree Cottage sign. [A tree appears.]
Lovely! You’ll find candles in the porch. [In the porch, not on the porch]...
From http://www.jacquielawson.com/thecards.asp http://www.jacquielawson.com/cards_christmas.asp http://www.jacquielawson.com/preview.asp?cont=1&hdn=0&pv=3111930&path=83563

Page 7

Application of Gouin’s Series Method through Content:

Story Lines:

Fables, Folk Stories, and Fairy Tales
Films (Drew’s Script-O-Rama. http://www.script-o-rama.com/

http://www.script-o-rama.com/snazzy/dircut.html

Time Lines in Academic Studies:

Social Studies
Geology
Biology
World History
Art History
Theatre History
Costume History

Sample of Film Script for practice with Gouin’s Series Method:

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL

screenplay by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio FIRST DRAFT September 1, 2002

http://www.script-o-rama.com/snazzy/dircut.html

"FADE IN:

EXT. CARIBBEAN SEA - DAY

A gray, impenetrable wall of fog. From somewhere comes the

FAINT SOUND of a LITTLE GIRL'S VOICE, singing, slow tempo,

almost under her breath:

YOUNG ELIZABETH (O.S.)

Yo, ho, yo, ho, a pirate's life for

me. Yo, ho, yo, ho, it's a pirate's

life for me ...

Suddenly a massive SHIP emerges from the grey..."

Page 8

Conclusion
Here are the beginning paragraphs of Gouin’s book:

“The feeling which leads nations to become acquainted with each other and to penetrate farther and farther into each other’s territories is one which it is useless to resist. It is in vain that despotism constructs frontiers bristling with fortresses and cannon; in vain that the spirit of absolutism strives to multiply the germs of discord between nation and nation, and to imprison the races each within the barren confines of its own unhealthy egotism.

Steam and electricity have drawn nations nearer together than were neighboring villages in the olden times. By their means every movement, every aspiration is made known and reported from one to the other, is revealed and published hour by hour. A proximity, an i erpenetration of the nations such as this, renders more imperative day by day the need for mankind to be able to speak to and understand each other, to exchange their ideas and the fruits of their activities.

Unfortunately, however moral and legitimate the demand may be for the complete satisfaction of this need, a barrier is opposed which until now has been almost insurmountable, namely, the difference of language. To what, then, should fall the task of throwing down, or at least of leveling up, this obstacle of Nature? Evidently to science, to teaching, to the school.

Alongside the material railway needed to enable our bodies to communicate, it is absolutely necessary to construct a “mental railway” for the intercourse of minds. This mental railway must take the form of a linguistic method that shall enable a person, by means of the language, to enter into and assimilate the intelligence, and the spirit of a foreign nation, not as now, in a period of ten or twenty years, and in so doing to expend the third part of a lifetime, but in the space between two equinoxes, or, for those of trained will, in the space of a single season. On the day when this new species of locomotive is definitely organized and put at the service of men of thought and will, the brotherhood of nations will cease to be a vain and empty word--a word which Governments laugh to scorn, and peace as well as liberty will perhaps have found their most solid foundation.

Nations would never strive to cut each other’s throats if they understood each other thoroughly, and if a healthy and moral hospitality drew them together. However great the perverse ambition of those who excite the races to make war upon each other, their efforts must inevitably fall to the ground if opposed to a universal league waging a continual crusade in the cause of the most sacred interests of humanity.”

Quotes by Steven Pinker

“Anything that makes it easier to imagine trading places with someone else increases your moral consideration for that other person.”
“The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon. You can see it over millennia, over centuries, over decades and over years.”
“The more you think about and interact with other people, the more you realize that it is untenable to privilege your interests over theirs.”
“We are probably living in the most peaceful time in our species’ existence.”

http://www.ted.com/speakers/steven_pinker.html

1. Podcast: Steven Pinker on Violence and Human Nature

www.socialsciencespace.com/.../podcast-steven-pinker-on-violence-a...

Nov 1, 2012 – Is the world getting less violent? It seems unlikely. But Steven Pinker has amassed empirical evidence to show that it is. In this interview with ...

2. Steven Pinker: the optimistic voice of science | Observer profile ...

www.guardian.co.uk › From the Observer › The Observer profile

Sep 18, 2011 – Which may be a problem for Steven Pinker, who has dedicated much of ... that we – the human race – are becoming progressively less violent.

3. The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker - review | Books ...

www.guardian.co.uk › Culture › Books › Book of the week

Sep 22, 2011 – We are less violent than we used to be, argues Steven Pinker. David Runciman is convinced.

4. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined ...

www.amazon.com › Books › History

Rating: 4.1 - 81 reviews - $26.40 - In stock

In this startling new book, the bestselling cognitive scientist Steven Pinker shows ..... In other words, at the same time we're becoming less violent,

REFERENCES

The Art of Learning and Studying Foreign Languages. Francois Gouin. 1880. 1894 Published: London by G. Philip and Son
http://archive.org/stream/artofteachingstu00gouirich#page/n5/mode/2up

American Roots. Karen Blanchard and Christine Root. Pearson-Longman. 2001. http://www.amazon.com/American-Roots-Karen-Blanchard/dp/0201619954

Drew’s Script-O-Rama.
http://www.script-o-rama.com/

“Francois Gouin’s Series Method.” 2010.

http://www.fr-tul.estranky.cz/clanky/dle-flt/francois-gouin-method-series-history-didactics-languagues.html

Fundamentals of English Grammar. Betty Azar. Pearson-Longman. 2011.

http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-English-Grammar-Audio-Answer/dp/0137071698/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350108466&sr=1-1&keywords=fundamentals+of+english+grammar+4th+edition

“Gouin.”
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/1999-December/008833.html

“A Historical Sketch of the Gouin Series-System of Teaching Modern Languages and of Its Use in the United States.” Charles Hart Handschin. The School Review. Vol. 20. No. 3. March 1912. Pgs. 170-175.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1077247

A History of English Language Teaching. A.P.R. Howatt with H.G. Widdowson. Oxford University Press.

http://elt.oup.com/catalogue/items/global/linguistics/oxford_applied_linguistics/9780194421850?cc=it&selLanguage=it

Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. J. Michael O’Malley and Anna Uhl Chamot. Cambridge University Press. 1990.

Sequential Learning.
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Sequential_learning

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Screenplay by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio. First Draft. September 1, 2002

http://www.script-o-rama.com/snazzy/dircut.html

Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. H. Douglas Brown. Fifth Edition. Pearson Education. 2006.
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Language-Learning-Teaching-5th/dp/0131991280

Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Diane Larsen-Freeman and Marti Anderson. Third Edition. Oxford University Press. 2011.
http://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Principles-Language-Teaching-Larsen-Freeman/dp/0194423603

Lakeside Languages

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Reading: Penguin Reader Level Tests for Penguin Readers

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

WAESOL ESL Conference October 18th and 19th, 2013, Highline CC, Des Moines, Washington State

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Breaking News English with News and ESL/EFL Activities

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Francois Gouin's Series Method of Teaching Languages, Presentation by Teresa Knudsen at Spokane Regional ESL Conference, Sat. Feb. 23, 2013