Revisiting Francois Gouin's Series Method of Language Learning.
Presented by Teresa Knudsen. terryk@mfwi.edu
Presented by Teresa Knudsen. terryk@mfwi.edu
Spokane Regional ESL Conference.
Saturday, February 23, 2013.
Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute. Spokane, WA
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.
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.
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).
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
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.”
“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
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
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
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
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:
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
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
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 ... ”
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.
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
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/
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
"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
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 ...
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.
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.
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
“Francois Gouin’s
Series Method.” 2010.
Fundamentals of
English Grammar. Betty Azar. Pearson-Longman. 2011.
“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
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1077247
A History of English
Language Teaching. A.P.R. Howatt with H.G. Widdowson. Oxford University Press.
Learning Strategies
in Second Language Acquisition. J. Michael O’Malley and Anna Uhl Chamot.
Cambridge University Press. 1990.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
Screenplay by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio. First Draft.
September 1, 2002
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
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Language-Learning-Teaching-5th/dp/0131991280
http://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Principles-Language-Teaching-Larsen-Freeman/dp/0194423603
