{"id":502,"date":"2011-11-17T14:03:35","date_gmt":"2011-11-17T14:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncanning.net\/?p=502"},"modified":"2011-11-17T14:03:35","modified_gmt":"2011-11-17T14:03:35","slug":"ten-commandments-of-language-teaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/?p=502","title":{"rendered":"Ten commandments of language teaching"},"content":{"rendered":"

Browsing through a 75-year-old edition of the Modern Language Journal<\/em>, I came across this article entitled \u201cTen Commandments and One More in Modern Foreign Language Teaching\u201d by Harry Kurtz of the University of Nebraska.<\/p>\n

His ten tips are:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Thou shalt make every student recite every day.<\/p>\n

2. Thou shalt make thy questions shorter and distribute them more frequently to the unworthy of thy flock.<\/p>\n

3. Thou shalt demand written home-work for every lesson as an evidence of individual effort.<\/p>\n

4. Thou mayest spare thy strength in the marking of these by having them corrected in class, but thou shalt collect them and check them off on the rolls.<\/p>\n

5. Thou shalt refrain from personal eloquence in the classroom.<\/p>\n

6. Remember that the strained silence of pupils thinking is worth more than volubility, thine or theirs.<\/p>\n

7. Thou shalt plan thy hour and mark thy pages beforehand, so that never, no never, shalt thou ask thy sheep on what page they stopped grazing the last time.<\/p>\n

8. Thou shalt have thy watch before thee to guide thee in the passing of time and to guard thee from over-stressing one thing at the cost of another. So shalt thou finish the assignment and never have the ignominy of covering less than what was imposed upon the fold.<\/p>\n

9. Thou shalt watch thy pupils' thoughts as reflected in their faces and hurl the thunder of a question where it may be necessary to recall the straying.<\/p>\n

10. And last, so shalt thou prosper and discover the best devices in language teaching in the measure that thou wilt insist upon work and get it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Harry Kurz, \u201cTen Commandments and One More in Modern Foreign Language Teaching,\u201d The Modern Language Journal<\/em> 20, no. 5 (February 1, 1936): 288-293. Full article available from JSTOR<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n