foreign language teaching in elementary schools 11

8/13/2019 Foreign Language Teaching in Elementary Schools 11

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N EX MIN TION OF CURRENT PR CTICES

Elizabeth Engle ThompsonGreat Neck Public Schools

Great Neck New York

and

r thur E HamalainenManhasset Public Schools

Manhasset New York

M X CH MBERS L I B R R ~CENTR L ST TE C O ~ L E G F

OCI TION FOR SUPERVISi iolf 1ftu9 kelimtuLUM DEVELOPMENTA d e partment of the National Education Association1201 i x t~ e n t hStr t N . W . Washington 6 D. C.


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\ n t r o d u c t i o nT HIS OOKLET reports on foreign language tea ching as observed insev eral communities of the United States. Following the actual observations, an examination of the programs is made in the light ofba sic curriculum principles and of principles of teaching and learningwhich are generally acc ept ed in education today.

Suggestions are offered to those interested citizens who might wishto study their own situations to d etermine wheth er a language progr am is feasible for their schools. For those who find that such apr ogram would be des irabl e in th eir school syst em, suggestions forimplementation are given.

I t is hoped that this bookle t will be of value to all p ersons interestedin the area of foreign language instmction in the elementary schools.

In 1954, Mrs. Thompson visited and observed the elementary language programs in a number of schools throughout the country. Shea ttended many meetings and workshops in the teaching of foreignlanguages in the elementary school, and consulted the several persons

me ntioned in the acknowledgment section which follows.With these experiences as a background, she wrote an initial report

which evaluated the validity of foreign language teaching in the eleme ntary school and made some suggestions for organizing a soundpr ogram. Dr. Hamalainen recently added material from the latestresearch n the field, made some revisions, and with Mrs. Thompsonpr epared this booklet for publication.

Because of her interest n promoting international understanding\ Irs.

Thompson spent the entire year, 1956-57, visiting schoolsn

10cou ntries of Europe, in Turkey, Iraq, India, Thailand, Malaya, in thePhili ppines and Japan. In most of these schools English was beinglaug ht as the foreign language. She found that to speak with thepeo ples throughout the world in their native languages she wouldhave needed the knowledge of at least 25 different foreign tongues,not just one or two. Very seldom were the languages usually studiedhere in the United States useful in the Orient. Obviously it wouldhave required any traveler many years of language instruction to

tomm unicate with these peoples of various nationalities in their manydifferen t tongues and dialects.


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foreign language teaching in elementary schools 11

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