In ancient Rome, there could have been a Greek slave who
had the task of teaching the Latins their mother tongue.
Language teaching was essentially communicative,
based on use rather than form.
In this video I would like to explain what have been some of the most
important methods used to teach and learn a language throughout history.
Then, in the end, I would like to tell you what, in my opinion, is the best method to use today.
So, if we go back in time, in the classical world,
language teaching was communicative: the Greek slave I told you about earlier.
Then, the slow collapse of the Roman Empire, the abandonment of Latin as
a mother tongue ... Latin itself becomes the fulcrum of language education in schools
and is taught with meticulous attention to the rules of grammar and pronunciation.
Rules, rules, rules.
Then when new languages ​​enter the schools, such as Italian,
French ... it happens that the latter are taught with the same method as Latin.
Rules, rules, rules and more rules, rules, rules.
If it is not yet clear to you, your attention is focused entirely on the rules:
grammar rules, pronunciation rules, very
long lists of words, irregular verbs, exceptions to the rules.
Furthermore, all these rules are considered stable and immutable: the fact that the language
evolves over time, the fact that it varies from place to place, from region to region,
does not interest linguists, also because they are the classical texts.
The Italian taught to foreigners in the 1700s is that of Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio:
an Italian spoken hundreds of years earlier!
The pinnacle of all this, in my opinion, is this translation exercise.
Students are asked to translate the following sentence from Italian into French:
"Camels full of lice and loaded with jewels and toys were frightened by the
cries of owls, tripped over pebbles in the desert, fell and broke their knees."
Now explain to me what is the use of translating a sentence of this type if you
find yourself in France and maybe you have to ask for information to find your way home.
The good news is that from the 1700s until today, many have worked to change things.
In America and then in Europe, important scholars such as Da Ponte, Longfellow,
Ticknor, reiterate that languages ​​are alive and spoken
and should not be studied starting from grammar, but a new method is needed.
Berlitz founds a school in Rhode Island, where languages ​​are studied with an innovative method.
Her grandson makes it a world-class chain.
This is the direct method, which involves the presence of a native speaker,
the accentuation of oral skills and the reading of a text without
necessarily fully understanding its meaning word by word. It's a big step forward, but all of these innovations remain confined to
elite
schools , don't impact public education, for the majority of people.
The first half of the twentieth century is marked by American isolationism,
by the great depression of the 1930s, by the various Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler.
It is definitely not a time of great travelers,
it is a time of great readers.
Thus was born the Reading Method, which completely excludes oral skills.
If we entered a class that uses this method, we would find students intent
on silent reading of a text, with the teacher always ready to answer
their grammatical doubts or to help them in the translation of difficult words.
The 60s of the twentieth century are a real revolution.
Shortly before, the turntable and recorder had been invented.
The first made it possible to record pieces
of authentic language and then be able to listen to them again at will.
The recorder, on the other hand, allowed the student to record his own voice,
to then be able to listen to it again and correct himself.
This is the all-important entry of technology
into the world of language learning.
The language is broken down into microstructures and pattern drills are invented,
a method that I myself use in some of my videos on Instagram.
Continuous repetition helps a lot in memorization.
In the following years, however, we realize that language is not something abstract,
detached from reality: language exists in a context, in a situation.
Here is the situational method, which consists in creating an
imaginary situation that allows the student to learn new words and expressions.
It is amazing how many methods of teaching and therefore learning a language
have been invented in recent decades, human creativity never ceases to surprise!
The pinnacle and perhaps was reached when even
psychology shaped the teaching of languages.
Let's think, for example, of the Silent Way, a method developed by Gattengo,
in which the teacher, after having made the explanation,
remains silent and guides the students in the repetition with colored sticks.
But let us also think of suggestopedia, in which a language lesson is the closest
thing to a psychological group session.
Unfortunately, despite their great effectiveness, these are methods that are
difficult to use, especially by those who want to study independently.
Now let's get to the point: what is the best way to learn a new language?
Maybe someone already guesses my answer:
there is no better method to learn a language, but there are many valid methods.
That's why, for example, when I explain the grammar rules on YouTube,
I almost always do it in Italian,
so that those who listen to me can learn the living and spoken language, not just the grammar rules.
Each of us has different types of intelligence: logical,
linguistic, spatial ... and they are not all developed in the same way.
Since we are all different, it is evident that each of us will be
facilitated by using a method that may be different from that of the others.
There are those who need a solid grammatical basis, those who are facilitated by reading a book,
those who, like my friend Miguel, can learn a language just by watching videos.
I also believe in another thing: in the creativity
that is in each of us that allows us to create our own method.
Thanks above all to technology, we are able to experiment with
a great variety of methodologies to understand which ones are the most suitable for us.
So don't wait for tomorrow to create your own method,
which you can then fix and rearrange in the future.
Learn a few grammar rules, watch a movie in the language you want to learn,
paper the house with words,
know a native speaker to chat with ... these are just a few ideas.