time usually devoted to language and the varying abilities of teachers, classes, and individual pupils. Carefully timed experience shows that the average class devoting two or three periods a week to language can cover the minimum requirements - that is, the regular, omitting all supplementary, work — in two years, while the exceptional child, giving a period a day to language, for the same length of time, will hardly exhaust the possibilities both of the regular and the supplementary work. With the same number of language periods per week for the two years, the first five chapters should be completed the first year; the sixth chapter may also be covered. In either case, the second year's work should begin with Chapter Six. The pupils' book is designed strictly for the pupils' use; it is addressed to the pupil, every line of it; it speaks to the pupil. It is a book for the pupil to study and understand himself. This does not mean that the teacher must give no aid. On the contrary, the teacher should help the pupil to use his book, teach him how to study, make him independent as early and as fully as possible. The directions and suggestions given to the pupils are made as simple and as clear as possible. They must be taught to read, to understand, and to carry them out. They should be given whatever help they really need in this, but no more. Learning to use their books is an important part of their language work. TEACHER'S MANUAL CHAPTER ONE BEFORE taking up the first lesson with the children, the teacher should make herself entirely familiar with the whole chapter, as given in the pupils' book and in this Manual, that she may at the outset get fully into the spirit of the work, appreciate the purpose of the chapter as a whole and of every lesson, and see the mutual relations of the lessons. The following brief summary may be helpful. The general purposes of the chapter, which consists entirely of oral work, are to give the pupils something interesting to think and to talk about; to get them to think their own thoughts freely and to express their thoughts in their own language; and to establish in the schoolroom informal, friendly, coöperative relations between pupils and between. pupils and teacher. In the carrying out of these general purposes, definite and important beginnings are made in several kinds of exercises which will be carried on and developed throughout the book. Chief among them are these: 1. Expressive reading. 2. Learning how to study so as to get out the full meaning of printed thoughts and feelings. 3. Practice in the vivid recall, the mental imaging of events and actors about whom a story has been read; conversing freely about them, using the language of the actors, representing them. 4. Learning to dramatize, to turn a story into dramatic form and to act it out. 5. Reproducing in the child's own words and manner the essential ideas of a story that has been learned. 6. Making an appropriate ending to an unfinished story. 7. Telling original stories. 8. Reading stories in pictures. 9. Learning to describe. 10. Studying a poem: turning the ideas into story and into dramatic form. I (1). Reading * Read with the pupils the fable, "Grand Tusk and Nimble.” This reading must be full of life and interest; it must be marked with discriminating expression. * Each section of each chapter of this Manual marked with a Roman numeral refers to the section identically marked in the corresponding chapter. of the pupils' book, the Aldine First Language Book. The number in the parenthesis following the Roman numeral in this Manual indicates the page in the pupils' book on which the corresponding section may be found. The titles given to corresponding sections in the Manual and in the pupils' book are not always the same. A section should be considered a unit rather than a lesson. No section will require less than a lesson period; some may require several lesson periods, depending upon circumstances. (See Introduction, p. 5.) TEACHING PUPILS TO STUDY 9 The actors and events of the story are rich in contrasts. These contrasts, - the slow, colossal bulk and pride of the elephant meeting the little, alert, agile form and intense pride of the monkey, both of these presenting themselves before the calm, dignified, wise owl, the joyful confidence of the elephant and the terrified despair of the monkey at the river, the helplessness of the elephant and the efficiency of the monkey at the mango tree, — these contrasts must be made to stand out, clear-cut. This can be done through the voice, the bearing, the expression of the countenance. The one aim now is to read this story so well that every child will be filled with its meaning, will feel with every actor in it, will live through every incident. A single reading will hardly accomplish this; parts will need to be reread again and again, by the teacher and by different pupils, until the best, the most appropriate rendering has been secured. No perfunctory reading of one pupil after another, merely for the purpose of giving all a fair part in the exercise, no rereading that serves only to fill up the time allotted, will suffice. II (3). Teaching Pupils to Study 1. Reread the fable, "Grand Tusk and Nimble." A single, uninterrupted reading by the teacher, by a pupil, or by five pupils, each reading one part, should be so well done that every pupil will be tingling with desire for expression. 2. Teach the pupils to study the fable Begin by asking them some of the easier questions in their book, under Studying the Story, "Grand Tusk and Nimble," such as: Why was the elephant called Grand Tusk? Why was the monkey called Nimble? Where did the owl live? How did the elephant and the monkey cross the river? These questions should be asked by the teacher and answered by the pupils with all books closed. Questions and answers should spring from the vivid vision of the story, with all its actors, scenes, and events, as it fills the minds of teacher and children. With their interest keen, have pupils open books to the section, Studying the Story, "Grand Tusk and Nimble" (p. 3). Show them in detail how to study as their book directs. This is, quite probably, the first lesson they have ever had in studying; it is of the utmost importance. Learning how to study, and forming the habit of studying independently, are fundamental to all sound advancement in language or in any other subject. Help them patiently, with individual discrimination, giving each one skillfully, by suggestion or by direct information, just the aid he needs, and no more. Each succeeding lesson of this kind should require less help from the teacher, until the pupils become able to go about the study of such lessons quite by themselves, intelligently and effectively. |