First Italian book
A student takes up the study of a modern foreign language with one or more of these five purposes: to acquire a knowledge of the grammar of that language; to enable himself to understand that language as written; to enable himself to understand that language as spoken; to enable himself to speak that language; to enable himself to write that language.
It is my firm belief that in the teaching of a modern foreign language to students who have passed the age of childhood the first several weeks should be devoted exclusively and intensively to enabling them to acquire a good understanding of that language as written and spoken; and that the study of the grammar as such, and the endeavour to train students to speak and write the language, should be postponed until a good understanding of the language as written and spoken has been attained.
This I believe to be true not only for students who need primarily the abihty to understand the language as written, but also for those who desire primarily practical speaking and writing knowledge; for those who desire primarily a knowledge of the grammar; and for those who desire the complete fivefold mastery of the language. In any of these three latter cases the desired knowledge cannot be attained in a single collegiate term (or quarter or semester), and the question thus stands open as to whether or not it is best to give the several types of training simultaneously. Suppose practical speaking and writing knowledge is desired: will that knowledge be better attained, say at the end of a year's vi Preface work, if the specific training in speaking and writing is started at the beginning of the year, or if it is postponed for several weeks in favour of an exclusive and intensive development of understanding of the language as spoken and written?
My conviction is that the latter course is more natural and easier and that it leads to results of far better quality. It is natural, in preparation for intellectual creative work in any field, that a period of observation and absorption should precede creative activity.
Composition, written or oral, as a feature of initial elementary instruction takes a large share of the student's time and energy, and leads to the commission of more errors, and consequently to the development of more discouragement and hostility, than any other part of the work. Furthermore, the practice of composition at the start gets the student into the habit of framing a foreign sentence as a succession of isolated words, with a laborious dependence on models and vocabularies, and leads to the formation of many erroneous first impressions. Such linguistic tendencies are vicious in the extreme and are very hard to overcome.
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