【正文】 nd to discuss briefly how they can best be put into effectin the classroom.Learning a language is not a matter of acquiring a set of rules andbuilding up a large vocabulary. The teacher39。s mastery of a language is ultimately measured by how well he canuse it, not by how much he knows about it. In this respect, learning a languagehas much in mon with learning a musical instrument. The drills and exercisesa student does have one end in sight: to enable him to bee a skilled performer.A student who has learnt a lot of grammar but who cannot use a language isin the position of a pianist who has learnt a lot about harmony but cannotplay the piano. The student39。 they are part of a grammatical system. Words like tree, plant, flower,etc. are purely lexical items and in no way part of a grammatical system.From the learner39。s ‘state of readiness’: the point where he can proceedfrom easy to difficult. If the student is to make the most of his abilities,he must be trained to adopt correct learning habits right from the start.What has to be learntThe student must be trained adequately in all four basic language skills:understanding, speaking, reading and writing. In many classroom courses theemphasis is wholly on the written language. The student is trained to usehis eyes instead of his ears and his inability to achieve anything like correctpronunciation, stress and intonation must be attributed largely to the tyrannyof the printed word. If the teacher is to train his students in all fourskills, he must make efficient use of the time at his disposal. Efficiencypresupposes the adoption of classroom procedures which will yield the bestresults in the quickest possible time. The following order of presentationmust be taken as axiomatic:Nothing should be spoken before it has been heard.Nothing should be read before it has been spoken.Nothing should be written before it has been read.Presentday techniques and the classroomAny language course represents an attempt on the part of its designerto implement a number of basic principles. To do this, the designer willinevitably draw on techniques old and new which will best fulfil his purpose.A great many terms are used today to describe new methods and it may be ofhelp to define and illustrate some of these terms in the light of this course.Structural grading: grading sentencepatterns in order of increasingdifficulty and plexity.It is, or should be, an obvious requirement of any course that it shouldproceed from easy to difficult without sharp breaks or sudden ‘jumps’.In a carefully graded course, the student learns to use a few patterns ata time. Ideally, these patterns should be interrelated and should be presentedin a carefully ordered sequence. In traditional courses, grammatical itemsare often artificially grouped together. For instance, all the personalpronouns may be presented in a table which the student is expected to learn.The table is presented in isolation and is divorced from any context. Butlearning facts about the language in this way is of no real help to the student,for he is in no position to apply what he has learnt. In a structurally gradedcourse, the student acquires a little information at a time and learns tomake meaningful statements. He therefore learns to use relatively simplestructural words like personal pronouns over a long period, instead of beinggiven a large, indigestible dose of information at any one time.Contextualization: presenting grammatical items in a meaningfulcontext.When a student has practised a new pattern orally, he should encounterit, if possible, in an actual text so that he can see how it has been used.Obviously, such texts have to be specially written by the course designer.New items are introduced into a natural context: they are ‘contextualized’.In wellwritten contextualized passages, the reiterated patterns should beunobtrusive: their use should strike the listener as being inevitable ratherthan artificially superimposed. This is a highly effective way of presentingthe student with new information.Situation teaching: teaching a language by presenting a series ofeveryday situations.In this method, little structural grading is possible. The situationtakes precedence over the structures. The patterns that are included arisenaturally out of the situation itself: they have a thematic significancerather than a structural one. This system has serious drawbacks.The dialogues which the student hears are refreshingly natural, butthe teaching of basic patterns inevitably bees much less controlled.Structurally controlled situation teaching: teaching a languageby means of a series of everyday situations, while at the same time gradingthe structures which are presented.This method makes use of all the techniques outlined above: structuralgrading, contextualization, and situational teaching. In the early stagesit is possible to use very few patterns indeed. This mean that the ‘situations’are often unconvincing and barely possible. Despite this disadvantage, itwould seem to be one of the best methods for learning a language, for itis possible to exercise linguistic control and vet to present new informationin an interesting way.The teaching of grammarPresenting new information is one thing。 but how is he to apply what he has learnt?The basic aim in any language teaching is to train the student to usenew patterns. In traditional textbooks, all information is presented in theform of‘rules’which the student applies in a series of disconnected sentencesby filling in blank spaces, or by giving the correct form of words in parentheses.It has bee abundantly clear that this approach to languagelearning ishighly ineffective. It encourages the teacher to talk about the language,instead of training his students to use it. The emphasis is on written exercises.The greatest weak