林语堂教你教/学英文
我的朋友Allan Rose(网名)给我的学生们买了一套《开明英文读本》，"此书共三册，是民国时期极为畅销的一套英文教材，林语堂编，丰子恺绘插图,1928年开明书店初版， 畅销二十年。"
然而翻开书的第一页，我心想: 这个真的靠谱吗?
读到林语堂写的序和此书提出的教英文的方法，觉得还是有很多值得借鉴的地方。1928年 --那一年Noam Chomsky才刚出生; 69年后才有了新概念 -- 那个年的英文的教和学比现在要踏实很多。
第一册中的介绍部分有一个Gerneral Principles of Teaching English，分享给你。请不要刚只看到全是英文就自然的放弃了阅读，试着读一下，你会发现其实没那么难。
1. In the beginning of learning English, use imitation and repetition as the surest ways of getting results.
2. Fight shy of the abstract, theoretical and analytical method of approach(like grammar, translation and phonetic theory).
3. Make the students learn whole sentences, and not individual words. Let them absorb the sentences as a whole, with their grammatical structure, pronunciation, intonation and all.
4. Create an atmosphere wherein the students would feel free to try and talk, and not be afraid of making mistakes. If the fear of low marks is an actual hinderance to their freedom of talking, do away with the marks during the practice.
5. It is not sufficient that a student should learn the meaning of individual words; it is much more important that he should learn to use a word at least in one way correctly. Emphasize its proper use in a correct sentence, rather than its abstract meaning.
6. Memory work is just as important in learning of foreign language as in learning ancient Chinese.
7. Encourage talking. All students have a natural desire to talk. Arouse their interest in the subject talked about. When interest has been arouse, and the students feel they want to say something, help them to say it, even if it involves words not in the lessons. Words thus learnt when there is a living need for them will be remembered more vividly.
8. Teach living English as it is actually spoken by educated Englishmen.
第二册和第三册中说:
Teaching is an art, and its sucess must necessarily depend more on the teacher's methods and personality than on the choice of a textbook.
介绍部分列出了英文教学中需要注意的几点，节选如下:
1. Oral Work
“No student can be said truly to know a language until he knows it in its living form, and is acquainted with the ways in which the words and phrases are tumbled about in everday conversation.
"Oral work must not be regarded as something opposed to reading, but as something very vittaly helping it.
2. Reading
"The fastest way to make students progress in reading is to make reading interesting to them. An interesting though difficult lesson will give the students less actual difficulty than a lesson with less difficult words, but in itself repellent to the learner.
3. Grammar
"Grammar is the correct and accurate observation of the forms and usage of words.
A grammatical rule is generally a formula to answer certain doubts and fiffcultis of the student, a solution to a certain problem and before the doubts and difficulties are felt, the rule has no actual mearning for him, and will be forgotten as soon as it is learned.
The teaching who goes in for comprehensive formulars and systematic terminology defeats his own ends.
4. Pronounciation
The style of pronounciation taught should be the conversational, rather than the declamatory, style.
...the teaching of proper phrasing, slurring, linking, and the actual changes involved in the natural flow of speech, as distinct from the pronunciation of isolated words.
第二册中也补充了Some Gerneral Principles:
1. Build a sound oral foundation. To this end, any means employed would seem justified.
2. Insist on the students' active participation in the discussion. To make this possible, first the students' interest in the story must be aroused.
3. Make the students learn their vocabulary by a combination of speaking, hearing, reading and writing.
4. The English language is to be used in the classroom as much as possible, so as to increase the chances for the students to hear English and unconsciously absorb English ways of expression.
5. Count very largely on imitation and repetition to insure correct habits of expression, and fight shy of a too intellectual method of approach, such as translation and memorizing of rules.
6. Use translation only for making clear the general meaning and for showing how differently the same idea may, or must, be expressed in different languages.
7. Emphasize not so much the meaning as the usage of words and regard word-meaning as something constantly changing and flexible according to context and usage. Teach not so much what a word means, as how that word is used in sentences.
8. Concentrate on idioms and common, everyday turns of expression and let the long and difficult words take care of themselves.
9. Never stifle a student's effort at self-expression.
10. Insist on complete sentences in order that the students may readily become familiar, although unconsciously, with the laws of English sentence structure.
11. Teach grammar inductively by constantly reminding the students of word-forms occurring in the reading text.
这套书或许对现代英语教材有所影响:
并不推荐非狂热英文学习者购买这本书，不过如果你很有兴趣的话可以读一读。
再次感谢给孩子们捐赠图书的朋友们，他们的世界有你们而变的奇妙多彩。