Language Learning Methods

 Theories and techniques of language learning are often presented as new, although they had already been developed decades before. Proponents of new methods are frequently of the opinion that theirs is the  first sweeping one. A new method draws its originality and force from a concept that is stressed above all others. Many new ideas are rediscoveries of ideas that have blossomed in decades or even centuries before. That is why language learning should not be ignorant of its own past.

Language learning methods have nearly always reflected shifts in the main educational trends. The grammar - translation method of the 19th century valued training in grammatical and literary analysis. The Direct Method, which started in the 1880s, was a plea for the spoken language as basis for instruction.  The principles were: immediate contact with the target language, lively interaction, no translation, no wordlists, inductive rule-formation for grammar, emphasis on oral use.

 

 

Wilhelm Viëtor
1850 - 1918
Professor of English Philology
at the University of Marburg

Wilhelm Viëtor embodied the principles of the new movement in his famous pamphlet "Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren!" (Language Teaching must start afresh), written during a holiday in Llangollen (Wales) in 1882. In the 1880s and 1890s new textbooks were developed to back this direct way to teach English. The Direct Method was dominant for about 30 years to be replaced by a successor.

Even today foreign language teaching according to Wilhelm Viëtor's principles would succeed in being effective for many a skill.

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