Excerpt from French by Reading: A Progressive French Method

Tim one point to be kept ever in view, in teaching French by this method, is to make the study easy. The pupil's mind should never be needlessly diverted from the main purpose, that of thinking in French, by any avoidable perplexity, either as to the meaning of a phrase or as to the grammatical principles which govern it. The vocabulary which is to give form to the thought is always the first consideration, and it is to be attained by the easiest and most rapid means possible. The grammatical rules are in every case to explain the form, never to precede it.

In the case of very young pupils, therefore, it is desirable that even the notes explanatory of the lesson should be given by the teacher orally, rather than read by the pupil. In no case are they intended to be learned. The grammatical rules, on the contrary, are to be learned, and learned perfectly; but not until the reading lesson has been gone over at least once, - in the case of young children, twice.

The method of study should, therefore, be as follows. First, the reading of the text of the lesson, with the interlinear translation, as far as it exists; after that, the text is to be read in class, without prep aration, the teacher supplying the English meaning of all new words. The second lesson should consist of the same text, prepared before hand by the aid of the Vocabulary at the end of the book (which contains only those translations of the word required by the book), and of the grammatical references, if needed. The third lesson should consist of the large type of the grammar lesson, thoroughly committed to memory, and a third reading of the text, at sight. In a class of older children, after the first nine lessons, two repetitions of the text should be sufficient, the grammar study accompanying the second repetition.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.