Note 7 — 3. Making Stories Better[7]

Note 7 (page 4). If the purpose of language teaching is the improvement of pupils' speaking and writing, pupils must speak and write abundantly. But they must do more. Two garrulous housewives may gossip over the back fence for years and at the end of that time speak no better than at the beginning. The same grammatical errors with which they began, the same infelicities of expression, the same lack of organization, the same meager and overworked vocabulary, the same mispronunciations and slovenly utterance, will still be there. Why is this? The reason indicates clearly that it is not enough that pupils speak and speak and write and write. This is only half the battle. In addition there must be continual attention to the problem of improvement in speaking and writing. This improvement is a task of years, and only one step can be taken at a time. In these first lessons criticism should be directed mainly to the matter of the pupil's expressing himself fully. See Notes 20 and 64.