CHAPTER VIII

TEACHING THE ARTS OF COMMUNICATION

OBSERVE a child six months old when he is just beginning to make connections between words and

How the child gets at the meaning of words

the things or experiences they symbolize. If you notice carefully you will see that in the beginning he gets his cue as to meaning from the facial and bodily expression of the one who is speaking, and also from the tone and timbre of the voice. Words at first denote emotional states to the child; and emotions can be deciphered by means of the vocal and bodily expressions of the speaker more easily and accurately than by means of pure symbols. This is probably true in the case of adults, as it certainly is true in respect to the child, and to some animals, as the dog and the horse. But, unlike the dog and the horse, the child, if he develops normally, can associate words as formal, conventional symbols with definite objects and phenomena and abstractions.

The first thing that strikes one as he studies the babe getting at our meanings for verbal symbols is the latter's lack of precise discrimination as to what is denoted by the words we employ. Let us suppose he is looking out of the window, apparently at the sky, and I say, “sky, sky", and I point at the object, look up at it, and try to get him to look where I do. This is the way people usually proceed with the babe; and they do this because they think he will connect the things he sees with what he hears, and will thus bind together the word and the object designated. This seems to be good logic; but the trouble is with the premises. It is assumed that the child sees what the speaker does; and this assumption amounts ordinarily to a stupendous error. The child does not differentiate the sky proper, as I regard it, from everything else within the range of his vision. If there are clouds in view, these are included; if there be smoke floating in the air, this may occupy a more important place in his attention than the ethereal blue I wish him to direct his vision upon. If there be a tree or a house in the picture, the chances are that these will stand out much more distinctly than the sky.

When I ask him next day, "Where is the sky?” and he points to the chimney of the house opposite, I

The chief distinction between the child and the adult in attending to objects or situations

am amazed, since I took so great pains to teach him the sky as distinct from other things. He must be stupid. From the standpoint of the adult's ability to differentiate in attention specific objects or qualities from a general whole, the babe is stupid, for he can not do it. If he could do this he would be mature; for really that is the chief characteristic of maturity as distinguished from immaturity. The principle applies to some extent, of course, to the five- and tenand fifteen-year-old, as compared with the fully matured adult.

How often one sees a teacher directing a child's attention to a new situation, pointing out some special phase of it which she appreciates, the while expecting the novice to see it as she does. Then the next day, when the learner shows that he is confused, that he did not make the discrimination expected of him, the teacher may be impatient, and she may hold up the unfortunate pupil before the school as a dunce or a goose. The chief error in most of our teaching is that we do not skilfully isolate just the thing we want attended to, and then employ such effective methods that the learner's attention can not go astray. It is a simple psychological law that attention always tends to follow the lines of least

resistance, which are the lines that have previously been followed; so that we have literally to coerce it to make new differentiations. I do not mean that we should attempt to coerce it by dermal excitations. Stimuli of this sort will disperse the attention, instead of focus it on a point, which is what we try to do in every possible teaching situation. If one knows how to attract (not drive) the attention of his pupils to the particular new point he wishes them to learn, he can teach. Otherwise he will be more or less of a failure in the business.

Now, suppose my year-old child has gained the idea of a chimney associated with the word "sky"; how can he be led to correct the error? Certainly not by repeating to-morrow the same thing he did to-day. No; I must get him to indicate his notion of the meaning of the word, and let him go through all the possible notions he might have accidentally formed; and then I must in every way I know how make it clear to him that it is not the chimney, or roof, or clouds, but the particular thing which people have in mind when they use the word. I must get him to employ the word or react upon my use of it, and he can tell from my expressions when he is correct. I can never be sure what a learner has in the focus of his attention when I am teaching him a word until he reacts upon it or uses it himself. This,

I think, is a principle of universal validity in the teaching of language. Mere formal defining of a word may afford the teacher no opportunity to tell just what mental content a novice has for it.

Really, a child begins to learn words effectively only when he commences to use them, and notices When true how people react upon them. A little boy looking at a picture of a donkey and a soldier read underneath, "Going

learning begins

home on his furlough", and he naturally associated "furlough" with this special sort of animal. But the moment he began using it he discovered from the way people took what he said that he must be wrong, and he was in a frame of mind to get at the true meaning. Those persons who live with children who express themselves spontaneously see the principle here in question illustrated constantly. If a child were never required to use language so as to produce definite reactions in those who listen to him, I doubt if he would learn the precise meanings of any but the most concrete terms relating to the objects he meets very frequently. Use is at once the test of understanding, and the motive for perfecting the understanding of words.

The words which the child first learns accurately are, of course, those which relate to the vital ex