Just as the ulterior ends conceived in the general problem of teaching English must be reduced to immediate ends of teaching speaking, reading, and writing, so these objectives must be further analyzed for classroom purposes into a number of specific school exercises.

SUBJECT MATTER FROM LIFE

The closer the relation between the content and method of instruction in English and the lives of the pupils the more effective the instruction will be in satisfying the needs of the present, and therefore the more attractive to adult learners. The teaching of English to foreign born is a comparatively new field, free from precedents and unencumbered by pedagogical practices based on a discredited faculty psychology; the opportunity therefore presents itself of selecting the content of instruction for its real and present value to the learner rather than for some supposititious and remote value. In most schools it is more than an opportunity; it is a necessity pointed to by the withdrawal of pupils whose needs for communication in English are present and urgent. What these needs are can only be set forth in a general way, for only the teacher who is informed and interested in the well-being of the immigrant can through the experience of specific situations determine what special interests are pressing for expression in English. A Mexican illiterate woman working on a farm and an intelligent Russian working in a mine require different beginnings in English. The teacher can make

a proper beginning only by taking into account such factors as the immigrant's literacy in his own language, present occupation, sex, age, and opportunity for speaking English.

DEVELOP A SPEAKING VOCABULARY

Within broad limits, but not necessarily in the order given, the following topics for English conversation, for developing vocabulary, and for teaching English locutions are drawn upon by teachers:

1. The pupil's relationship with those with whom he comes in contact; statements of name, address, occupation; forms of greeting, salutations, farewells, inquiries; matters of personal situation and condition, respecting himself and those in whom he is most interested-e.g., age, weight, illness, good health, pain, hunger, thirst.

2. Schoolroom activities and objects and the corresponding descriptive words and phrases, expressions of action-standing, walking, reading, writing, speaking, opening, closing, coming, going.

3. Daily outside-of-school needs: buying, selling, repairing, cooking, eating, looking for work, working, riding, walking, together with counting, weighing, measuring, visiting, enjoyments, use of leisure time and holidays, recreations.

4. Vocational terms: occupations, technical expressions.

5. The house and the family: renting, furnishing, cleaning, and beautifying the home; members of the family and their relationships.

6. The community: the pupil's relationship to the school, the church, the lodge, the trade or labor organization; the newspaper, the theater, the post office, and the local agencies for promoting his well-being and securitye.g., police, sanitation, licenses, and local ordi

nances.

7. Local and national holidays; national ideals as exemplified in the lives of great Americans. 8. Formal civics: the relation of city, state, nation, other nations.

It is not sufficient to adapt the content of instruction in English to the interests of the pupils. It must be borne in mind that this content must be useful and necessary to the immigrant in communicating with English-speaking people and not merely in communicating with people who speak his own language. Thus a lesson which teaches a foreign-born woman an English lullaby to croon to her baby is of greater interest to the teacher than it is of value to the pupil. The occasional use of English by immigrants among themselves should not be set up as a valid factor in determining content of conversational instruction. The foreign born in his group makes little application of such instruction; he relapses into his native tongue at the first opportunity. When they speak English to one another, immigrants do it for the effect on English-speaking people. There is justification for the use of anecdotes and mottoes in English lessons for the foreign born; but only in exceptional cases does any reason exist for instructing

foreign born in the use of English through English literature, and on the whole teachers of immigrants have resisted this temptation.

LIMITED NEED FOR WRITING

In the teaching of writing in English, the distinction is made between writing as an end and writing as a means. Under the latter head belong all formal exercises in copying, dictation, filling ellipses, paraphrasing, and summarizing which are necessary for drill. Under composition as an end are included such exercises as pupils write for the purpose of communicating their thoughts to others-i.e., with a motive for writing and with an audience in mind.

It is obvious that the great mass of immigrants have even less need for writing in English than have native Americans; in teaching them English there cannot be even the pretense that they are to become men of letters and that they must be taught the four forms of discourse, narration, description, exposition, and argumentation-not to mention poetic diction. It is also an error to assume that these mature men and women, foreign born though they be, lack fairly well-defined purposes in undertaking an adventure into English. Whether consciously expressed or not, their purposes should be met. Most effectively have immigrants resented instruction unrelated to their needs by refusing to continue it. The foreign born learning English undoubtedly must know how to write their

names and addresses, and how to fill in blank spaces in such commonly used instruments as checks, receipts, and applications for postal and express money orders and the like, but what beyond these elementary exercises is worth teaching is not a settled matter. Teachers, therefore, are inclined to emphasize writing on topics which adult foreign born cannot be expected to write upon in the life outside of school and to neglect such kinds of writing as they are more likely to use. Themes relatively remote from the more pressing needs of immigrants are exemplified by composition topics such as these, submitted by teachers: a trip to the museum; how to make a buttonhole; calling on the telephone; interesting places to visit; pure food; the life of George Washington; how a United States Senator is elected. No objection is made to these as topics for conversation or even for reading, but the likelihood that an immigrant learning English will desire to write on these subjects is extremely remote.

An experiment to determine what foreign-born adult pupils wanted to be able to write was conducted in a city school attended largely by factory employees, mechanics, laborers, peddlers, and small business people. The teachers were instructed to request pupils to try to write in English something which the latter actually wanted to be able to write. Both pupils and teachers were informed what the object of the experiment was.

More than four hundred papers were sub