Do it yourself! [antikvár]

When, in 1979, I came to Hungary to teach English, Alan Maley and Alan Duff s "Drama Techniques in Language Learning" had just been published by CUP. Susan Holden's síim but invaluable volume had yet to appear on the British bookshelves. I arrived with a little more experience of Educational Drama than of teaching, and especially of teaching foreign students my own language. Looking back, my main credentials were my passport and an inability to speak Hungárián. The loss of the second credential has its own problems. But as I looked around me, it seemed that what was lacking was an adequate simulation of the English context. For the first year, I found myself filling this gap, at least to a certain extent. But it soon became apparent that I myself was inadequate. The students could speak, eat, drink, dance (VERY rarely!) with, and, in one case, even marry me, but for all that I could not possibly represent, for instance, a group of Englishmen in a bar, or the Saturday morning rush to the supermarkets. For a very few and for a very short time, this may be experienced in England itself: but for the majority of the students these gaps had to be füled in somehow during their study-time. Physically, even my generous build was not enough. Educationally, it was obvious that I should not dominate the group. Simulation was the way out. If we wanted to react to the situation of being with a group of English people, we would have to be the English people ourselves. Let me put this another way. Very small children learn their own language through rhymes, songs and tales. Most of these are repetitive, or teli a story: there are always plenty of concrete objects in them. The idea behind using these elements when teaching younger foreign-language learners is not just that these are interesting.