Impact - Teacher's Book [antikvár]

PREFACE A decade or so ago most of this Preface would have been devoted to marshalling arguments against grammar and kindred disciplines, and in favour of a more liberal and creative attitűdé to the teaching of English. Time has made this unnecessary. Many of the important ideas progressive people advocated then have become part of a new orthodoxy, and now these ideas are more likely to run the risk of hardening into dogma than of failing through non-acceptance. We cannot therefore claim to be revolutionaries. We do feel, however, that somé aspects of our work are unusual, though we have avoided being diflerent for the sake of being different. Briefly, along with many others, we interpret 'English' in its widest sense, and believe that since language is related so closely to the growth of the individual, its boundaries are co-extensive with life itself. Nothing need be excluded that can be written about or talked about. A pupil who opens his mouth to say something is 'doing English', and the first rule of good writing is, 'Have something to say' and not 'Subject and predicate'. We stress creativity in discussion as well as in writing, and we appeal directly to the interests of those who, we hope, will create. Since we believe in the primacy of the English lesson as a médium for education as distinct írom instruction, we are not interested in merely transferring information to the pupil. Hence, as teachers, we can have little interest in the construction and operation of 'information satellites' into which, we are told, pupils will shortly be able to tune by means of a 'light pencil' - except as a possible subject to write or talk about. This threatened revolution in 'education' leaves us cold. Of all teachers, the English teacher should be least frightened by the question, 'How far can you be replaced by a machine?' We are interested, however, in ideas and in values. That is one of the reasons why we are indebted to literature for the bulk of