PRINCIPLES OF

INTERACTIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

WILGA M. RIVERS
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
As fashions in language teaching come and go, the teacher in the classroom needs reassurance
that there is some bedrock beneath the shifting sands. Once solidly founded on the bedrock, like
the sea anemone the teacher can sway to the rhythms of any tides or currents, without the trauma
of being swept away purposelessly. It is fun to sway to new rhythms, but as we ourselves choose,
not under the pressure of outsiders who do not understand the complexities of our situation.
Teachers need the stimulation of new thinking and new techniques to keep a fresh and lively
approach to their teaching, but without losing their grip on enduring truths of learning and
teaching that have proved to be basic to effective language experiences.
I have tried to distill this central core, as I see it, in the form of Ten Principles of Interactive
Language Learning and Teaching, which attempt to capture in simple language what teachers in
different approaches have found to be the essential facilitators of learning. These basic principles
provide teachers with a yardstick against which to evaluate new proposals as they appear _ to
help them delve beneath the surface features of exciting new theories, techniques, and learning
aids, to separate chaff, exciting as it may be to play with, from the germinative grain, and to
decide how much of their established practice can be sacrificed to the new without loss of
learning efficacy. With this firm foundation, teachers are liberated from group pressures to yield
unthinkingly to whichever winds of change are sweeping through their professional field at a
particular time, and are empowered to develop and strengthen their own ways of proceeding in
relation to the needs and individual strengths of their students in a particular context. They may
find new trends fully consistent with their basic philosophy and enthusiastically endorse them,
or, not being fully convinced, they may prefer to pick and choose from what is proposed,
selecting what is compatible with their own approach and rejecting what they do not see as
conducive to effective language learning in their present situation. In this way the teacher is in
control, making his or her own decisions, which will vary with changing circumstances,
experimenting judiciously and observing in practice what is effective and what is not for his or
her own students.
An explication of the Ten Principles will help the teacher distinguish between what is
fundamental and what is expendable. These principles are elaborated as principles of teaching
and learning because the two activities are viewed as two aspects of one reciprocal process: the
teacher's work is to foster an environment in which effective language learning may develop. In
so doing the teacher experiences what Seneca observed, namely, that "while we teach we learn."
[1] The teacher is a learner and the learner is a teacher. In the words of an old proverb the person
"who is too old to learn is too old to teach." This reciprocal relationship is vividly demonstrated
by the use in a number of languages of a single verb form to express the concepts of both
teaching and learning. In French, for instance, we can say: Elle apprend le pome; je lui

apprends le pome (She learns the poem; I teach her the poem), and the same usage is found in
some dialects of English. The relationship between teaching and learning is well represented by
De Saussure's metaphor of the piece of paper: if you cut into one side, you cut into the other. It is
this interactive approach to teaching and learning that is basic to the Ten Principles.
PRINCIPLES OF INTERACTIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING , WILGA M. RIVERS
Principle 1.: The student is the language learner
Emphasis on the student learning rather than the teacher teaching is hardly new. Already in 1836,
Wilhelm von Humboldt concluded that no one can really teach a language, one can only present
the conditions under which it will develop spontaneously in its own way; and in 1965 Chomsky
redirected our attention to this insight in no uncertain terms[2], thus influencing language
teaching significantly during the 1970s and 80s. Bronson Alcott, who was a noted nineteenth
century educator, maintained in his General Maxims (1826-27) that we should "teach nothing
that pupils cannot teach themselves." [3] This radical paradox was echoed in 1972 by Gattegno,
who observed that in teaching we are nurturing in learners inner criteria that enable them to
advance in their learning. "Only self-education," he said, "will lead any learner to the mastery of
a skill." [4]
In learning a language, their own or another, each learner must develop and consolidate mental
representations that are basic to understanding the language as well as to expressing oneself
through it, whether in speech or writing. For whatever we attempt, whether tying shoelaces or
driving a car, we need a kind of mental map or blueprint of what we are trying to do that guides
us to effective performance (see also Principle 5). This mental representation is very personal,
evolving as the learner becomes more fully competent in the language. Different speakers
possess even their native language to varying degrees of control, manipulating it to make it serve
their purposes according to somewhat different mental representations.
In teaching a language, we are helping individual learners, in the best ways we know, to
consolidate their control of it, so that they become increasingly fluent in using it for expression
of personal meaning. Our ways of proceeding are often intuitive, since our ignorance in this area
is great. We can provide opportunities for observing the language in use and for using the
language creatively, but only the learners themselves can assimilate the language and make it
their own. This they do in very individualistic ways. Consequently, in recent years we have been
paying more and more attention to differing styles and preferred strategies of learning.[5]
Sometimes, despite our efforts, our students do not learn as we would like, because they are not
motivated to do so, and this is an important issue (see Corollary 1.1). With the individual
learning process as central, self and peer-to-peer assessment of progress and error detection
become important. Students must realize they are responsible for their own learning; they will
take this responsibility more seriously if they themselves discover and work at their own
weaknesses and insufficiencies.
Corollary 1.1: Motivation springs from within; it can be sparked, but not imposed from without

There is a misconception among some teachers that it is their task to "motivate" their students.
"My students are completely unmotivated," they complain. Corpses and mummies are
"completely unmotivated," but every living being is motivated. One student may be motivated to
get through each language class with the least personal hassle, while acquiring the barest
minimum of the language compatible with not flunking out; another may be motivated to get
high grades by supplying what the teacher or some testing agency seems to be seeking on tests;
yet another may be motivated to learn a subset of skills or a distinctive vocabulary to achieve
personal goals, which may not be those of the course or the teacher. Motivation, strong or weak,
is always there. It is the task of the teacher to discover the springs of motivation in individual
students and channel it in the direction of further language acquisition through course content,
activities in and out of the classroom, and learner-generated or at least learner-maintained
projects (see also Principle 2). Frequently the intrinsic attraction of the subject matter and the
interest aroused by classroom interaction will spark motivation to persist with language learning,
and this will continue until a degree of language control satisfying to the learner has been
attained.[6]
It is noticeable that language learning motivation waxes and wanes as students feel they can
operate in the language sufficiently to satisfy their immediate needs or presently perceived longer
term objectives. It is for this reason that, although adults and adolescents learn a language faster
in the short run than young children, they are more easily satisfied with what they can do with it
than younger learners who, wishing to be accepted by their peers and succeed in a new
environment, persist to a higher level of control over the long haul.[7] It is for the teacher to find
ways of restimulating the motivation of older learners by opening up new vistas of potentiality.
Sometimes external factors do this for us and the student's interest and enthusiasm rekindle.
Hence the number of older learners who return to language study in their adult years.[8 ]
Principle 2: Language learning and teaching are shaped by student needs and objectives in
particular circumstances
Student needs and objectives are not just personal. They are shaped to a considerable degree by
societal pressures, political exigencies, and parental expectations influenced by these two. Social
forces and community-wide perceptions, whether reflecting reality or merely hopes and fears,
exert a largely subconscious influence on what are perceived as individual choices. One such
subtle influence is that of perceived career opportunities for the language learner; these change
over time, as economies and political alliances shift in emphasis, and this affects demand for
particular languages. Another influence is the growing importance in public perception of certain
speech communities at a particular point in time: Should our students be learning Japanese or
Chinese, for instance, instead of German; or Spanish or Italian instead of French? Is it pointless
and time-wasting for English speakers to learn any other language at this particular period of
history when students all over the world are clamoring to learn English? Despite any rationale
we may present, it is factors such as these that are influencing student decisions and attitudes.
From another perspective, should we be emphasizing oral skills, or are reading and writing of
growing interest to our students in this age of the Internet and the World Wide Web? What about
listening and cross-cultural skills in an age of so much mutual misunderstanding? These are
some of the kinds of decisions that confront us, which can only be resolved in a particular
context.

It is imperative in the present period of rapid change that language teachers study carefully the
language learners in their classes _ their ages, backgrounds, aspirations, interests, goals in
language learning, aptitude for language acquisition in a formal setting, and opportunities for
language use outside of the classroom (see Principle 10) _ and then design language courses and
language teaching materials that meet the needs of specific groups. "One size fits all" is not
applicable in our work. A needs analysis must come first, before decisions are made on
orientation and content of courses, and this will affect the way the language will be presented and
the types of materials that will be incorporated. Such a needs analysis must be repeated in each
new circumstance, and also as cohorts of students change in what may seem to be a stable
context.
In all language teaching decisions, the question Who? (Who are my students?) precedes What?
(What kind of course or learning materials do they need?), and these two determine How? (What
approach and which techniques are most appropriate in this situation?)
Corollary 2.1: Language teaching and course design will be very diverse
The days of a monolithic approach to language courses, imposed on all learners, is well past (or
should be). As students change and their perceived needs and objectives change, so will the
content and techniques of language courses. Sometimes language programs are set up as a series
of discrete units on grammar, sound production, development of reading skills, or written
composition, thus tearing apart the seamless garment of language. Study of sound production is
integrally related to syntax, which can be of no use without semantics and pragmatics. Cultural
expectations affect syntactic and lexical choice, as well as sound and kinesic elements These
things are best learned and practiced together in use.
Living language courses should be designed with primary attention to content, while allowing for
the development and consolidation of relevant language skills. Written language can be
improved through reports and articles on political and economic developments in a country
where the language is spoken, or through correspondence (most likely electronic these days) with
someone who knows that country intimately. Classes can now be twinned easily across language
groups and geographical areas to work on joint projects via computer and modem. Sounds can be
practiced through drama, the reading and writing of poetry, or production of radio or video
programs for community access broadcasts. The literature and intellectual ideas of other cultures
have always attracted language learners. Travel narratives, biographies, case studies from the
business or legal world, environmental and conflict-resolution studies are other candidates, the
latter often introduced through simulations that involve the students actively.). One could go on
endlessly brainstorming possibilities. Language is a vehicle that should not be driven around
empty.
There is no need, as has so often been the accusation, for language courses to lack intellectual
content. As language teachers we are fortunate in that any kind of content (philosophical, literary,
scientific, commercial, aesthetic, or cultural) is appropriate for a language course, so long as it
provides opportunities for contact with and active personalized use of the language. Wherever

there are enough students for diversification, several parallel courses should be offered at each
level, allowing for student selection of content and approach. Should such diversity not be
possible for logistical reasons, different contents and approaches should be available as the
student advances through the language sequence.[9] Students from abroad who will be
proceeding to specialized studies in their new language need a different kind of help; if they
come from very different educational systems they frequently need guidance in giving oral
reports and reporting on experiments, as well as in the formal requirements of writing papers,
searching databases, and drawing up bibliographies. In many institutions it is possible for
teachers of language to cooperate with teachers of other disciplines by providing tutorials in the
study of documents and other textual material (aural or written) that are available only in the
language they are learning; in yet others, language teachers prepare language learners for
internships in career-related fields in a country where the language is spoken. In some settings it
is appropriate for whole courses of specialized subject matter (history, economics, cultural
studies) to be taught in the language or for language learners to be incorporated in ongoing
subject-matter courses along with native speakers. Care should be taken in such situations to see
that students, when first confronted with studying a high level of subject matter in their new
language, are provided with a backup of language assistance, so that they do not feel
overwhelmed and fall back on desperate dictionary searching and mental translation into the first
language. Such a traumatic experience often sets language learners back considerably in their
progress and destroys fragile, newly developing skills of natural expression in their new
language.
Content of relevance to the life, interests, and future career of the student brings the language
alive and sparks motivation to use it actively. Let us be imaginative in devising course content
and learning activities to meet the needs of all comers, so that students learn through doing _
through using the language in intellectually and socially demanding ways.
Principle 3: Language learning and teaching are based on normal uses of language, with
communication of meanings (in oral or written form ) basic to all strategies and techniques
To learn a language naturally, one needs much practice in using the language for the normal
purposes language serves in everyday life. This is in contradistinction to the artificial types of
drills and practice exercises to which many learners are still subjected. Manipulation of structural
patterns in some presumed logical order in a sequence that is semantically incoherent does not
prepare the learner for normal uses of language. Language practice should already be as close to
real communication as practicable. Even practice exercises should be designed to elicit an
exchange of new information of interest to the participants. In 1904 Jespersen, the Danish
linguist, observed that language textbooks often give the impression that Frenchmen" (substitute
Americans, Germans, Russians, Hispanics) "must be strictly systematical beings, who one day
speak merely in futures, another day in [past tenses], and who say the most disconnected things
only for the sake of being able to use all the persons in the tense which for the time being
happens to be the subject for conversation, while they carefully postpone the use of the
subjunctive until next year."[10] Little seems to have changed in a hundred years.

It is useful to reflect on the ways we use language in normal interaction. Sometimes the use is
phatic or ritualistic, as in conventional greetings and rejoinders and in ceremonial discourse.
Beyond this, we use language to give and get new information; to explain, discuss, and describe;
to persuade, dissuade, promise, or refuse; to entertain or to calm the troubled waters of social
contact; to reveal or hide our feelings and attitudes; to direct others in their undertakings; we use
language for learning, teaching,. problem-solving, or creating with words, and these are only
some of its uses. Facility in conveying meanings in purposeful acts, appropriately tailored to the
cultural context, is the true end of language learning, and use of language must reflect this end
from the earliest stages.
Language in natural interaction requires more than correctly manipulated structures and lexicon,
uttered with comprehensible sounds and intonation. It requires also conformity to the accepted
forms of natural discourse within its associated culture: students need to know how to open and
close conversational interludes; how to negotiate meaning; how to assert conversational control,
fill pauses, interrupt or not interrupt, and navigate within the exchange so that the conversation is
channeled in a direction of interest to the interlocutor.[11] It also requires appropriateness of
language use for particular situations and relationships. Even gestures of our own culture can
betray us. All of these features of natural interaction are related to the wider expectations within
the culture (see Principle 9).
There are many problems for teachers to solve if this principle is to be respected. How, for
instance, does one promote normal conversational interaction in large classes, particularly among
students whose cultural upbringing inhibits them from expressing their opinions freely in the
presence of respected authority figures or persons of the other sex? Some students in any culture
are open and outgoing, even chatterboxes, while others are taciturn or shy. In some cultures
students have learned not to waste words on comments that do not add substantially to the
discussion and find it hard to natter on about trivialities.. This leads us to Principle 4.
Principle 4: Classroom relations reflect mutual liking and respect, allowing for both teacher
personality and student personality in a non-threatening atmosphere of cooperative learning

Teaching and learning languages are distinctly different from other subject disciplines. Speaking
and writing what one really thinks and feels means revealing one's inner self: one's feelings,
prejudices, values, and aspirations. In a new language, learners can do this only in a roughly
approximate, unnuanced way, that is,. in a simplified form of the language, perhaps incorrectly
formulated, so that they can easily give a false impression of who they are, or who they would
like people to think they are. This experience can be very inhibiting and ego-threatening, if not
traumatic. Students frequently seek to avoid it. The speaker of a new language may also
approach other people with a lack of subtlety because of ignorance of nuances of the linguistic

system, as well as the associated pragmatics and cultural expectations. A teacher who is not a
native speaker of the language he or she is teaching (and this comprises the majority of language
teachers worldwide) also suffers from a certain insecurity and may take refuge in the native
language as a teaching medium.

In a highly structured methodology, like the grammar-translation method or the teacher-directed

audiolingual approach, where students perform according to instructions in a well planned,
emotionally neutral, and predictable sequence, constructed to eliminate the possibility of student
error, students are protected from such wounds to their self-esteem. Once the teacher tries,
however, to stimulate interactive activities, where more than the student's intellect and memory
are involved, the whole personality of the student comes into play. The language learning
becomes, in Curran's terminology, a "unified personality encounter."[12] The student is trying to
handle many aspects of the language at once (message intention, vocabulary and syntactic
choice, morphology, stress, intonation, and tone of utterance) while noting interlocutor response
and preparing to change the direction of the message if necessary. With so many cognitive
activities involved at the same time, the student may very well stumble over some of them. It is.
this cognitive overload that explains many of the errors students make, even when they know the
appropriate forms perfectly well (see also Principle 6). These lapses often make them feel foolish
in front of their peers. It is no wonder that many students feel anxious and emotionally stressed
in such situations.[13] Students experiencing emotional hurt and embarrassment may even
develop feelings of hostility toward the teacher, as the source of their frustration.[14] The teacher
must be aware of the many emotional factors in communicative encounters that can either
depress or exhilarate the student, depending on how they are handled. For students, the
emotional threat comes as much from fear of the reaction of peers as the reaction of the teacher,
so time should be allowed for peer with peer bonding and the development of mutual trust and
confidence as students share successful, and therefore enjoyable, experiences.

Teachers in a structured methodology, who are expected to remain within the limits of the
materials, feel safe and self-assured. In an interactive communicative situation anything may
crop up and the natural exchange may take quite unexpected twists and turns that lead the teacher
into unknown territory. This can unsettle the teacher, particularly the nonnative speaker, whose
anxiety, even if well controlled, may communicate itself subtly to the students and further
compound their own.

An interactive language-learning environment requires that students and teachers, and students
among themselves, reach a stage of being comfortable with each other, interested in each other,
and respectful of each other's personal temperament-imposed limits. In order to achieve this
equilibrium, teachers must feel comfortable with what they are doing, just as students must be
comfortable with what they are expected to do. Teachers need to develop a realistic
understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses as instructors and as individuals, selecting
approaches and techniques that play to their strengths. They must also know how far they can go
in interpersonal relations and how they best relate to others, allowing themselves time to get to
know their students' individual ways of reacting. Both teachers and students have to be willing to
take risks and laugh together when things go wrong. Together they must exorcise the fear of
failure (which is as real for teachers as for students).

In the past, much language learning was restricted to an elite "academic stream," who had
demonstrated their ability to cope with abstract logico-deductive thinking and verbal learning of
the type required in school settings, for instance, for the study of grammar, the application of
grammar rules in composition exercises, and the translation of literary texts. These students were
considered to have "a high IQ" as measured by a distinctly verbal test. Of recent years, Howard
Gardner has drawn our attention to the existence of "multiple intelligences" [15]: verbal,
mathematical-logical, spatial, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Now that
emphasis is on language learning for all students, we need to consider ways of enabling students
who are strong in any of these areas to apply their particular kinds of intelligence in language
learning tasks, and to see that our assessment procedures provide them with opportunities to
demonstrate their progress in the use of the language through other means than written tests (see
also Principle 8).

For the interaction that leads to communication via language (much meaning is, after all,
communicated without a common language), both teachers and students need to work toward a
non-threatening atmosphere of cooperative learning. In discussions on cooperative learning, the
term is often unnecessarily restricted to small-group learning. Many students learn well in small
groups, others do not. There is room for all kinds of learning situations: large group, small group,
pair work, or individual study. Cooperative learning implies full participation of students in
planning and in making effective choices. The essence of cooperative learning is in the attitude:
it requires acceptance of each other's differences and a willingness to share and to facilitate each
other's learning in whichever ways are most appropriate. Teachers should be aware that students
from certain cultures may be accustomed only to a teacher-directed competitive mode of
education and that these students will need explanation of this new approach and an initial period

of familiarization before they can be fully and willingly assimilated into a cooperative learning
situation.
A non-threatening atmosphere does not mean that teachers and students must be effervescently
cheerful and amusing at all times. Some teachers, as well as some students, are reserved and take
time to unbend with strangers. We like, respect, and trust people of very varied personalities, and
each has a contribution to make in a cooperative atmosphere. Not all students nor all teachers
wish to interact with each other at a very deep level, and this must be respected. Where this is the
case, we involve our students in surface activities _ games, simulations, dramatizations,
informative activities through which they communicate. For interaction at a deep personal level,
they will find their own partners and arrange their own activities. Respect for the privacy of the
individual to interact as he or she feels the need or desire is another aspect of cooperative
learning. "In cooperative learning, all can succeed because each has something unique to
contribute to the enterprise, and because success is not an external standard constructed to
exclude, but the individual perception of the attainment of a self-selected goal."[16]

Principle 5: Basic to use of language are language knowledge and language control
Basic to use of a language is a mental representation of how that language works. We need a
certain basis of systematic knowledge in order to be able to operate in the language, no matter
how minimally. We cannot learn everything we wish to express in a language one thing at a time;
there is an infinite number of potential sentences we may wish to utter, yet each has a structural
framework that can be used to convey many other messages. The human mind systematizes and
organizes material to make it manageable, and this systematization is basic to our mental
representation of the language. We cannot operate in a language without such a mental
representation because comprehensible language use at any level is rule-governed; in other
words, to understand and be understood we cannot use elements of the new language
haphazardly. We need a succinct, internalized structural model as a plan to direct our tactics (in
this instance, expression of personal meaning).
All languages are organized at several levels (phonological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic),
and these various subsystems interact within the mental representation. Grammatical structure
and vocabulary, which are interrelated in their functioning, provide the tools for expressing
semantic and pragmatic meaning. As Halliday expresses it: "Reality consists of 'goings-on': of
doing, happening, feeling, being. These goings-on are sorted out in the semantic system of the
language, and expressed through the grammar of the clause."[17] Once we have internalized the
fundamentals of this organization for our new language (linguists are working continually at
systematizing the details and even native speakers are still learning its potential), we are liberated
to express a multiplicity of meanings.
A ballet dancer learns basic steps and then can fly. Scientists learn basic principles and can then
build new knowledge: experimenting, applying, thinking creatively. Scientists may not fully

understand the principles (research is always continuing), and their findings may even cast doubt
on some of these principles or even cause them to restructure their concept of the basic
framework, but the basic framework is there to be reinterpreted. Linguistic scientists continue to
research linguistic structure. They may propose new models or variations of existing models to
explain what is there, but they cannot restructure the object of their study: they can only
reinterpret the operation of the basic framework or bone structure of the language.
Is the problem for language learning an inadequate or incomplete description of the linguistic
structure of the language? People have learned languages for millennia while awaiting discovery
and description of the ultimate adequate model of what they are learning, just as people have
grown crops and lit fires, without a complete understanding of the processes underlying these
phenomena. What language learners need is a functional mental model of the linguistic structure
of a particular language that works for them in producing at a basic level speech that
communicates their meanings}; their present needs obviate their waiting for final decisions by
linguistic researchers on the structural model that will best describe the inner workings of the
basic framework. Chomsky speaks of language behavior as being governed by an innate
knowledge of a system of rules of universal grammar, with values of parameters set according to
the language within which one is operating; this systematic framework consists of a core or basic
skeleton on which the language is constructed and a periphery of marked exceptions that are
added to the core on the basis of specific experience [18]. This is one description of a mental
representation; there are others. The real problem for the language learner is the setting of the
values of the parameters for the mental representation of the new language. How this can be
achieved most effectively and economically is a subject for research for applied linguists _
research to which classroom teachers, who are observing students daily can contribute valuable
insights.
We cannot use a language without some sort of mental representation of the basic framework or
mechanism, no matter how personal and idiosyncratic; this we shall call knowledge of language .
Learners pass through a succession of interim grammars at various stages in the learning process,
as they work to construct a functional model, or establish values of parameters for the new
language, in the Chomskyan sense. Teachers can help students acquire an understanding of this
basic mechanism that is sufficient to enable them to use it at their particular stage of
development, and to further refine this understanding as they progress. Without expert help,
students will acquire some form of mental representation, often incorporating elements of the
mental representation of their first or another language; with help they will acquire more rapidly
one that is closer to the native model. Years of experience with learners of many languages in the
federal government's language institutes, which comprise the Interagency Language Roundtable,
have demonstrated that, when language learners try to express their meanings freely without a
firm structural framework, "incorrect communication strategies ... fossilize prematurely," and
"their subsequent modification or ultimate correction is rendered difficult to the point of
impossibility, irrespective of the native talent or high motivation that the individual may
originally have brought to the task."[19] Yet precision of construction of meaningful phrases is
important for fluent expression of meanings that will be understood by native speakers.
Students acquire this precision of expression through performing rules, not through memorizing
or discussing them. Knowledge of the systematic interrelationships that constitute the structure

of the language is acquired actively through use in communicative contexts. In this way it
becomes part of the learner's mental equipment (it becomes internalized) and can be called upon
readily, even if more and more without conscious focus, to express personal meaning or to
comprehend and recreate the meanings others are trying to convey. It can also be re-examined
consciously, should there be a need to reinterpret its potential. As William James observed:
"Experience is never yours merely as it comes to you, facts are never mere data, they are data to
which you respond , your experience is constantly transformed by your deeds."[20]
Sharwood Smith expresses succinctly this necessity for performing rules when he says:
"Whatever the view of the underlying processes in second language learning ... it is quite clear
and uncontroversial to say that most spontaneous performance is attained by dint of practice. In
the course of actually performing in the target language, the learner gains the necessary control
over its structures such that he or she can use them quickly without reflection." [21]
Experimentation in Sweden has demonstrated that this performance practice is most effective
when it involves student-initiated utterances,[22] which constitute student response to the data in
James's sense and gradually transform the student's mental representation.
Performing rules, then, provides the natural bridge to using these rules in creating personal
messages, which we shall call control of language. Language control necessarily implies the
ability to understand messages and their full implications in the context, social and cultural,
interpreting tone of voice, stress, intonation, and kinesics, as well as actual words and structures.
In expression, it implies more than syntactic accuracy; it requires also syntactic appropriateness
in contexts of use and in culturally determined relationships. Once some degree of language
control has been attained, language is used "as a medium which will engage the thought,
perception, and imagination of the learner." [23]
Principle 6: Development of language control proceeds through creativity, which is nurtured by
interactive, participatory activities.
The ultimate goal for our students is to be able to use the language they are learning for their
own purposes, to express their own meanings, that is, to create their own formulations to express
their intentions. That use of language is creative, not imitative, has been emphasized by language
teaching theorists, linguists, and psycholinguists for years, yet many language teachers continue
to teach as though imitation, repetition, and reconstruction or transformation of other people's
meanings in exercises were the be-all and end-all of language learning. In 1966, Chomsky
forcefully drew to the attention of language teachers the fact that "ordinary linguistic behavior
characteristically involves innovation, formation of new sentences and new patterns"[24] This he
succinctly described as "the creative aspect of normal language use,"[25] and this creativity
applies as much to listening and reading as to speaking and writing, as psychologists have long
pointed out. Blumenthal cites Wundt, for instance, as observing, in 1912, that "the mind of the
hearer is just as active in transforming and creating as the mind of the speaker."[26]

Creating new utterances in a language that one only partially controls is not easy. Because so
much cognitive activity is involved, language learners frequently suffer from cognitive overload:
they pause and hesitate (both phenomena of natural native speech); they misuse elements of the
new language when they are well aware of the accepted forms (even in the native language, we
sometimes slip up when concentrating on our message); they self-correct or let it be, depending
on the situation and the amount of time available; conversations of genuine concern have a
tendency to veer off in different directions, depending on the comprehension and involvement of
the interlocutor whose responses thus become unpredictable, and this can be disconcerting.
Consequently, language learners frequently experience embarrassment or feel humiliated by their
poor showing and may give up their attempts to formulate utterances because the effort demands
too much of them.
Yet learners cannot acquire facility in expressing their own meanings in a new language without
much experience in doing just that. This type of experience is acquired in interactive situations
that stimulate the students' motivation to communicate.[27] For this motivation to be
strengthened and maintained, interactive situations need to be so structured that the potential for
ego-threat and frustration is low (see also Principle 4). Through interactive situations that
stimulate the desire to communicate, students experience the use of the new language as an
important social skill, and success in conveying meanings and evoking a response encourages
them to seek more success.
How does one promote interaction? One encourages participatory activities that engage the
students' attention, so that they become involved and frequently exhilarated as they use the
language. We use the word "encourage" because many of these activities will be studentinitiated. When they are teacher-initiated, they should be student-sustained and developed.
Purposeful and task-oriented, such activities are frequently conducted through peer-with-peer or
small group discussion and elaboration. Some teachers are hesitant to encourage such activities
because the students will inevitably make mistakes, and they are afraid that these may become
ingrained or fossilized. We need to see these errors as resulting from genuine attempts to express
themselves through the language and, therefore, as opportunities for further learning. The
experience students gain in creating utterances that carry personal meanings and the confidence
this engenders are vital to future autonomous language use. When students have been worked
into a cooperative learning group (see Principle 4), they learn from their peers and help each
other, with unobtrusive teacher assistance as they feel the need for it.
Activities may be amusing or serious. Games, competitions, skits, simulations, and
dramatizations encourage imagination and spontaneous communication, problem-solving,
information-gap, and information-getting activities invite persistence and probing as the students
become intellectually involved in finding solutions. As they cooperate on a task, they are
stimulated to use the language with each other, especially if this is continually set before them as
a goal. Interactive activities may be related to content being studied in the language, whether
literary, philosophical, scientific, commercial, or sociological: Students may work in groups to
gather information, set up experiments, or develop alternative denouements for literary works in
order to further understand the author's intent; they may use the case study method for
investigating legal or economic aspects of the society that uses the language [28]; they may
prepare meals according to the cuisine of a country where the language is spoken or engage in

appropriate social activities of the culture; they may develop plays, radio, or television programs,
soap operas, or videos, or engage in argument on the Internet; they may write poems that they
discuss with each other or prepare entertainments for students in other classes, for parents, or for
the community. Above all, these interactive activities should be purposeful, not just time-fillers,
involving a task that is clearly defined to channel the students' language use and lead to the
satisfaction of achievement. In these ways students learn by doing.
In language use, "true creativity means free action within the framework of a system of rules," as
Chomsky has phrased it.[29] Once one has a functional mental representation of the system of
rules of the language one can break rules, using the language in unorthodox ways to make one's
meaning more vivid and expressive, using the language in all its richness and flexibility, and this
demonstrates language control.
Principle 7: Every possible medium and modality is used to aid learning
In 1966, Carroll made the point that "the more numerous kinds of association that are made to an
item, the better are learning and retention."[30] In communicative interaction, language learners
need to draw on all kinds of unpredictable items to express their meaning _ items they learned
the previous day, even items they learned on the first day they had contact with the language.
What they have learned of the language must be firmly established in their memory networks
with many associative triggers, so that it becomes readily available, in some cases for recognition
in speech or writing and in others for retrieval for active use.[31]
Context is an important factor in recall, as well as being a guide to possible and appropriate
meanings; context, it must be remembered, may be linguistic or non-linguistic; it may be aural,
visual, kinesic, olfactory, or tactile; it may be situational or emotional (often perceived as
relevant only by individuals themselves). Language teaching or learning that restricts itself in the
main to presentation and practice in one modality (e.g., the visual in a traditional grammartranslation approach) does not prepare the learner for the full array of contexts in which items
may recur. For these reasons, interactive learning needs to draw on every type of experience to
reinforce what is being learned: physical response, aural input, spoken output, reading materials,
written expression, word puzzles, the act of drawing what is meant, the manipulation of objects
(in the Pestalozzian tradition), interpretation of pictures, acting out of scenes, music, song, dance,
purposeful tasks (e.g., making things, preparing and eating them), gestures, facial expressions,
communicative interludes, and so on. Gattegno emphasizes the importance of breathing and
kinesics,[32] Lozanov the suggestive impact of paintings and music,[33] Asher the kinesic
associations of physical movement[34], Terrell the affective,[35] and Curran calls for the
involvement of the "whole person."[36]
At the present time, it is much more possible than in the past for the learner to have a wellrounded experience of the language: to see, hear, and live it in all kinds of ways. Teachers are no
longer limited to the book, the chalkboard, their own vocal apparatus, an occasional picture or

chart, and a few objects to be handled to bring a sense of reality and a broader context to the
elements of the language and how they combine to create meanings. First came the gramophone
record, then radio, film, television, magnetic tape (on reel and then on cassette), videocassettes,
the computer with possibilities for videodisc, CD-ROM, and the Internet, as well as the
camcorder for recording and evaluating the students' own performance in and out of class. From
ready availability of foreign-language newspapers, magazines, and films, we have moved to
audio and visual material beamed by satellite, and the possibility of downloading a multiplicity
of culturally informative materials from around the world via computer and modem. Students
can communicate with speakers of the language any time of the day or night through their own
computers via e-mail and chat rooms. Student exchange programs have proliferated, and most
schools, even in isolated situations, now have some contact with a visiting native speaker of the
language. Each new medium has presented additional opportunities for teachers to provide
multiple associations with language as used by native speakers and insights into their ways of
thinking and reacting, as well as opportunities for students to view and hear themselves as they
attempt to use the language in authentic ways.
In 1921 Palmer, that most enduring of methodologists, advocated that "we select judiciously and
without prejudice all that is most likely to help us in our work;" he called this "the multiple line
of approach."[37] Now is the time for teachers to investigate, experiment, and use judiciously the
many possibilities for increasing language impact for the learner and opportunities for
interaction, in order to increase motivation to communicate among their students. The sparsely
distributed master teachers of less commonly taught languages can extend their teaching to many
more students via television, satellite, and computer networks in distance learning, often
supplemented by individual telephone conversations with the teacher. Auto-didacts and students
far from their teachers now have access to many of the same advantages for language contact as
those in more formal situations, and students of their own initiative can expand their contacts
with the language, without waiting for structured assistance.
Despite these formerly undreamed of opportunities for contact with the language, all is not
sunshine and light in language-learning land. We return to Palmer's phrase "select judiciously."
Much that is available ostensibly to "help us in our work" does not promote or encourage that
interaction that leads to communication through language. Much attention, time, and energy need
to be devoted to what passes over the airwaves or is stored on disc, film. or cassette. "Garbage in,
garbage out" is still as true as it ever was, and time is a precious commodity. Material that is not
integrated in some way into the student's progressive learning experience (material that is
inaccessible, for instance, because of level of difficulty) can be suffocating and discouraging.
Teachers need to reflect very carefully on how to use, or help students to use, this almost
mesmerizing variety of materials, so as to insure that it increases opportunities for learning and
improves quality of learning. For us all, the watchword is cavete ("Y'all watch out now").

Six areas need careful consideration if we are to draw the most benefit for language learners
from the present rapid development of resources. For them, as for us, open access to chaos can
be more confusing than consolidating.
1. In what ways do the programs available for use with the new technologies fit in with the aims,
content, and approaches of the courses we feel our students need in light of the goals they have
set themselves?
2. What can technology-based courseware accomplish as an aid to learning that cannot be
achieved at lower cost, monetarily and in time and energy, through other means? (In other words,
how much is enough to enhance learning?)
3. How can we ensure that teachers wholeheartedly and advisedly cooperate in incorporating the
latest technological resources into the language program, facilitating individual student access to
them? (Are we providing sufficient orientation, training, and retraining to build up their
confidence and expertise?)
4. Do we have research evidence that incorporation of the latest technological adjuncts leads to
more efficient and effective language learning and use, and are we making the adjustments
indicated by what has been learned to date?
5. How do we adjust our course design, materials, and teaching so as to incorporate and
supplement most usefully what the student has access to outside of the classroom? (See also
Principle 10.)
6. What steps must we take to ensure that teachers who devote much time, energy, and expertise
to developing effective materials using new media are suitably recognized and compensated for
these efforts?
Principle 8: Testing is an aid to learning
Testing has so often been punitive. Students become very nervous about tests, which as
often as not seek to discover what the students do not know or cannot immediately recall,
rather than providing them with an opportunity to demonstrate to the examiners and
themselves what they can do with the language. Many test-writers, unfortunately,
concentrate on minutiae of language, looking for little slips or familiarity with lesser
known grammatical usages rather then the broader aspects of comprehensible and
acceptable language use. (Is this why teachers need answer keys to help them correct
tests?) We must work to reduce in every possible way the debilitating level of anxiety and
apprehension from which many students suffer in testing situations.
1. Rather than being a ranking, exclusionary procedure, tests should concentrate on
enabling all students to demonstrate what they can do with whatever level of language

they possess. In this way, the test is a guide to the students, as well as the teacher, as to
what they have assimilated sufficiently for it to be usable for real communicative
purposes, in speech or writing.[38] The test then becomes an aid to learning, not an
intentionally tricky hurdle.
Computer-adaptive testing (CAT) is useful in this regard; the computer is programmed to
seek out, through the choice of items presented, the individual student's performance
level and to verify this level through further testing, terminating the test when this has
been determined, so that students are not subjected to the frustrations of a multiplicity of
items beyond their knowledge and competence. The verification check, providing as it
does repeated testing round about a certain level, also reduces the possibility of
measurement error that can creep in with a more hit-or-miss approach.
2. The test itself should be a learning experience that is part of the ongoing course. If the
test is to act as a guide to the student as well as the teacher, it cannot be final. The student
goes on to relearn and consolidate what has been found to be lacking or misunderstood,
and then has the opportunity to retest (not "be retested," since the decision is voluntary)
to see how the learning is progressing.[39] In brief, the test stimulates further learning.
This approach to testing reduces the emotional and stressful element that discriminates
against students of certain temperaments when faced with the once-for-all, futuredetermining character of much present-day testing.
3. It cannot be overemphasized that the test should reflect the objectives of the course,
which, as we have seen in the discussion of Principle 2, should reflect the objectives of
the student. For too long we have taught and students have learned one thing, and the test
has concentrated on another (for instance, the course may be orally oriented, while the
test is entirely written). This is often because we have relied on a kind of test that was
easy to prepare and easy to correct, thus putting large groups through the same wringer
for our own convenience. When this is not the case, the problem is frequently because the
form of the test is already well known to teacher and students, and the teacher "teaches to
the test," so that the students will perform well on the test whatever their linguistic
strengths or weaknesses. We thus put expedience before educational objectives, and the
test becomes the be-all and end-all of the course in the students' minds, and even for
some of the teachers. This washback effect of the form of the test on the way the course is
taught and the way students choose to learn cannot be ignored. Much thought is required
to design a test appropriate for a particular course that will encourage effectual learning
behavior, while enabling students to demonstrate their control of what they have been
learning. The construction of tests is a process that requires not just time and energy but
much reflection.
4. The test should be interesting. Students should enjoy taking the test. If thought is given
to creating a test that involves students in working out interesting problems,
comprehending and reacting to stimulating ideas, expressing their own ideas, or at least
producing some form of original response, if students are asked to take the initiative in
some way that enables them to demonstrate how well they can interact in the language (in
speech or writing), then the test will be motivational and a means of growth for the

students. We must be wary of ways of group testing that save time, but force us back into
too much discrete-point testing, which encourages discrete-point teaching.
5.. Tests should not be rigidly timed. The old picture of the exam proctor forcing
examinees to stop in the middle of a sentence because "time is up" should be obsolete as
an absurdity. In a student-centered program we are aware of individual differences among
students, and we recognize that some students think and write more deliberately than
others; some are perfectionists; some rush at a task too precipitately and need time
afterwards to edit and rethink parts of their work; some finish early; some need a little
longer to proofread their final effort. In many tests, a few more minutes to demonstrate
what the student knows can make all the difference between success and failure . We test
for success.
6. We should avoid overtesting. Continual testing not only raises the anxiety level for
students, it also reaches a point of diminishing returns. A test that reveals only what one
already knows about the students is a superfluous test and a waste of valuable time that
could be used more profitably for further interactive activity. Tests should be
administered sparingly at intervals throughout the course when they can yield
information on progress that is useful to both student and teacher.
7. An important question for many instructors is whether student-centered testing can be
conducted for big groups (across sections in large institutions, across a number of schools
in a local area, or for all students of a certain level in national examinations). A more
appropriate question would be: Is there genuine educational value in wide-scale
impersonal testing, in which, as we well know, a certain number of students always fall
through the cracks, often through no fault of their own? The attainment of local or
national standards can be ascertained, if so desired, by more personalized alternative
forms of assessment (portfolios, for instance, oral interviews, or certified dossiers of
personal production, which now may be in the form of videos, not just as written
documentation). Fill-in-the blank and multiple-choice tests, although sometimes useful
for quizzes of small segments of class work, do not tap performance levels in real
language use. We need the development of more imaginative, humane tests of what one
really does with language[40], just as art and music require different types of tests from
fact-based content courses. We must train teachers well in testing theory and techniques
so that testing can be conducted at the interpersonal, rather than the impersonal level.
Principle 9: Language Learning is penetrating another culture; students learn to operate
harmoniously within it or in contact with it
Language and the cultural values, reactions, and expectations of speakers of that language
are subtly melded. Gattegno brings this out when he says that "only when one is really
imbued with the literature or soaked in the environment of the people using the language
can one express oneself in speech or writing as a native would. It is the spirit of a
language that has to get hold of one's mind."[41] Not even consciously realized by the
culture-bearers themselves, these values, expectations, and presuppositions (what
Nostrand has called "the culture's 'ground of meaning'")[42] frequently pass unperceived

by the learners of the language, who bumble and fumble their way through relations and
contacts with native speakers, quite unaware of their cultural faux pas and unintentional
offensiveness. Plunged into the culture, they suffer from depressing shock and stress and
confidence-destroying frustrations that affect their ability to interact harmoniously with
those with whom they come in contact. Not infrequently they end up loving the language,
but hating its users.
Unfortunately being fluent in the language is not enough. As Cortese expresses it: "If the
social compact requires the observation of pretty, polite techniques for the avoidance of
conflict" (these are frequently taught to the learner), "it is also, at a deeper level, built on
negotiation of and respect for individual values and traits. It is to this level that a
formative language learning process must reach, both in the sense of helping the
individual to shape his [or her] own values and in the sense of comprehending different
value orientations;" this, she says, distinguishes "production performance" from the mere
"imitation of politeness norms."[43]
We develop our students' ability to interact initially with those who are linguistically and
culturally different by teaching social amenities that oil wheels and open doors of
acceptance (Cortese's pretty politenesses), but these merely provide opportunities to
advance further in understanding. As we proceed, we need to understand culturally
diverse interaction styles,[44] and, in many cases, adopt these ourselves, if we are not to
find our progress arrested by misunderstandings. We need to learn different pragmatic
routines _ ways of opening and closing conversations, taking turns, and so on. As we
come into closer contact with the other culture through these outer doors, we begin to
recognize systematic patterns of beliefs and behavior, soon finding that what may appear
to be exotic, discrete acts or ways of expressing oneself are in fact manifestations of
societal subsystems (e.g., maintaining a hierarchy of respect or rejection of
discriminatory distinctions; dislike of vanity, bombast, or servility; deep-seated needs for
individualistic expression or a tendency to take refuge in group conformity).
These linguistic and pragmatic reactions, even in the form of verbal formulae, cannot be
learned piecemeal; they need to be acquired in culturally probable situations. When
actually living and working with native speakers is not a possibility, they may be
observed in films, plays, novels, soap operas, or radio talk shows, as well as in
newspapers or magazines. The teacher, being more experienced, acts as a guide to
interpretation, however, since students will tend to interpret this raw material from the
point of view of their own culture. Practice in interacting with people of different cultural
viewpoints may be gained also through acting out problem situations within the culture,
as in Di Pietro's interactive scenarios.[45] Students work out possible, culturally
appropriate solutions as they are simulating interaction within the culture, facing up to the
unpredictable and making decisions as native speakers might do. Later discussion brings
out areas of cultural understanding and misunderstanding that surfaced during the
interaction. Here again explanations and advice from a person with intimate acquaintance
with the culture is essential to avoid misinterpretations based on the students' own
culturally determined viewpoint.

Seeking to understand from her own experience "ease of interaction" in new social and
cultural situations, Robinson draws four conclusions.[46] that help us to understand our
pedagogical task. She found that emphasis on cultural differences divides, whereas
commonalities bring people together (in other words, we combat stereotypes more
effectively by bringing out cultural similarities than differences); that understanding, in
the sense of getting over barriers to communication, is not just derived from the ability to
anticipate culturally different events, but comes through all modes of perception _
physiological, emotional, kinesthetic, tactile, as well as cognitive _ that is, the experience
of the culture in all its richness must be integrated with attempts to describe and explain,
something that is more possible in this age of interactive multimedia and ease of travel by
people of both cultures (see also Principle 7). She also emphasizes the fact that new
cultural experiences are not 'add-ons', rather they are interpreted through and integrated
with the learner's previous experience (the students are thus enriched in their experience
of the world and their viewpoint is changed); and, finally, genuine intercultural
understanding takes time. As Kramsch warns us: "The difficulty of understanding cultural
codes stems from the difficulty of viewing the world from another perspective, not of
grasping another lexical or grammatical code"[47]; this is a process of simmering, not of
rapid boiling.
Through our attempts to understand the cultural-linguistic behavior of others, we come to
understand our own value systems and our own culture-laden language use. As a result,
we emerge enriched, as we broaden our experience of human ways of thinking and
behaving; we develop a tolerance for difference, even within apparent similarity; and we
learn to interact harmoniously and comfortably with others from different backgrounds,
within our own and other societies, without confusion of our own sense of identity.
Such a result does not come of itself; it requires hard work, hard thinking, patience, and
persistence on the part of both teacher and learner.
Principle 10: The real world extends beyond the classroom walls; language learning takes
place in and out of the classroom
"Language is a natural function of human association," according to Dewey.[48] The
more opportunities we have for human association with speakers of our new language,
the more potential for growth in control of language for normal uses and spontaneous
expression. In second language and bilingual situations, teachers with interactive aims
have many possibilities available for strengthening language learning outside of the
classroom through facilitating contacts between second-language learners and the nativespeaker community surrounding them. They arrange for host families who invite students
from other countries to share in holiday and family festivities. They set up structured
interview assignments, which help their students overcome their diffidence and
nervousness as they talk with native speakers in a purposeful way. They send their
students out to discuss prices and quality of goods in shops or to use the telephone to
enquire about a local sports club or the availability of videocassettes for rental. They take
them to local restaurants, to the bank or the post office. They request reports on current
films, television shows, or radio broadcasts, ranging from commercials or newshours to

talk shows, sitcoms, or soap operas. They encourage students to give talks to local service
clubs or schools. This kind of immersion in the "real world" has generally been
considered difficult to arrange for foreign -language learners, who have remained inside
their classrooms behind closed doors. This need not be the situation. More and more, as
the world opens up through travel, student exchanges, the World Wide Web, and shared
projects across cultures, the advantages second-language learners enjoy are being taken
more seriously as options for all language learners.
In most communities, a little searching will lead to the discovery of some native speakers
in the environs: expatriates, spouses, exchange students, visiting business executives, and
experts of all kinds, often with their families, or newly arrived immigrants. Where there
has been long established immigration, another source of native speakers is the retirement
community or the senior citizens center. Sometimes older speakers of the language are
isolated and lonely and are reverting to monolingualism. The "Adopt a Grannie" idea,
which has proved so successful in social work, might be adopted here, as well as the
fostering of phone friendships with elderly speakers of the language, many of whom are
housebound. Sometimes it is possible for students to help monolingual speakers of the
language with filling in forms or information on taxes and the availability of services; at
other times, students collect data on their early lives in their native land.
Kipp,[49] who worked in German classes in schools in Victoria, Australia, reports that
motivation to speak the language being learned was dampened among students by the
lack of a "sizeable native speaking peer group either inside or outside the school
environment." Where there was a local community of German speakers, the students, she
found, enjoyed any contacts that were readily available to them, but they did not engage
in active searching for further language speech partners. This pinpoints the need for
teacher leadership in assigning projects that will be integrated into classwork, so that
students enjoy a sense of achievement after all their effort. Students whose motivation to
seek out contacts is stimulated by the incentive of a language-related assignment or a
group project will often ferret out further opportunities to use the language that the
teacher did not dream were available. The project, whether to research the early
experiences in this country of an elderly immigrant or his or her memories of "old
country" tales and customs, should receive the recognition of being presented to the class,
or reported in the school or local newspaper; alternatively, it may form part of a group
writing project on unusual features of the local community for eventual dissemination
within and beyond the school, even perhaps via a local-access cable channel.
Where there are no such resources, the community is contacted from a distance _ through
pen-pals, tape pals, or e-mail; through classrooms twinned by computer and modem,
sister city projects, collaboration with a commercial campaign at the local mall ("France"
or "Italy in Our-Town"), where language students enliven the proceedings by singing
songs in the language or performing dances of the culture. Weekend camps can be
organized where teachers from different schools become the 'native speakers' for the
duration. There are endless opportunities now for contact with other languages and
cultures through satellite broadcasts and videos. We must seize every existing or

imaginable opportunity for taking the language and its learners out of the classroom, in
actuality or through vicarious experience.
Once our students see advantages and experience satisfactions in undertaking these kinds
of projects, they will think of others of their own. Like barbecues, students need a little
"starter".
Each of these principles expresses a philosophical or psychological position or attitude.
We each teach according to firmly held attitudes of this kind. Our own may not be clear
to our students or even to ourselves; we may not have paused to reflect on them
sufficiently, but, if challenged or confronted with other views, we respond in a way that
reveals "where we are coming from." By clarifying our attitudes and convictions in our
own minds, we are strengthened to "select judiciously," as Palmer puts it,[50] applying
what we find to be useful, not for all time but for this time. Keeping the needs of our
present language learners in the forefront of our thinking, we experiment and innovate
purposefully in this particular context. We are in charge and we cede this role to no other.
This way lies true professionalism _ with liberation from external pressures and
empowerment to develop and improve our work in the way we judge to be best for our
students.
NOTES
1. Seneca, Ad Lucilium V, vii.
2. W. von Humboldt, "Uber die Verschiedenheit des Menschlichen Sprachbaues (Berlin,
1836), cited by N. Chomsky in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1965), p. 51.
3. A. Bronson Alcott, General Maxims, in the Alcott Journals, 1826-27, Maxim XXX1V.
This was also the approach of Maria Montessori.
4. C. Gattegno, Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way., 2d ed. (New
York: Educational Solutions, 1972), pp. 31-32.
5. R. Oxford, Language Learning Stategies: What Every Teacher Should Know (New
York: Newbury House/Harper and Row, 1990).
6. This subject is considered in greater detail in "Motivating through Classroom
Techniques," in W. M. Rivers, Speaking in Many Tongues: Essays in Foreign-Language
Teaching, 3d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 108-119.
7 C. E. Snow and M. Hoefnagel-Hohle, "The Critical Period for Language Acquisition:
Evidence from Second Language Learning." Child Development 19 (1978):1111-1128.
8. R. J. Light, Explorations with Students and Faculty about Teaching, Learning, and
Student Life. The Harvard Assessment Seminars. Second Report. (Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Graduate School of Education and the Kennedy School of

Government, 1992).
9. For further possibilities for course orientations and contents, see chaps. 1 and 2 of W.
M. Rivers, ed., Teaching Languages in College: Curriculum and Content (Lincolnwood,
IL: National Textbook Co., 1992).
10. O. Jespersen, How to Teach a Foreign Language (London: George Allen and Unwin,
1961), pp. 17-18. First published in 1904.
11. See also R. L. Allwright, "The Importance of Interaction in Classroom Language
Learning," Applied Linguistics 5 (1984): 156-71.
12. C. A. Curran, Counseling-Learning in Second Languages (Apple River, IL: Apple
River Press, 1976).
13. E. K. Horwitz and Dolly Young, eds.,.Language Anxiety: From Theory and Research
to Classroom Implications (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,1991).
14 C. A. Curran, Counseling-Learning: A Whole Person Model for Education. (Apple
River,IL: Apple River Press, 1972), p. 72.
15. Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind : The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (New York:
Basic Books, 1983); Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice (New York, Basic
Books,1993); and Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity seen through the Lives of
Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi (New York: Basic
Books, 1993).
16. "Individualized Instruction and Cooperative Learning: Some Theoretical
Considerations," in W. M. Rivers, Communicating Naturally in a Second Language:
Theory and Practice in Language Teaching (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1983), p. 78.
17. M. A. K. Halliday, An Introduction to Functional Grammar (London: Edward Arnold,
1985), p. 101.
18. N. Chomsky, Knowledge of Language: Its nature, origin and use (New York: Praeger,
1986), pp. 147-51. Chomsky's views are discussed in considerable detail in R. P. Botha,
Challenging Chomsky: The Generative Garden Game (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989).
19. T. V. Higgs and R. Clifford, "The Push Toward Communicastion," in T. V. Higgs, ed.,
Curriculum, Competence, and the Foreign Language Teacher (Skokie,IL: National
Textbook Co., 1982), p. 74. Italics in the original.

20. W. James, Talks to Teachers , quoted in H. Rugg, Foundations for American

Education (Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York: World Book Co., 1947), p. 91. Italics in the
original.
21 M. Sharwood Smith, "Consciousness-raising and the Second Language Learner,"
Applied Linguistics 2 (1981):159-69.
22. For an experimental validation of this viewpoint, see E. Ericsson, Foreign Language
Teaching from the Point of View of Certain Student Activities. Goteborg Studies in
Educational Sciences 59 (Goteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1986).
23. A. A. Leontiev, Psychology and the Language Learning Process (Oxford: Pergamon,
1981), p. 65.
24. N. Chomsky, "Linguistic Theory," in R. G. Mead, Jr., ed., Language Teaching:
Broader Contexts (Middlebury, VT: Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign
Languages, 1966), p. 44.
25 N. Chomsky, Topics in the Theory of Generative Grammar (The Hague: Mouton,
1966), p. 11.
26. A. M. Blumenthal, Language and Psychology (New York: Wiley, 1970). p. 37, in a
discussion of the work of Wilhelm Wundt.
27. For further discussion of interaction as an essential prerequisite for communication
through language, see W. M. Rivers, "Interaction as the Key to Communication," in M.
A. K. Halliday, J. Gibbons, and H. Nicholas, eds., Learning, Keeping and Using
Language : Selected Papers from the Eighth World Congress of Applied Linguistics, Vol
1 (Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1990), pp. 7-17.
28. Dow, Anne R., and Joseph T. Ryan, Jr. "Preparing Students for Professional
Interaction." Interactive Language Teaching. Ed. Wilga M. Rivers. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987: 194-210. Many other suggestions for participatory
interactive activities may be found in this book.
29. N. Chomsky, Language and Politics, ed. C. P. Otero (Toronto: Black Rose Books,
1988).
30. J. B. Carroll, "The Contributions of Psychological Theory and Educational Research
to the Teaching of Foreign Languages," in A. Valdman, ed., Trends in Language Teaching
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 105.
31. The psychological mechanisms behind memory processes are discussed in W. M.
Rivers, "Recognition, Retention, Retrieval: The Three R's of Vocabulary Use," in P.
Hashemipour, R. Maldonado, and M. van Naerssen, eds., Studies in Language Learning

and Spanish Linguistics . In Honor of Tracy D. Terrell (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995),
pp. 246-57.
32. Gattegno (1972). Gattegno considers breathing and kinesics to be of great
importance, as well as the conscious application of the intellect.
33. G. Lozanov's Suggestopaedia, as discussed in S. Ostrander and L. Schroeder, Psychic
Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970).
34. J. J. Asher,"The Learning Strategy of the Total Physical Response: A Review."
Modern Language Journal 50 (1966):79-84.
35. T. D. Terrell,"The Natural Approach to Language Teaching: An Update," in
Hashemipour et al., eds.(1995), p. 22. Reprinted from Modern Language Journal 66
(1982):121-32.
36. Curran (1966).
37. H. E. Palmer, The Principles of Language-Study (London: Harrap, 1921.) Reprinted
by Oxford University Press in 1964. The quotations are from the OUP reprinted edition,
p. 141.
38. For a more detailed discussion of proficiency-oriented testing, see W. M. Rivers,
Teaching French: A Practical Guide , chap. 10: Testing and Assessment ; and similar
chapters in Rivers et al., Teaching German: A Practical Guide, and Teaching Spanish: A
Pratcical Guide, all from Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Co., 1988; and W. M.
Rivers and M. Nahir, A Practical Guide to the Teaching of Hebrew (Tel Aviv: University
Publishing Projects, 1989).
39. For suggestions on how to arrange the retaking of tests, see Rivers (1988) and Rivers
et al. (1988, 1989), chap. 10.
40. See M. Canale, "The Measurement of Communicative Competence," in R. Kaplan,
ed., Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 8 (New York: Cambridge University
Press,1988), pp. 67-87.
41. Gattegno (1972), p. 20.
42 H. L. Nostrand, "Authentic texts _ Cultural Authenticity: An Editorial," Modern
Language Journal 73,1 (1989):51.
43. G. Cortese, "Interaction in the FL Classroom: From Reactive to Proactive Experience
of Language," System 15,1 (1987):32.

44. See also G. L. N. Robinson, "Culturally Diverse Speech Styles," in W. M. Rivers, ed.,
Interactive Language Teaching (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 14154.
45 R. J. DiPietro, Strategic Interaction: Learning Through Scenarios (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987). Further ideas for bringing students to awareness of
another culture are found in W. M. Rivers, Teaching Foreign-Language Skills . 2d ed.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), chap. 11.
46. G. L. N. Robinson, Crosscultural Understanding: Processes and Approaches for
Foreign Language, English as a Foreign Language and Bilingual Educators (New York
and Oxford: Pergamon, 1985), pp. 3-5.
47. C. Kramsch, Context and Culture in Language Teaching (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1993), p. 188.
48 J. Dewey, Experiences in Nature (Chicago: Open Court, 1925), p. 179.
49. S. Kipp, "Student Reaction," chap. 8 of M. Clyne, ed., An Early Start: Second
Language at Primary School (Melbourne, Australia: River Seine Publications, 1986), pp.
104-105.
50. Palmer (1964/1921), p. 141.