Report of the Task
Force
on the Relationship between Graduate Education and the Undergraduate
Curriculum
Section
3
"Get many people wanting and
trying to do the same thing, setting up dozens or hundreds or preferably
thousands of attempts, constructed by the ingenuities and insights of
the parties involved. Let the problems be broken down into sub-problems
(e.g., acquisition of vocabulary: what is the best approach or best
combination of approaches, at what pace, with what oral-aural-scribal
factors, etc.?). Listen to the language-learning experts, such as those
who write in the professional language-acquisition journals (e.g.,
Foreign Language Annals).... Experiment and evaluate and integrate
constantly, dropping what seems to fail.... Work steadily towards
drawing up a full-scale program whose various elements have been well-
tested and synthesized. Train our graduate students to master the
skills to practice the most promising methods available, especially if
we only have several competing options and no clear winner.... In other
words set a clear corporate goal. Put your money where your values/
needs are. Make it a profession-wide concern of great importance...
We know that it is valuable for us to share our experiences, but these
can remain disconnected from the standard practices. Successful summer
institutes' methods can be researched and used by departments too, but
the semester does present a different context for language-learning.
Reports on the study of the languages are written, yes, but are these
substantial and "ad rem" enough and is there enough forward-drive in the
profession as a whole? Do the discoveries get incorporated into the
leading text books, or again, into typical departmental practices? Do
we have the desire to maximize our achievement? Have we honestly given
time to the appropriate research and, most importantly, have we really
made the needed investment it the project? When a breakthrough is
made, will it be noticed, taken up, and promoted with delight and
satisfaction? Or will most of us be just as happy to return to the
steady slow hum of the traditional pattern, which in fact may give us a
few more very precious hours to write or to devote to some other task?
Our overwhelming bias is going to be staying with the current texts and
practices, I believe. We need to work against that."