Lebanese must master languages:

There is an abundance of specialists of every kind in the world, so the one advantage that the Lebanese have is their knowledge of three international languages, Arabic, English and French. Not one of these languages should be neglected. Personally I find it strange that after twelve years of Arabic in school, few are the Lebanese young people who can stand up and make an impromptu speech in literary Arabic with any confidence, although this is the best way to hold and impress an audience in the countries which offer most lucrative employment and are yet close to home. The few whom I met who were capable of speaking fluent literary Arabic were Armenians. Any language one knows (Greek, Armenian, Italian, Kurdish) should be perfected.

English is of course the language mostly widely used in business. Unfortunately, many imagine that English is an easy language and do not bother to study it properly. Admittedly, words do not change their form for conjugation, declension and agreement for number and gender as in other languages; but this very fact means that there are other far more subtle elements of postposition, idiom, word order, modal verbs, etc. that must be thoroughly mastered in order to avoid unintelligibility or ambiguity, or even downright comic absurdity. Unfortunately, most Lebanese seem to think they know Arabic better than the Jahilin, French better than Victor Hugo and English better than Shakespeare. The use of tenses is very precise in English.

Right/wrong schoolbooks:
It is a great mistake to use schoolbooks intended for schools in UK or USA for teaching Lebanese. To begin with, the teaching of English in Britain and America is in a ghastly mess. One has only to hear the mistakes of basic grammar that now come out of the once idealised BBC newsroom. English grammar and language have never been taught in English-speaking countries in the way French is taught in France, German in Germany or Arabic in the Arab world. I was amazed when I first went to France and found a little French girl learning tenses. I could not understand the need.

I learnt my basic grammar and syntax (principal and subordinate clauses, agreement, etc.) in Latin class nearly seventy years ago when Latin was a sine qua non for education. A refined young Englishman of my acquaintance with a BA English Lit. from Cambridge had never learnt the names of the tenses until he followed a course for British Council teachers of English as a foreign language. I know two case in the UK and one in the USA of Lebanese doctoral students at universities being put in charge of remedial English for native students simply because, unlike the local professors, they had learnt grammar. An English girl doing a BA English at Nottingham asked what a verb was! Generally speaking, those who have been to French-programme schools (or at least giving some French) write better, more lucid, more logical English than those who have been to English-programme schools. The best schoolbooks for all levels were those that were made for the former British colonies by Longman and OUP, and I believe they still are. This might explain why the best, most elegant English is now written by Indian and West African novelists and poets.

Here I have seen the Webster Dictionary in common use. But this dictionary is a reference work for native speakers and of little use for foreigners. A student used the word “gruntled”. He had found it in Webster’s but had not noticed that it was used in the early 17th century and once in 1926 by an author trying (and failing) to be funny; also that it meant the same as disgruntled, not the opposite. On the other hand, the Longman Contemporary and the OUP Advanced Learner’s, intended for foreigners, show how words are used in sentences; e.g. “I want you to help me”, not “I want that you help me.”

I saw a book being used in Lebanon that was intended to enlarge a student’s vocabulary. However, it contained polysyllabic words of Latin or Greek origin, which a Lebanese usually knows from French or from science class; what the Lebanese does need are homely Anglo-Saxon words like edge, gut, rim, rut, more commonly used than French-derived words such as border, intestine, that might sometimes be inappropriate to the context. One should not be fooled by a salesman who says that such-and-such a book is used in America; this is no guarantee that it is suitable for Lebanon, rather the contrary. The situation for French is totally different.

Teachers and their formation:
It goes without saying that a teacher should know the language he teaches – but it needs to be said! When there was no TV, when radio always used good “BBC” English even for popular music programmes, when children and adults were in the habit of serious reading, when even popular newspapers and magazines had well-written articles, when there was discipline and hard work in schools, one could suppose that any school-leaver had mastered his mother language before going to the university. The French have the excruciating année propédutique to eliminate les canards boîteux before they start university.

But, as we have already pointed out, students in UK and the USA and USA are now entering universities with a low level of expression in English. But it seems that students majoring in English, instead of refining their mastery of the numberless forms of expression, vocabulary, etc., spend their time studying theories of psychology and pedagogy, which of course have some truth and utility, but sometimes appear influenced by atheism or by a desire to make life easier for teachers burdened with a great deal of administrative work, large and ill-disciplined classes, and obstreperous parents. Theories to justify multiple-choice questions are a case in point; their one advantage is their ease of correction.

While there is a desperate shortage of people ready to accept the ill-paid and despised form of slavery that teaching has become in many countries (in the past they were at least respected), their task is being rendered almost impossible by depriving them of all means of maintaining their authority and making children work. The fact is that there is no work without discipline, at least in the formative years while self-discipline is being learnt.

Some years ago there was the idea that the teacher’s table should be on a level with those of the pupils, so the latter would not feel over-awed. The result was that teacher and pupils spent the class craning their necks in an effort to see each other. Then there was global reading, recognising words as a whole instead of learning the alphabet and spelling; as a result, pupils were unable to use a dictionary and the effect on their spelling was catastrophic. Such theories may be backed up by impressive scientific-sounding words, but in fact are quite unscientific since experiment only shows up their stupidity.

Behaviourist theory is excellent if it means drilling with sentence structures so that they become spontaneous conditioned reflexes associated with an image or idea. After all, the principle of conditioned reflexes must have been used by Assyrian and Roman drill-sergeants thousands of years ago, and by mothers wanting to teach their children good habits. Unfortunately, certain extreme Behaviourists have pushed their ideas too far and applied them in the wrong circumstances. During the war of 1941-45 Behaviourist psychologist were called in by the US Army to find rapid methods of forming interpreters for native languages in the South Pacific war zone; but shouting battle-orders is a different matter to writing clearly and logically.

Another result of Behaviourism has been an obsession with multiple-choice questions, intended to measure intelligence and ability accurately and scientifically. With multiple-choice examinations ahead, teachers and manuals have to use multiple-choice questions as a means of preparing their pupils, on whose success their salaries depend. But putting a cross in an empty space simply does not give practice in expressing one’s ideas clearly and grammatically and with logical sequence and reasonable elegance, nor does it test one’s ability to do so. It does not test one’s ability to write sentences with correct vocabulary, sequence, grammar, spelling, punctuation and capitalisation all at the same time. It only tests one’s ability to do multiple-choice questions. However, the arch-Behaviourist Watson said that, “So far in his objective study of man no behaviourist has observed anything that he can call consciousness, sensation, imagery, perception, or will. Not finding these so-called mental processes in his observations he has reached the conclusion that all such terms can be dropped out of any description of man’ activity.” So one can only conclude that for the extreme Behaviourists language does not mean anything and one may make any noise or scribble one likes. Logically, this means that Behaviourism itself is only mindless gabble.

Practical methods:

Form of exercises:
There is a saying “You mustn’t throw the baby away with the bathwater,” so one must keep what has given good results with the old methods while always being open to new ideas. Continual radical change for its own sake will only keep us marking time. There will be no lasting worthwhile acquisition.
The purpose of language is to express one’s ideas and desires. Therefore practice must take the form of composing whole sentences on the basis of illustrations or, where class-size and discipline allow, certain activities. Cloze sentences (ones with a space to be filled in by a word) may be sometimes necessary but should be kept to a minimum. Question-and-answer exercises are far better.

Oral work:
The music, intonation, speech rhythm, and even facial expression and gesture, are as much a part of a language as the phonemes (sounds). I always used to exaggerate the intonation to ensure that it was thoroughly assimilated (and to hold attention.) I would never allow a pupil to read or to repeat a sentence in a flat voice. I would make him shout with strong melody. To help pupils further, I would give them some advice about yoga breathing so that they would have perfect voice control. When a written exercise had been corrected, the pupils had to be able to repeat each sentence after taking just one glance at it. All this produced results – and made the class much less boring.

Advanced work:
Before passing to free composition I found that précis writing was by far the best exercise from every point of view (in classe de 2nde). This means taking a text of 300-600 words and reducing it to one third of its length while keeping all the ideas, but with freedom to change their order and words and to eliminate repetition. A single word or short phrase may replace a clause or a sentence. This demands understanding and the ability to write with logical sequence of ideas. It demands good vocabulary, grammar and punctuation. There is no easy mechanical way of doing précis writing. The chief problem is that correction demands a high level on language mastery on the part of the instructor. He must also be able to write concise remarks explaining the nature of the errors of construction or logic. These had better be briefly explained when the papers are returned in class. Errors common to several papers can be dealt with in more detail.

Correction:
First, it is not enough for the instructor to write some such remark as Sentence Structure (SS) when correcting. This leaves the pupil bewildered (sentence structure is the main difficulty for pupils who think in Arabic.) One must say for example “Lack of parallel construction of clauses” or “non-def. rel. clause needs commas.”

Second, every time a pupil makes a mistake he is forming a bad habit. Therefore he must write the correct form three times to acquire the correct reflexes or he will have a zero for his next homework. The best method is to return the exercise-books, together with oral observations, the same day that the next homework is to be given, so the pupil will recopy the incorrect sentences with the reason fresh in his mind. Once the timetable did not allow me to do this for a certain class, and its progress was remarkedly less. Once an army major stopped me in the street. He said; “When we were in classe de 4ème we used to hate you, because if there was a comma out of place, or a capital where there should be a small letter, you would make us copy the whole sentence calligraphy three times. But later I did an English test for a staff officers’ course in the United States, and then I loved you!”

Kenneth Mortimer