LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Your editorial entitled "Verbal Vigor" in the April 26 issue of the CRIMSON recognizes an area greatly in need of attention: enlivening and modernizing language teaching at Harvard. I should like to add one suggestion to those in your editorial.

At present, emphasis in the elementary language courses is almost entirely on grammar and reading, with little or no concern for speaking. Since eighty per cent or more of the students taking these courses take no more than necessary to pass their language requirement, the imbalance between grammar and reading on the one hand, and oral proficiency on the other, seems unwarranted. The student who has taken only enough language courses to satisfy the requirement or pass the examination exempting one from having to take more language courses is far less likely to read a book in German or French than to have occasion to speak such a language when travelling in Europe or upon meeting a foreign traveler in the United States.

The language department would probably raise two objections to my suggestion that there be a more even balance between reading and speaking. One, that classes are too large to allow proper oral training. If this is so, then I say cut down the size of the classes and get more teachers. These teachers should be of the caliber proposed in your editorial.

Second, the department would probably answer that, if class time were devoted to oral instruction, the student would be jeopardized in passing the language requirement examination which is geared to testing grammatical and reading ability. Once the importance of oral training is conceded, it would be begging the question to raise this objection. The student could be tested orally and his grade then incorporated with his grade on the written examination as constituting his language requirement examination grade. An alternative solution might be in eliminating the "requirement" examination altogether, simply requiring a grade of B plus or higher, say, to entitle a student to exemption from the requirement of another year of language. John M. Hirach '54   Yale Law School