PRACTICAL ADVICE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20784, 20 July 1937, Page 11

PRACTICAL ADVICE

THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH TALK BY DR. NORWOOD By Telegraph -Press Association DUNEDIN, July 19. Speaking “in the spirit of a working school master,” Dr. Cyril Norwood, president of St. John's College. Oxford, and a former headmaster of Harrow, gave some practical advice on the teaching of English at the New Fellowship Conference to-day. In his opinion what was wanted was to give pupils before they left school an idea that there was such a thing as good English. Whether that result could be achieved depended on the teacher. Pupils should be able at the completion of the course to express themselves intelligently in speech and in writing. They should have an appreciation, of rhythm in language. They should be able to read aloud with intelligence and be able to follow a line of thought. Finally, they should ave formed the beginnings of a love of literature. It was worthy of t note that most of these qualities were not capable of being estimated by examination, and the result was that they did not receive the place they should in the school curriculum.

Dr. Norwood remarked specially that there was in general insufficient attention to oral work. The contents of school magazines showed that there was an immense amount of good Imitative work being produced by boys and girls, indicating that written English was being taught along fairly satisfactory lines, but he did not believe that the same could be said of oral instruction. Although he did not criticise the examining system in English, which, he said, he thought was probably as good as any examination on the subject could be, he remarked that the courses were planned to attain good results in thq examination and were essentially cramming with facts and second-hand opinions. In England, 40,000 examination candidates got credit in English each year, and, personally, he would not care to guarantee that one of them could read, write or speak correctly. He would like the schools to be free altogether from external examinations. English, like religion in schools, could not be taught so much as caught from the personal enthusiasm of the Instructor. Further, every teacher, no matter what his subject, should require good English from his pupils.