Monday, September 26, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Alternative English teaching methodologies
Alternative English teaching methodologies
(Part two)
By KEITH WRIGHT
June 2, 2010, 3:00pm
Over the last six to seven decades, a wide range of approaches to teaching English to speakers of other languages have evolved.
This week, six additional and different methods are briefly considered.
• LEXICAL APPROACH contends that the knowledge of words and phrases is a far better foundation to build a new language than learning grammatical structure.
Emphasis is given to the studies of lexemes, the fundamental units of English. Learners are taught how an English word can sometimes represent one or more than one lexeme, e.g. oxygen = one lexeme (one meaning, one use – a colourless, odourless gas); bank = more than one lexeme, e.g. a bank of computers; an investment bank; the bank of a river, etc.
• NOTIONAL-FUNCTIONAL APPROACH focuses on notions, i.e. time, place, cost, person, quantity, emotional attitudes, beliefs – and emphasizes the use of language for a specific function, i.e. asking, questioning, enquiring, describing, applauding, criticizing, requesting, explaining, etc.
This approach is common in basic conversational language courses and publications where everyday, notional words and functional sentences are used, e.g. What time is it? Is this the train to Paris? My name is Maurtia.
• DIRECT APPROACH places its teaching focus on speech with a major emphasis on phonetics for pronunciation proficiency. Using the principles of visualization, association and learning through the senses, the Direct Approach teaches with pictures, activity and play in a similar way that a child learns their native language.
Grammar is learned by practice rather than by rules or precepts to develop natural, automatic responses. While the Direct Approach advocates that teaching be conducted by a native speaker, it contends that the mother tongue should be avoided in the learning situation as much as possible.
• PHONIC APPROACH teaches the relationship between particular sounds and symbols (letters) or symbol combinations (clusters). A characteristic of the English language is that symbols and symbol combinations can often make more than one sound just as different symbols and symbol combinations can make the same sound, e.g., the sound k… can be made by “c”, “k”. “q” and “ck”.
Phonics is widely used for teaching how to decode written words for pronunciation purposes and spoken words for spelling and writing purposes. While different phonics methods vary in what they teach, their commonality is their teaching how the sounds and symbols of sub-parts of words are connected to form spoken and written words.
The 4S Approach To Literacy And Language is also a phonic-based, teaching methodology but is one that goes to greater heights in imparting literacy and language-related skills. 4S focuses also on the relationship that exists between words in English, on the multi-meaning attributes of numerous words in context, on the symbol combination-syllabic structure of words, as well as on the provision of Keys.
• PRESENTATION, PRACTICE AND PRODUCTION (PPP) adopts a three-stage approach. First, teachers present the context and the language situation when the meaning and the structural form of the new language components are explained and demonstrated.
Second, learners use the new language contextually by practicing making sentences, both verbally and in writing, in a controlled, directed way, using models to work from as required.
It is at the third, production stage that learners are given the opportunity to be more creative in the application of what has been learnt, either working individually or in pairs.
While many teachers use this method today, critics contend the approach can lack flexibility and that lessons can become too ‘teacher-centred’. PPP is also the basis of the traditional method uses for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) that is commonly known as ESA – Engage – Study – Activate.
• GRAMMAR - TRANSLATION METHOD teaches learners to systematically find equivalent or similar words and grammatical concepts in sentences and word lists in their own native language and then translate them to the foreign language being learned, e.g. English, and vice versa.
Teachers applying the Grammar – Translation Method need to be bilingual with a high level of proficiency in the native language. Some critics argue that the method can stifle learners from getting the kind of natural language input necessary to acquire the language. However, its acceptance and success made it the main language teaching and learning method for two centuries and it is still practiced in many varying forms today, in some cases blended with less systematic literary methods.
Unlike the Literary Method that used classical literary texts to teach learners to imitate the writing style of a foreign language, the Grammar-Translation Method, as its name suggests, sought to expose learners to both foreign and native text that exhibited key grammatical concepts and could be translated in both directions. It was, in part, a system of translation.
Next week: The Silent Way, the Situational Approach, the Suggestopaedia method, Task-Based Learning, the Whole Word, and Look And Say Approach.
To obtain a free copy of PDF teaching Chart: Symbol Combinations That Make different Sounds, e-mail your request to: contact@4Sliteracy.com.au
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(Part two)
By KEITH WRIGHT
June 2, 2010, 3:00pm
Over the last six to seven decades, a wide range of approaches to teaching English to speakers of other languages have evolved.
This week, six additional and different methods are briefly considered.
• LEXICAL APPROACH contends that the knowledge of words and phrases is a far better foundation to build a new language than learning grammatical structure.
Emphasis is given to the studies of lexemes, the fundamental units of English. Learners are taught how an English word can sometimes represent one or more than one lexeme, e.g. oxygen = one lexeme (one meaning, one use – a colourless, odourless gas); bank = more than one lexeme, e.g. a bank of computers; an investment bank; the bank of a river, etc.
• NOTIONAL-FUNCTIONAL APPROACH focuses on notions, i.e. time, place, cost, person, quantity, emotional attitudes, beliefs – and emphasizes the use of language for a specific function, i.e. asking, questioning, enquiring, describing, applauding, criticizing, requesting, explaining, etc.
This approach is common in basic conversational language courses and publications where everyday, notional words and functional sentences are used, e.g. What time is it? Is this the train to Paris? My name is Maurtia.
• DIRECT APPROACH places its teaching focus on speech with a major emphasis on phonetics for pronunciation proficiency. Using the principles of visualization, association and learning through the senses, the Direct Approach teaches with pictures, activity and play in a similar way that a child learns their native language.
Grammar is learned by practice rather than by rules or precepts to develop natural, automatic responses. While the Direct Approach advocates that teaching be conducted by a native speaker, it contends that the mother tongue should be avoided in the learning situation as much as possible.
• PHONIC APPROACH teaches the relationship between particular sounds and symbols (letters) or symbol combinations (clusters). A characteristic of the English language is that symbols and symbol combinations can often make more than one sound just as different symbols and symbol combinations can make the same sound, e.g., the sound k… can be made by “c”, “k”. “q” and “ck”.
Phonics is widely used for teaching how to decode written words for pronunciation purposes and spoken words for spelling and writing purposes. While different phonics methods vary in what they teach, their commonality is their teaching how the sounds and symbols of sub-parts of words are connected to form spoken and written words.
The 4S Approach To Literacy And Language is also a phonic-based, teaching methodology but is one that goes to greater heights in imparting literacy and language-related skills. 4S focuses also on the relationship that exists between words in English, on the multi-meaning attributes of numerous words in context, on the symbol combination-syllabic structure of words, as well as on the provision of Keys.
• PRESENTATION, PRACTICE AND PRODUCTION (PPP) adopts a three-stage approach. First, teachers present the context and the language situation when the meaning and the structural form of the new language components are explained and demonstrated.
Second, learners use the new language contextually by practicing making sentences, both verbally and in writing, in a controlled, directed way, using models to work from as required.
It is at the third, production stage that learners are given the opportunity to be more creative in the application of what has been learnt, either working individually or in pairs.
While many teachers use this method today, critics contend the approach can lack flexibility and that lessons can become too ‘teacher-centred’. PPP is also the basis of the traditional method uses for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) that is commonly known as ESA – Engage – Study – Activate.
• GRAMMAR - TRANSLATION METHOD teaches learners to systematically find equivalent or similar words and grammatical concepts in sentences and word lists in their own native language and then translate them to the foreign language being learned, e.g. English, and vice versa.
Teachers applying the Grammar – Translation Method need to be bilingual with a high level of proficiency in the native language. Some critics argue that the method can stifle learners from getting the kind of natural language input necessary to acquire the language. However, its acceptance and success made it the main language teaching and learning method for two centuries and it is still practiced in many varying forms today, in some cases blended with less systematic literary methods.
Unlike the Literary Method that used classical literary texts to teach learners to imitate the writing style of a foreign language, the Grammar-Translation Method, as its name suggests, sought to expose learners to both foreign and native text that exhibited key grammatical concepts and could be translated in both directions. It was, in part, a system of translation.
Next week: The Silent Way, the Situational Approach, the Suggestopaedia method, Task-Based Learning, the Whole Word, and Look And Say Approach.
To obtain a free copy of PDF teaching Chart: Symbol Combinations That Make different Sounds, e-mail your request to: contact@4Sliteracy.com.au
Physical communication and body language
Physical communication and body language
(Part Three)
By KEITH W. WRIGHT
December 10, 2009, 9:18am
This week, as we continue our study of body language as a non verbal communication (NVNVC) tool, we will discover that the position and use of the head is one of the NVC keys.
LEANING THE HEAD TO ONE SIDE
Leaning the head may be a sign of disinterest, impatience or boredom, that is, if it not physical and is actually the remedial response to a pain in the neck. If the head is turned and the listener is looking away, it is usually an indication of lack of interest, or even disbelief, in what is being said.
When a listener loses attention or does not agree with what is being said, it is almost natural to look or glance elsewhere. However, one must remember that certain people are more kinaesthetic than auditory and unless they are “doing’’ something with their hands, they can be very easily distracted.
PHYSICAL RESPONSES
When a listener is in disagreement with what is being said, physical responses may include rubbing or scratching the chin, touching the side of the face, scratching the ear, fiddling, doodling or staring away for an indefinite period.
The constant crossing and re-crossing of the legs and shifting one’s seated position can also be a sign of the person feeling mentally threatened, challenged or uncomfortable about the topic being explored.
INTENSE EYE CONTACT
Negatively, making intense eye contact might be a way of the receiver indicating that he or she does not trust the deliverer enough to take their eyes off them even for a moment.
In contrast, lack of eye contact can indicate a negative attitude and opposition or disinterest.
To make the issue a little more confusing, consistent or intense eye contact might indicate that a person is thinking positively about what the speaker is saying or has said. On the other hand, individuals who are basically shy or suffer from low self-esteem or even from mentally-related disorders, may have great difficulty making eye contact without a degree of physical discomfort.
Eye contact can also have a cultural significance. In most western countries, it customary for children to be inculcated at a very early age that eye contact should be made when speaking to someone. In contrast, in some other cultures, it is deemed improper to intensely look at someone or “eye-ball” another person similar to rules that apply in some correctional centers in the West.
The significance of eye contact becomes clouded even further when it is part of an arms–folded response. Some psychologists argue that this is a sign of a person who is bothered by something else at the time and that he or she is hoping that the issue can be discussed.
Again if eye contact is being made but the person is inattentive and is doodling or fiddling with some object, it could mean that their mind is on something else also.
The use of the eyes and specifically what part of the other person’s head is being looked at, is also believed to be of significance by some who have researched the issue of eye contact. For example, looking at one of the speaker’s eyes and then to the other and finally to the forehead, is said by some to be a sign that the receiver is taking a position of authority in a conversation.
If the person, having looked progressively at both eyes then looks at the nose, they are indicating their acceptance of the evenness or equality of the communication. However, if the final object of sight is the lips, it is suggested that the action could have romantic or amorous connotations.
When a person repeatedly blinks during an interview, questioning or a conversation, the issue of his or her veracity arises and the possibility of their not telling the whole truth comes to the fore.
While the above reactions are all believed to have a variety of specific communication-related meanings, it would be unwise not to also take into consideration the fact that some people have physical disabilities and impairments can cause them to physically act or react in a different way in what are, in the main, unexpected or abnormal situations.
In next week’s column we shall consider some possible interpretations of Body Language Actions involving the face, the eyes, the head and the hands.
(Part Three)
By KEITH W. WRIGHT
December 10, 2009, 9:18am
This week, as we continue our study of body language as a non verbal communication (NVNVC) tool, we will discover that the position and use of the head is one of the NVC keys.
LEANING THE HEAD TO ONE SIDE
Leaning the head may be a sign of disinterest, impatience or boredom, that is, if it not physical and is actually the remedial response to a pain in the neck. If the head is turned and the listener is looking away, it is usually an indication of lack of interest, or even disbelief, in what is being said.
When a listener loses attention or does not agree with what is being said, it is almost natural to look or glance elsewhere. However, one must remember that certain people are more kinaesthetic than auditory and unless they are “doing’’ something with their hands, they can be very easily distracted.
PHYSICAL RESPONSES
When a listener is in disagreement with what is being said, physical responses may include rubbing or scratching the chin, touching the side of the face, scratching the ear, fiddling, doodling or staring away for an indefinite period.
The constant crossing and re-crossing of the legs and shifting one’s seated position can also be a sign of the person feeling mentally threatened, challenged or uncomfortable about the topic being explored.
INTENSE EYE CONTACT
Negatively, making intense eye contact might be a way of the receiver indicating that he or she does not trust the deliverer enough to take their eyes off them even for a moment.
In contrast, lack of eye contact can indicate a negative attitude and opposition or disinterest.
To make the issue a little more confusing, consistent or intense eye contact might indicate that a person is thinking positively about what the speaker is saying or has said. On the other hand, individuals who are basically shy or suffer from low self-esteem or even from mentally-related disorders, may have great difficulty making eye contact without a degree of physical discomfort.
Eye contact can also have a cultural significance. In most western countries, it customary for children to be inculcated at a very early age that eye contact should be made when speaking to someone. In contrast, in some other cultures, it is deemed improper to intensely look at someone or “eye-ball” another person similar to rules that apply in some correctional centers in the West.
The significance of eye contact becomes clouded even further when it is part of an arms–folded response. Some psychologists argue that this is a sign of a person who is bothered by something else at the time and that he or she is hoping that the issue can be discussed.
Again if eye contact is being made but the person is inattentive and is doodling or fiddling with some object, it could mean that their mind is on something else also.
The use of the eyes and specifically what part of the other person’s head is being looked at, is also believed to be of significance by some who have researched the issue of eye contact. For example, looking at one of the speaker’s eyes and then to the other and finally to the forehead, is said by some to be a sign that the receiver is taking a position of authority in a conversation.
If the person, having looked progressively at both eyes then looks at the nose, they are indicating their acceptance of the evenness or equality of the communication. However, if the final object of sight is the lips, it is suggested that the action could have romantic or amorous connotations.
When a person repeatedly blinks during an interview, questioning or a conversation, the issue of his or her veracity arises and the possibility of their not telling the whole truth comes to the fore.
While the above reactions are all believed to have a variety of specific communication-related meanings, it would be unwise not to also take into consideration the fact that some people have physical disabilities and impairments can cause them to physically act or react in a different way in what are, in the main, unexpected or abnormal situations.
In next week’s column we shall consider some possible interpretations of Body Language Actions involving the face, the eyes, the head and the hands.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Important role in intonation in speech
by Lynda Stucky
f you have ever learned another language you know how difficult it is to master. There are different pronunciations of sounds, different grammar rules and some intonation or inflection changes that are complicated and difficult to remember in speech. Unless you are one of the lucky people who is very talented at learning other languages easily, you may find yourself applying the rules of your language to the new language you are trying to learn.
One of the most difficult tasks for foreigners to learn is the stress patterns and melody of English. Inappropriate stress can change the entire word or sentence so much that the message is unrecognizable to the listener. When we were babies, we listened carefully to the speech patterns of the people in our environment. We began babbling by imitating the melody of speech we heard the adults around us use. Learning pitch patterns as a child is easier than learning new patterns as an adult. However, mastering intonation will greatly benefit the non-native speaker's intelligibility in conversation.
Our inflection rises when we ask a question and falls when we make a statement. Intonation is the part of speech that creates emphasis, tone, variety and new meaning by making changes in pitch and loudness.
Consider the following sentence. Try to say it in a very staccato way by giving each syllable the same amount of time. Make the sentence in a monotone voice (no changes in pitch or loudness).
"The issue was discussed."
Now, say the sentence and lengthen the vowel in the first syllable of "issue" (ISsue) and the second syllable in "discussed" (disCUSSED). Really exaggerate the length of those vowels. Also, get higher in pitch when you say them. You have just modified the melody of speech!
No matter what country a person comes from, there will be differences between languages. Here are some other examples that often create challenges to overcome for non-native English speakers.
1. Mandarin Chinese relies on tone differences to make different words. One word may have four different tones and each tone has four different meanings. In English that happens some but not as often. (Consider PROject and proJECT.)
2. Some languages have more pitch changes on individual vowels in words to indicate different word meanings.
3. In Japanese, some tone differences signify a change in the grammar of the sentence.
4. Some languages place equal stress on every syllable with limited variation in loudness or pitch so it is more of a monotonic language.
The task of learning the melody of American English comes easily to those of us who grew up speaking it. But for a non- native speaker, it takes time, practice and perseverance. In order to be better understood in the workplace, on the telephone or giving presentations, the melody of speech is a critical piece in order for the listener to understand the speaker's message. It is even considered to be more important than pronunciation of sounds. Mastering this aspect of speech will greatly benefit the communication effectiveness between two speakers.
f you have ever learned another language you know how difficult it is to master. There are different pronunciations of sounds, different grammar rules and some intonation or inflection changes that are complicated and difficult to remember in speech. Unless you are one of the lucky people who is very talented at learning other languages easily, you may find yourself applying the rules of your language to the new language you are trying to learn.
One of the most difficult tasks for foreigners to learn is the stress patterns and melody of English. Inappropriate stress can change the entire word or sentence so much that the message is unrecognizable to the listener. When we were babies, we listened carefully to the speech patterns of the people in our environment. We began babbling by imitating the melody of speech we heard the adults around us use. Learning pitch patterns as a child is easier than learning new patterns as an adult. However, mastering intonation will greatly benefit the non-native speaker's intelligibility in conversation.
Our inflection rises when we ask a question and falls when we make a statement. Intonation is the part of speech that creates emphasis, tone, variety and new meaning by making changes in pitch and loudness.
Consider the following sentence. Try to say it in a very staccato way by giving each syllable the same amount of time. Make the sentence in a monotone voice (no changes in pitch or loudness).
"The issue was discussed."
Now, say the sentence and lengthen the vowel in the first syllable of "issue" (ISsue) and the second syllable in "discussed" (disCUSSED). Really exaggerate the length of those vowels. Also, get higher in pitch when you say them. You have just modified the melody of speech!
No matter what country a person comes from, there will be differences between languages. Here are some other examples that often create challenges to overcome for non-native English speakers.
1. Mandarin Chinese relies on tone differences to make different words. One word may have four different tones and each tone has four different meanings. In English that happens some but not as often. (Consider PROject and proJECT.)
2. Some languages have more pitch changes on individual vowels in words to indicate different word meanings.
3. In Japanese, some tone differences signify a change in the grammar of the sentence.
4. Some languages place equal stress on every syllable with limited variation in loudness or pitch so it is more of a monotonic language.
The task of learning the melody of American English comes easily to those of us who grew up speaking it. But for a non- native speaker, it takes time, practice and perseverance. In order to be better understood in the workplace, on the telephone or giving presentations, the melody of speech is a critical piece in order for the listener to understand the speaker's message. It is even considered to be more important than pronunciation of sounds. Mastering this aspect of speech will greatly benefit the communication effectiveness between two speakers.
Six rules of Subject Verb agreement
There are a few of us who could use some quick lessons in the use of subject and verb in English. You may have read a lot of rules and completed many sets of exercises to get them right, but here are six simple rules that will make it easy to comprehend and retain the lesson learnt.
Rule 1 - A singular subject uses a singular verb and a plural subject takes a plural verb.
How simple can it get?
Ex -The boy plays. ( Singular subject, singular verb)
The boys play. ( Plural subject, plural verb)
Rule 2 - When you use some or all in a sentence, the verb can be either singular or plural depending on whether the subject can be counted or not.
Ex- Some of the chairs in the conference room are wobbly. ( You can count the chairs.)
Some of the tea from the teapot has spilt on the carpet. ( Tea is a non count subject.)
You can count tea if it were served in tea cups and thus if you say ” Six of the tea cups are cracked”, you will be right!
Rule 3 – When you use each, everyone, someone, anyone then the verb is always singular.
Each of you is responsible for the outcome.
Everyone in class has to have completed the exercise by Thursday.
Someone has to pick me up at the station tomorrow.
Rule 4 – When you use together with, along with or as well as even though they behave like conjunctions and link two phrases, the form of the verb will depend on the first subject.
If the first subject is singular, then the verb used is singular too.
The teacher ( First subject)along with the students ( Second subject) was at the marathon.
The students( first subject)together with the teacher( second subject) were at the celebrations after the marathon.
Rule 5 – When you use neither or either without the or and nor then the verb will always be singular. For ex -
Neither of the dresses she showed me was out of the world.
Will you prefer tea or coffee?
Either of them is ok.
Rule 6 - When neither or either is used in a sentence with the or and nor then the verb will always take the form of the second subject.
Neither Rajen nor his colleagues (second subject is plural) were at the meeting.
Either the engineers or Nair ( Second suject is singular) is representing the company at the conference.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
The Logic of Elfland
My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery. I generally learnt it from a nurse; that is, from the solemn and star-appointed priestess at once of democracy and tradition. The things that I believed most then, the things that I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: compared with them other things are fantastic. Compared with them religion and rationalism are both abnormal, though religion is abnormally right and rationalism abnormally wrong. Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense. It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that criticised elfland, but elfland that criticised the earth. I knew the magic beanstalk before I had tasted beans;
I was sure of the Man in the Moon before I was certain of the moon. This was at one with all popular tradition. Modern minor poets are naturalists, and talk about the bush or the brook; but the singers of the old epics and fables were supernaturalists, and talked about the gods of brook and bush. That is what the moderns mean when they say that the ancients did not "appreciate Nature", because they said that Nature was divine. Old nurses do not tell children about the grass, but about the fairies that dance on the grass; and the old Greeks could not see the trees for the dryads.
But I deal here with what ethic and philosophy come from being fed on fairy tales. If I were describing them in detail I could note many noble and healthy principles that arise from them. There is the chivalrous lesson of "Jack the Giant Killer"; that giants should be killed because they are gigantic. It is a manly mutiny against pride as such. for the rebel is older than all the kingdoms, and the Jacobin has more tradition than the Jacobite. There is the lesson of "Cinderella", which is the same as that of the Magnificat- exaltavit humiles . There is the great lesson of "Beauty and the Beast"; that a thing must be loved before it is lovable. There is the terrible allegory of the "Sleeping Beauty", which tells how the human creature was blessed with all birthday gifts, yet cursed with death; and how death also may perhaps be softened to a sleep. But I am not concerned with any of the separate statutes of elfland, but with the whole spirit of its law, which I learnt before I could speak, and shall retain when I cannot write. I am concerned with a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts.
It might be stated this way. There are certain sequences or developments (cases of one word following another), which are, in the true sense of the word reasonable. They are, in the true sense of the word, necessary. Such are mathematical and merely logical sequences. We in fairyland (who are the most reasonable of all creatures) admit that reason and that necessity. For example, if the Ugly Sisters are older than Cinderella, it is (in an iron and awful sense) necessary that Cinderella is younger than the Ugly Sisters. there is no getting out of it. Haeckel may talk as much fatalism about the fact as he pleases: it really must be. If Jack is the son of a miller, a miller is the father of Jack. Cold reason decrees it from her awful throne: and we in fairy land submit. If the three brothers all ride horses, there are six animals and eighteen legs involved: that is true rationalism, and faryland is full of it. But as I put my head over the hedge of the elves and began to take notice of the natural world, I observed an extraordinary thing. I observed that learned men in spectacles were talking of the actual things that happened-dawn and death and so on -as if they were rational and inevitable. They talked as if the fact that trees bear fruit were just as necessary as the fact that two and one trees make three. But you can easily imagine trees not growing fruit; you can imagine them growing golden candlesticks or tigers hanging on by the tail. These men in spectacles spoke much of a man named Newton, who was hit by an apple, and who discovered a law. But they could not be got to see the distinction between a true law, a law of reason, and the mere fact of apples falling. If the apple hit Newton's nose, Newton's nose hit the apple. That is a true necessity: because we cannot conceive the one occurring without the other. But we can quite well conceive the apple not falling on his nose; we can fancy it falling ardently through the air to hit some other nose, of which it had a more definite dislike. We have always in our fairy tales kept this sharp distinction between the science of mental relations, in which there really are laws, and the science of physical facts, in which there are not laws, but only weird repetitions. We believe in bodily miracles, but not in mental impossibilities. We believe that a Bean-stalk climbed up to heaven; buth that does not at all confuse our convictions on the philosophical question of how many beans make five.
Here is the peculiar perfection of tone and truth in the nursery tales. The man of science says, "Cut the stalk, and the apple will fall"; but he says it calmly, as if one idea really led up to the other. The witch in the fairy tale says, "Blow the horn, and the ogre's castle will fall"; but she does not say it as if it were something in which the effect obviously arose out of the cause. Doubless she has given the advice to many champions, and has seen many castles fall, but she does not lose either her wonder or her reason. She does not muddle her head until it imagines a necessary mental connection between a horn and a falling tower. But the scientific men do muddle their heads, until they imagine a necessary mental connection between an apple leaving the tree and an apple reaching the ground. They do really talk as if they had found not only a set of marvellous facts, but a truth connecting these facts. They do talk as if the connection of two strange things physically connected them philosophically. They feel that because one incomprehensible thing constantly follows another incomprehensible thing the two together somehow make up a comprehensible thing. Two black riddles make a white answer.
In fairyland we avoid the word "law"; but in the land of science they are singularly fond of it. Thus they will call some interesting conjecture about how forgotten folks pronounced the alphabet, Grimm's Law. But Grimm's Law is far less intellectual than Grimm's Fairy Tales. The tales are, at any rate, certainly tales; while the law is not a law. A law implies that we know the nature of the generalisation and enchantment; not merely that we have noticed some of the effects. If there is a law that pick-pockets shall go to prison, it implies that there is an imaginable mental connection between the idea of prison and the idea of picking pockets. And we know what the idea is. We can say why we take liberty from a man who takes liberties. But we cannot say why an egg can turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a bear could turn into a fairy prince. As ideas , the egg and the chicken are further off each other than the bear and the prince; for no egg in itself suggests a chicken, whereas some princes do suggest bears. Granted, then, that certain transformations do happen, it is essential that we should regard them in the philosophic manner of fairy tales, not in the unphilosophic manner of science and the "Laws of Nature". When we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o'clock. We must answer that it is magic . It is not a "law", for we do not understand the general formula. It is not a necessity, for though we can count on it happening practically, we have no right to say that it must always happen. It is no argument for the unalterable law (as Huxley fancied) that we count on the ordinary course of things. We do not count on it; we bet on it. We risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of a poisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet. We leave it out of account, not because it is a miracle, and therefore an impossibility, but because it is a miracle, and therefore an exception. All the terms used in the science books, "law", "necessity", order", tendency", and so on, are really unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesis which we do not possess. The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, "charm", spell", enchantment". They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched.
I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic. It is the only way I can express in words my clear and definite perception that one thing is quite distinct from another; that there is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs. It is the man who talks about "a law" that he has never seen who is the mystic. Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none. A forlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love; so the materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide. In both cases there is no connection, except that one has seen them together. A sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because, by a dark association of his own, it reminds him of his boyhood. So the materialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet a sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should not grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country.
This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived from the fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derived from this. Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales - because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could read without boring him. This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest an amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. I have said that this is wholly reasonable and even agnostic. And indeed, on this point I am all for the higher agnosticism; its better name is Ignorance. We have all read in scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can see and appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is. Well, every man is that man in the story. Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. Thou shalt love the Lord the God; but thou shalt not know thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forgot that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forgot.
I was sure of the Man in the Moon before I was certain of the moon. This was at one with all popular tradition. Modern minor poets are naturalists, and talk about the bush or the brook; but the singers of the old epics and fables were supernaturalists, and talked about the gods of brook and bush. That is what the moderns mean when they say that the ancients did not "appreciate Nature", because they said that Nature was divine. Old nurses do not tell children about the grass, but about the fairies that dance on the grass; and the old Greeks could not see the trees for the dryads.But I deal here with what ethic and philosophy come from being fed on fairy tales. If I were describing them in detail I could note many noble and healthy principles that arise from them. There is the chivalrous lesson of "Jack the Giant Killer"; that giants should be killed because they are gigantic. It is a manly mutiny against pride as such. for the rebel is older than all the kingdoms, and the Jacobin has more tradition than the Jacobite. There is the lesson of "Cinderella", which is the same as that of the Magnificat- exaltavit humiles . There is the great lesson of "Beauty and the Beast"; that a thing must be loved before it is lovable. There is the terrible allegory of the "Sleeping Beauty", which tells how the human creature was blessed with all birthday gifts, yet cursed with death; and how death also may perhaps be softened to a sleep. But I am not concerned with any of the separate statutes of elfland, but with the whole spirit of its law, which I learnt before I could speak, and shall retain when I cannot write. I am concerned with a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts.
It might be stated this way. There are certain sequences or developments (cases of one word following another), which are, in the true sense of the word reasonable. They are, in the true sense of the word, necessary. Such are mathematical and merely logical sequences. We in fairyland (who are the most reasonable of all creatures) admit that reason and that necessity. For example, if the Ugly Sisters are older than Cinderella, it is (in an iron and awful sense) necessary that Cinderella is younger than the Ugly Sisters. there is no getting out of it. Haeckel may talk as much fatalism about the fact as he pleases: it really must be. If Jack is the son of a miller, a miller is the father of Jack. Cold reason decrees it from her awful throne: and we in fairy land submit. If the three brothers all ride horses, there are six animals and eighteen legs involved: that is true rationalism, and faryland is full of it. But as I put my head over the hedge of the elves and began to take notice of the natural world, I observed an extraordinary thing. I observed that learned men in spectacles were talking of the actual things that happened-dawn and death and so on -as if they were rational and inevitable. They talked as if the fact that trees bear fruit were just as necessary as the fact that two and one trees make three. But you can easily imagine trees not growing fruit; you can imagine them growing golden candlesticks or tigers hanging on by the tail. These men in spectacles spoke much of a man named Newton, who was hit by an apple, and who discovered a law. But they could not be got to see the distinction between a true law, a law of reason, and the mere fact of apples falling. If the apple hit Newton's nose, Newton's nose hit the apple. That is a true necessity: because we cannot conceive the one occurring without the other. But we can quite well conceive the apple not falling on his nose; we can fancy it falling ardently through the air to hit some other nose, of which it had a more definite dislike. We have always in our fairy tales kept this sharp distinction between the science of mental relations, in which there really are laws, and the science of physical facts, in which there are not laws, but only weird repetitions. We believe in bodily miracles, but not in mental impossibilities. We believe that a Bean-stalk climbed up to heaven; buth that does not at all confuse our convictions on the philosophical question of how many beans make five.
Here is the peculiar perfection of tone and truth in the nursery tales. The man of science says, "Cut the stalk, and the apple will fall"; but he says it calmly, as if one idea really led up to the other. The witch in the fairy tale says, "Blow the horn, and the ogre's castle will fall"; but she does not say it as if it were something in which the effect obviously arose out of the cause. Doubless she has given the advice to many champions, and has seen many castles fall, but she does not lose either her wonder or her reason. She does not muddle her head until it imagines a necessary mental connection between a horn and a falling tower. But the scientific men do muddle their heads, until they imagine a necessary mental connection between an apple leaving the tree and an apple reaching the ground. They do really talk as if they had found not only a set of marvellous facts, but a truth connecting these facts. They do talk as if the connection of two strange things physically connected them philosophically. They feel that because one incomprehensible thing constantly follows another incomprehensible thing the two together somehow make up a comprehensible thing. Two black riddles make a white answer.
In fairyland we avoid the word "law"; but in the land of science they are singularly fond of it. Thus they will call some interesting conjecture about how forgotten folks pronounced the alphabet, Grimm's Law. But Grimm's Law is far less intellectual than Grimm's Fairy Tales. The tales are, at any rate, certainly tales; while the law is not a law. A law implies that we know the nature of the generalisation and enchantment; not merely that we have noticed some of the effects. If there is a law that pick-pockets shall go to prison, it implies that there is an imaginable mental connection between the idea of prison and the idea of picking pockets. And we know what the idea is. We can say why we take liberty from a man who takes liberties. But we cannot say why an egg can turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a bear could turn into a fairy prince. As ideas , the egg and the chicken are further off each other than the bear and the prince; for no egg in itself suggests a chicken, whereas some princes do suggest bears. Granted, then, that certain transformations do happen, it is essential that we should regard them in the philosophic manner of fairy tales, not in the unphilosophic manner of science and the "Laws of Nature". When we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o'clock. We must answer that it is magic . It is not a "law", for we do not understand the general formula. It is not a necessity, for though we can count on it happening practically, we have no right to say that it must always happen. It is no argument for the unalterable law (as Huxley fancied) that we count on the ordinary course of things. We do not count on it; we bet on it. We risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of a poisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet. We leave it out of account, not because it is a miracle, and therefore an impossibility, but because it is a miracle, and therefore an exception. All the terms used in the science books, "law", "necessity", order", tendency", and so on, are really unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesis which we do not possess. The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, "charm", spell", enchantment". They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched.
I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic. It is the only way I can express in words my clear and definite perception that one thing is quite distinct from another; that there is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs. It is the man who talks about "a law" that he has never seen who is the mystic. Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none. A forlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love; so the materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide. In both cases there is no connection, except that one has seen them together. A sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because, by a dark association of his own, it reminds him of his boyhood. So the materialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet a sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should not grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country.
This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived from the fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derived from this. Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales - because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could read without boring him. This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest an amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. I have said that this is wholly reasonable and even agnostic. And indeed, on this point I am all for the higher agnosticism; its better name is Ignorance. We have all read in scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can see and appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is. Well, every man is that man in the story. Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. Thou shalt love the Lord the God; but thou shalt not know thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forgot that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forgot.
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