Page:Adapting and Writing Language Lessons.pdf/112

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Suggestions for Adaptation
APPENDIX C

ulary items. In the meantime, he can demonstrate his new ability to ask and answer questions about (pictures of) places in his immediate vicinity. This activity may be varied by reducing the time each picture is on the screen, or by putting slides in backwards, upside down or sideways.

Referring once more to Fries' famous definition, we may question whether, in fact 'to have learned a foreign language' is it itself a serious goal for any adults except a few professional linguists and other language nuts. Certainly in addition to extrinsic motivations like fulfilling a requirement or preparing for residence abroad, one needs the intrinsic rewards of

esthetically agreeable activities with freguent rewards of various kinds. But the work of Lambert and others[1] indicates that even the extrinsic motivations vary dramatically in their driving power, according to the breadth and depth of their integration with the total personality of the learner. That principle must be both the adapter's raison d'être and his guiding star.


  1. See Chapter 1, p. 23

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