ASSUMPTION I ('USABILITY').
I know
The power of words.
It is nothing!
A fallen
Petal under
A dancer's heel.
But man
In his soul, his lips, in his bones…
Man is by necessity a language-using animal, but as an adult he is only for convenience a language-learning one. The first assumption therefore is that people learn features of a language best if they use those features immediately for their own purposes, instead of just mimicking, memorizing and manipulating forms. [1],[2] This assumption is inconsistent with the time-honored practice of delaying 'free conversation' until the student is 'ready' for it-usually sometime near the end of the second semester or second year.
In this respect, it is worthwhile to distinguish between 'real' and 'realistic' use of language. I really use the question 'What time is it?' only if (a) I don't know what time it is and (b) I want to know what time it is. I can use the same question
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- ↑ In Chapter 1, quoted material usually formed a part of the argument, and so was included in the body of the text. In this chapter most of the quotations are corroborative, in order to make the assumptions seem less idiosyncratic. Accordingly, they have been relegated to footnotes.
- ↑ Rivers (1964, p.128): 'If [the student's] work in a foreign
