The Gouin Series Approach
In the late 1800’s, Francois Gouin - a French educational theorist, traveled from France to Germany to learn the language. Despite the aid of memorization, reading, and translation, he was repeatedly frustrated by his inability to speak and comprehend the language. Upon returning to his country he began to consider how children acquire their native language. A great deal of listening in the first and second years of life is foundational before speaking is initiated by the child. The repetitive nature of hearing words familiar in the home environment provides correct pronunciation of phrases and sentences. The child then imitates and practices these in conversation with parents. The result of his research focussed on learning how to speak and comprehend spoken German by emphasizing the connection between language and everyday real life. Gouin stated that a child ought to be taught a foreign language directly and without translation.
Gouin conceived a very orderly and well-thought-out program with specific suggestions whereby a foreign language is internalized and consolidated. He believed that we learn best when we are learning to use verbs in sentences and when those sentences are narrating something we can do or see around us. He created series of sentences to describe every aspect of life so that students could articulate in the the new language what they saw and did. A series of steps in a common action or event, for example the steps by which one opens a book, is one such series.
The main goal was to be able to hold conversations about every aspect of life - not just phrases to help one navigate a foreign country when one is travelling. This method employed a vast vocabulary as well as complex grammatical elements. However, students were able to understand, recall, and speak the language based on real-world experiences. Furthermore, learners began to “think” in the new language (without translating words form their mother tongue into the foreign language in their mind before they spoke).
Learning a series of sentences is the basis of each class. The series of sentences are read by the instructor and then understood and recited by the students. Students first learn the series in their native tongue. (For the sake of example, we will refer to the native tongue as English.) Then they learn the verb in the sentences in the target language, say German. Finally all the words in the sentences are recited in the target language (German). Let us look at an example:
The series of sentences for “I open the book”:
The instructor recites “I take the book. I open the book. I close the book.” as the students listen and watch the instructor do the actions.
The instructor and students repeat the series together with actions.
Now the instructor identifies and says only the verbs in all the sentences: “take, open, close” with the actions.
The instructor and students repeat these verbs and actions together in English.
Now it is time to learn them in the new language.
The instructor now says each English verb mentioned above in the target language, say German, “nehme” (take), “oeffne (open), schliesse” (close) saying it slowly for good pronunciation with appropriate actions as before. The students repeat while simultaneously acting it out.
Finally the German words from the rest of the sentences are added to the verbs in the same manner described above.
The process described above is apprehended as follows:
Step one: “I take the book.”
“I open the book.”
“I close the book.”
Step two: “take”
“open”
“close”
Step three: “nehme” (take)
“oeffne” (open)
“schliesse” (close)
Step four: “ Ich nehme das Buch.” (I take the book)
“Ich oeffene das Buch.”(I open the book)
“Ich schliesse das Buch.” (I close the book)
An emphasis is placed on careful listening so a pure accent is developed. Eventually phrases and sentences already studied are mixed with new vocabulary and constructions to constantly reinforce previous lessons in a way that holds enjoyment for the student. So the student takes and learns what is new while practicing what is already known. This kind of continued practice describes the repetition that naturally occurs in the course of conversation. Also, sentences that are sequentially logical aid memory.
As the instructor leads the students through a recitation of sentences, various comments and questions are introduced which include idioms, common phrases, imperatives (directives), and other conversational elements. For instance, the instructor may say “Good job!” or the next time “Wonderful!” in the new language. In so doing, the student easily adds this relative language to his arsenal simply by hearing it repeated again and again. To practice grammar for example, sentences are re-narrated with a new tense. As students progress they will no longer need to use actions while speaking phrases or sentences but only visualize the steps while speaking so that the learner associates the words with a mental image of a scene. This makes it a personal work of the pupil and fuses it in his mind.
In the course of the series, the student learns a very wide range of both nouns and verbs, conjugations, syntax (the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences), proper pronunciation, spelling, and much more. The Gouin Series Approach highly privileges phrases and sentences over isolated words. There are no vocabulary words to learn. An isolated word is an abstraction because it is not set in its context. Children up until about eight years old are not developmentally mature enough to handle abstractions. Therefore the Gouin Series provides descriptions of actions, composed of whole sentences only.
The following link is an excellent visual demonstration of the process described above using a different series of sentences by an instructor from the UK: