Читать книгу The Art of Foreign Language Teaching - Peter Lutzker - Страница 15

One of the consequences of the rise of Humanism in the Renaissance was the re-emergence of an approach to teaching with clear roots in Sophistic thinking. The earlier Scholastic approach to studying theological writings based on the strict dialectical approach of lectio and disputatio which had been the accepted teaching practice in all subjects throughout the Middle Ages, was gradually transformed, in part, through a new emphasis on the discipline of Rhetoric in teaching.42 Later, in the course of the 17^th century, a new and independent field of Didactics emerged, in which the specific principles of teaching were developed and systematized.43 Comenius’ Didactica magna (1657) can be seen as the first large scale attempt to develop a rational system of teaching principles. In his emphasis on a new way of teaching based on Anschauungsprinzipien (illustrative principles) as opposed to mechanical learning procedures, as well as in the significance which he attached to spontaneity in teaching (“sponte fluit”) Comenius offered elements of a new, humanistic vision of teaching which differed substantially from those shaped by previous medieval traditions.

The writings of Locke and later Rousseau were also influential in advocating a view of teaching in which encouraging and developing young pupils’ own interest and activity in learning was seen as vital.44 This contrasted strongly with the style of teaching still widely present in the first half of the 18^th century based on a strictly catechistical approach. Moreover, Pestalozzi’s educational principles and methods can also be clearly distinguished from the formalistic principles and authoritative style of teaching prevalent at that time.45 Johann Georg Hammans Fünf Hirten Briefe das Schuldrama betreffend (1763) offered a new vision of teaching based on incorporating elements of drama and acting.46 Fröbel’s later development of the idea of a kindergarten, based on his belief in the harmonious nature of the young child’s being, and the adult’s responsibility to appropriately assist the child in her natural development can also be seen as reflecting a broadly humanistic approach to education. Parallel to these developments, a new approach to studying the classics in universities developed in which the texts were no longer used as a basis for exercises in grammar and rhetoric, but were intensively studied with the intention of developing and educating the entire human being.47 All of these developments can also be seen as connected to the rise of German Idealism, and reflected in the writings of Winckelmann, Herder, Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Humboldt, Fichte and Schleiermacher. In this context, Schiller’s Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen can be viewed as particularly significant in regard to the later development of the concept of teaching as an art.48