Do We Teach German Well?

Abstract

IT IS an open secret that on the whole the teaching of languages in this country is relatively poor. There has never been much enthusiasm for languages, and the number of language students is steadily decreasing. Because of obvious political and economic reasons, interest in Spanish has increased recently, but at the expense of all other languages, mainly of French. Strangely enough, German has not yet decreased to the extent that was to be expected since the outbreak of the war. According to the publishers of German textbooks, it has decreased less than io per cent in the United States during the last year. But with the situation inevitably becoming more threatening, those still interested in German culture and language might ask themselves very sincerely: Why are so many students of German dissatisfied with the courses offered, and why do they consider them old-fashioned? Is the teaching of German in this country really satisfactory? What can be done in order to meet the danger of a further decrease? The unpleasant answer can be formulated in one sentence: an oldfashioned teacher must necessarily offer an old-fashioned course. What does that mean? It means that a large number of German teachers are not qualified to teach German well. As native Americans, they may speak German with difficulty and have only a modest knowledge of German culture. On the other hand, native Germans can be found in the German departments in this country who entered the teaching career by mere chance because it was the easiest thing for them to do when they arrived in this country; but since they had not prepared to teach, they lack the necessary qualifications and knowledge. After the German inflation in I923 many German immigrants, especially persons with Doctors' degrees, were employed by German departments regardless of the fact that they had majored in sociology or history or economics. Some of them have turned out to be successful teachers, at least so far as basic German, grammar, and simple conversation are concerned, but their knowledge of German literature has not always been adequate for a quite understandable reason. The average age of the heads of German departments is between fifty and sixty. They probably received their education about thirty-five or forty years ago, completely or partly at German universities, at a time when modern