MULTILINGUAL APPROACH TO TEACHING THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH: PROS AND CONS

Abstract

The history of the English language is a compulsory subject included into the curriculum of students majoring in English. As a theoretical course, it focuses students’ attention on the English language development from both diachronic, and synchronic perspective, spots the differences between Old, Middle and Modern English, guides them through the changes English has experienced over history. Obviously, English is not the only language whose structure has changed over time, and our idea was to highlight the similarities and differences between English as the major language and French, German and Spanish as minor languages our students learn as part of their compulsory curriculum. Despite belonging to different language groups, the four languages can be compared in terms of various grammar structures, thus giving students an opportunity to practice not only English, but also other languages they learn at university.The aim of this article is to show the ways to incorporate the multilingual approach to teaching the history of English and to emphasize its advantages and disadvantages from both teacher, and student perspective.