(»L'R LANGUAGE AND THE NATIVE i'Li'lL. 40y 



" The ntotoviyana is a locust that is smelling." 



" I am too hungry." [Too for z'ery.) 



" He use to do it " for *' He does it." (Misuse in present 



tense of auxihary, which is past tense only.) 

 "The cow is the animal which is useful." (Misuse of 



article.) 

 " Thet shesh ease thee new one aaav ours." (Mispronoun- 



ciation of short vowels, of sound of itr, of cli, 



" Shesh" r:r church.) 



The small children who learned English in the practising 

 school do not make these errors. Their speech-centres and vocal 

 organs have not yet become set to Zulu intonation and idiom. 

 The advantage here is pateait. 



From the discussion of when to teach English, let us ])ass 

 to the question of what the method and content should be. 



Our results have been most promisinji' with oral work as 

 the great staple of instruction. Reading aloud does not appear 

 to be an effective means of gaining power in English. In my 

 own class of first-year Teachers" Training students, those who 

 pronounce correctly when reading still fail, in two-thirds of the 

 cases, to transfer this correctness into their speech. The same 

 was true of our second-year Teachers' Training class and our 

 Standard V, in 1916. 



We have had much success in the use of a modified form 

 of reading, however. On small sheets we printed specially com- 

 posed sentences, each containiiig as many cases of possible error 

 as we could include. We drilled students on these sentences. 

 Some of the sentences were : 



A girl sees an angel. 



Put the sheep into the ship. 



One of the boys was Charles. 



We used sentences on the blackboard as well as groups of 

 confusing words : 



That bat is like a bird. 



It — eat. 



Of— off. 



Ship- — chip — sheep — cheap. 



Bat — 1)et — bit — but. 



Bad— bed— bird. 



Then — than. 



Wherein our advantage over reading consisted, was in the 

 immense amount of practice or drill on exactly the words which 

 caused difficulty. 



This device is, of course, more useful for the correction of 

 errors than for original teachin^i' of words. It has, however, 

 been useful in the lower standards as a variant on ordinarv oral 

 drill. 



The oral language-lesson itself must be chosen carefully. 

 Our surest as well as swiftest results were secured bv the use 



