A lot has changed in contemporary language learning and teaching in a pretty short space of time. Anyone over 30 might still remember two distinct types of courses being sold on bookshop shelves – the traditional grammar-translation type, and those following a newer communicative approach.
The former is all about rules and drills, while the focus of the latter is language skills for real-world situations. In short, book language versus people language. There’s merit to both, of course – I get a lot from course books both old (sometimes very old) and new. But as the communicative approach is now such a natural first step for many, it’s easy to forget how recently it arose and became mainstream.
In my travels through the British Newspaper Archive, I come across countless ads and reviews for language course books through the decades. Of course, they’re almost all in that rules and drills vein. Writers were constantly coming up with the latest and greatest new system for ‘mastering’ a language. The Victorians seemed particularly obsessed with ‘system’ and ‘mastery’, and that fixation comes through in so many of the titles from that era.
So, here’s a selection of recent finds, spanning 150 years or so. What’s familiar – and what has changed?
A Practical German Grammar (1825)
Advert for “German Grammar” by John Rowbotham in Bell’s Weekly Messenger, 1825
Two hundred years ago, German learners might have been tempted by Rowbotham’s A Practical German Grammar. There’s already an eye to later Teach Yourself courses, as the book is useful to “Private Students” too. And the biggest selling point? The author is “an Englishman” who knows well “those points which are attended with difficulty to his countrymen“. There’s nothing like solidarity!
Hebrew Verbs Simplified (1852)
Advert for “Hebrew Verbs Simplified” by Tresham D. Gregg in The Morning Herald (London), 1852
The 19th Century saw the idea of efficiency and system fetishised to a fault, and you find simplified titles at every turn. There’s a drive to divide knowledge up into orderly chunks so that mastery – a Victorian fixation – is in the reach of everyone. This volume on Hebrew Verbs from 1852 is a lovely example of it. Learn it here and it will be “scarcely forgotten“!
An Easy And Rapid Method for Learning French Verbs (1881)
Advert for “An Easy and Rapid Method for Learning French Regular and Irregular Verbs” by A. E. Ragon in the Dundee Courier, 1881
We have yet another system described in this short 1881 newspaper review, this time for French verbs. It’s easy! And it’s rapid! And you can sense the thrill of the efficiency-seekers, setting the messy world of language in order. It’s nothing new, of course; plenty of modern courses promise to simplify difficult paradigms. But the idea is so bound up with the Victorian ideal of progress and scientific understanding, that there’s a real feeling of Zeitgeist about these pieces.
Italian Conversational Course (1870)
Review for “Italian Conversational Course” by Giovanni Toscani in the Educational Times, 1870
Learning Italian in 1870? You might like to try Giovanni Toscani’s Italian Conversational Course. In the 19th Century spirit of logic and order, it’s organised perhaps a little differently from courses you might be used to. Namely, you’ll focus on verbs first, before moving onto nouns. You have to wonder how ‘conversational’ you’d be after only the first few chapters (“well, I can say I want but I can’t say what I want…”). Saying that, most of the Polish grammar I know is from a 1948 course that only taught neuter nouns for a surprisingly high number of chapters…
Hugo’s In Three Months (1957)
Advert for Hugo language courses in Bookseller, 1957
Skipping forward to the mid-20th Century, things start to look a little more familiar, even if the language sounds old-fashioned. Hugo – a language learning brand you’ll still see in bookshops today – ran this substantial ad piece in 1957. As a testament to the books’ popularity, the ad tells us that they’re now available as hardbacks (“bound in boards“), and available for a mere seven shillings and sixpence. That’s a bargain for language learning without a master!
Assimil Languages (1959)
Advert for Assimil language courses in The Scotsman, 1959
Another evergreen language brand many will be familiar with from modern editions, Assimil was well on the game in 1959. And these courses were fully multimedia, at least in the format of the day – they came with a set of “gramophone records” to speed learners along the path of their three-month journey. It’s that magic three months, again – both Hugo and Assimil were making that claim back in the 1950s, and it’s one you still see in today’s Hugo titles. The Victorians weren’t the only ones selling the simple system for mastery; it’s a tantalising (and book-selling idea) right into our own era.
Exploring the history of language learning seems like a tangential side-quest for the language learner, but it’s such a worthy one, if only for the social history of it all. The ideas that drove us, the tools we used to realise those ideas – its reflections are in each of these ads.
And sometimes, it’s surprising how little we’ve changed.
