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The Teaching Machine and the Teaching of Languages: A Report on Tomorrow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

F. Rand Morton
F. Rand Morton*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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Extract

The title suggests a number of paradoxes. The concept of the “teaching machine” represents, on the one hand, one of the most revolutionary and challenging concepts facing teachers and educators today and, at the same time, looks back to one of the oldest basic psychological concepts of learning within the history of educational theory. Socrates' instruction of the slave boy in the Meno is perfect and persuasive illustration of the system of question-response basic to the efficacy of the modern teaching machine. Socrates, as we know, sought to persuade Meno that the slave boy's knowledge of a mathematical fact came not from teaching, but from questioning, and ultimately from recovery of innate knowledge.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 75 , Issue 4-Part2 , September 1960 , pp. 1 - 6
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1960

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Footnotes

*

An address delivered to teachers of modern and classical languages at the 73rd annual Schoolmaster's Club, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 13 May 1960.

References

1 I am indebted to Prof. John Barlow of Earlham College for reminding me of the appropriateness of the Meno here. The translation of relevant portions provided by W. K. C. Guthrie, Plato, Protagoras and Meno (Baltimore, 1956), pp. 136–138, was included as a supplement to his own paper “The Earlham College Student Self-Instructional Program,” presented at the National Education Association Convention, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 1960. 2 John Barlow, loc. cit.; B. F. Skinner, “The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching,” Harvard Educ. Rev., xxiv (1954), 86–97; “Teaching Machines,” Science, No. 128 (Oct. 1958), 969–977.

3 James G. Holland, “Teaching Machines: An Application of Principles from the Laboratory,” paper read at the Educational Testing Service Conference, New York City, Oct. 1959.

4 S. L. Pressey, “Certain Major Psycho-Educational Issues Appearing in the Conference on Teaching Machines,” in Automatic Teaching: the state of the art, ed. Eugene Galanter (New York, 1959), pp. 187–188.

5 Edward B. Fry, G. L. Bryan, and J. W. Rigney, “Teaching Machines: an annotated bibliography,” Audio-Visual Communication Review, viii, Supplement 1 (1960).

6 Ibid., pp. 12–16.

7 John Barlow, “Project Tutor,” Psychological Reports, No. 6 (I960), 15–20; Finley Carpenter, “The Teaching Machine and Its Educational Significance,” paper read at AACTE conference, Chicago, Feb. 1960.

8 Wilse B. Webb, “The Psychology of Learning and Foreign Language Teaching,” paper presented at a conference on language teaching at Wayne University, Detroit, Oct. 1958; B. F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior (New York, 1957); Cumulative Record (New York, 1960); Charles C. Fries, The Structure of English (Ann Arbor, 1954).

9 F. Rand Morton, The Language Laboratory as a Teaching Machine (Ann Arbor, I960): Publications of the Language Laboratory, Series Pre-prints and Reprints, Bureau of School Services, Univ. of Michigan.

10 John B. Carroll, “Initial Specifications for an Audio-Visual Automated Teaching Device,” compiled under a grant from the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, Forest Hills, New York. Hamilton Research Associates, New Hartford, New York, have already devoted considerable engineering time to a machine adaptable to the automatic teaching of oral-aural language skills. Most recently the Mott Foundation of Flint, Michigan, has indicated its interest in researching a portable language teaching machine for use in adult education language classes sponsored by the Foundation.