How to Teach a Foreign Language

by Otto Jespersen

Written by the famous Danish linguist Otto Jespersen, this work has proved to be a valuable contribution to the English language and Linguistics. He presented theoretical considerations of language teaching in this book. As a professor of English at Copenhagen, he led a campaign for basing foreign-language teaching on the use of conversational speech rather than on the textbook study of grammar and vocabulary. He wrote several textbooks used in Denmark and other countries for English teaching. The modern techniques suggested by Jespersen make this work on didactics and pedagogy relevant even today for English teaching.

126 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Tashateufel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good work about teaching a foreign language in a class.

[Scheherazade · Rating 3 out of 5]

After more than 120 years, it no longer seems novel.

[Linda (un)Conventional Bookworms · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am always amazed when books, especially books on didactics and pedagogy, written over a hundred years ago can still be used today. Of course, some tweaking is necessary, but I can see several things I can apply to teaching English right now.

[profprofessorson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't find anything too earth-shaking. But then again, all of my foreign language instruction post-dated this book by a significant period of time.