RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30960, 17 January 1966, Page 22

RANDOM REMINDER

SLUMBER ON

There are a couple of weeks yet before the schc.Tds go ■ back, in case anyone needs reminding of it, and time therefore tn allow New Zealand educationists to give serious thought to the experiment being carried out near Moscow, in which a thousand people are trying to learn English while they sleep. The pupils listen, in their slumbers, to 36 taperecorded English lessons. It seems fairly obvious that in New Zealand, efforts to teach English by conventional methods have

not been outstandingly successful, and it could well be that a radical change in approach is needed. Secondary school teachers will confirm that most pupils exhibit a deep desire to sleep while in the class-rooom; and their parents will testify to the fact that they show no wish for bed when they are at home. If the Russian experiment is a success—and we won’t know if it isn’t—the path ahead is clear. Young men and women at secondary school must be encouraged to

keep late hours at home. This may mean extra costs to the parents, in the purchase of long-playing records by long-haired ensembles, and in putting on parties for the young people at which they may play them. But the students have to be thoroughly prepared for their sleep at school. The Russians, when they have done, will have a mastery of basic English grammar and a vocabulary of about 1000 English words and phrases. We simply cannot let them get that far ahead. J