Word: modernize
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...cost of slightly over $1 million, provided by the Program for Harvard College, the Division of Modern Languages acquired a language center comparable to any in America. "There had been some pressure to tear the building down," Harry T. Levin, chairman of the Division, explains. "However, by saving the shell and reconstructing the entire interior, rather than building a whole new structure the University saved at least $800,000"--an important factor in this period of continually rising costs. Its convenient location on the main pathway between the Houses and the Yard close to Widener helped clinch the decision...
...Romance Languages, Germanic Languages, Slavic, History and Literature, Comp Lit, Classics, and Public Speaking (housed in the "attic"). With these numerous offices, the departments will have expanded facilities that will soon allow even the junior members to enjoy private rooms. Specifically-constructed Finnish furniture adorns seminar rooms, a modern library occupies the new mezzanine floor, and the lecture hall--when it loses its canvas protective covering--will have great beauty. "President Pusey gave us one directive," Levin comments, "Get a good-looking lecture room...
Cornell took heed of the Army's very successful experiments, and launched its own intensive courses in modern languages. Classes met eight hours per week in new atmosphere--English was not spoken in the room. Mechanical devices and "native informants" (graduate students from foreign countries) helped perfect pronunciation. By 1950, the program had proven so successful that Cornell adopted it outright. Columbia soon followed, and rapidly developed a comparable program which gave it, along with Cornell, the finest elementary language courses of colleges in the nation...
...modern method views speech as a means to comprehension. "The student must first acquire a new set of speaking habits," Stein says, "and acquire a sense for the language." In turn, this knowledge leads to an understanding of a new culture--an aim to which the entire Division of Modern Languages directs its efforts. After all, Geary points out, language is but one manifestation of a culture; and language itself cannot be segmented artificially into reading and speaking skills. By emphasizing the basic mechanics of speech, rather than the secondary rules of grammar, students acquire, far more quickly and much...
Stein has been more concerned with a reorganization of elementary German courses. A professor at Columbia until a year ago, Stein headed their exceptionally successful modern language program, so well that Levin deems him "the best man in the country for teaching beginning German." He teaches two sections, one in German B and one in German C, and an upper-level course; he also heads a group of five instructors and fifteen part-time assistants ("all in training to become language teachers") concerned with lower-level German instruction. Stein came to Harvard convinced of the value of the direct method...