Extract

95 CHAPTER THREE SELECTED UNCONVENTIONAL APPROACHES TO CHILD GENERAL AND LANGUAGE EDUCATION This chapter characterizes selected unconventional approaches which are at pre- sent implemented in child general and language education. It provides the de- scription of the Humanistic Approach, alternative approaches to child early edu- cation represented by Montessori, Doman and Suzuki as well as Educational Kinesiology proposed by Dennison and Dennison. These general educational trends provide theoretical background for one of the methods of teaching Eng- lish to young learners, namely the Helen Doron Method, which is described and evaluated in terms of its approach and procedure. 3.1 The Humanistic Approach The Humanistic Approach, which was first applied to learning in general and then to language learning, is used at present at all levels of education, including not only secondary and tertiary but also primary level. The approach is rooted in the social revolution which started in the 1960s in the United States, human po- tential movement, and a number of influential publications which gave rise to a new educational movement known as Confluent Education, the pedagogic vehi- cle for humanistic thinking (Legutke and Thomas 1991). In language learning, the Humanistic Approach is adopted in the following teaching methods: the Si- lent Way (Gattegno 1972), Suggestopedia (Lozanov 1978), Total Physical Re- sponse (TPR) (Asher 1969) and Community Language Learning (CLL) (Curran 1972). In the Humanistic Approach, education is understood as a lifelong proc- ess. Consequently, learning is treated not as a product but as a process. For Rogers (1969)...