It is generally assumed that all learning has to be logic, and thus, performed basically by the left side of the brain. However, we have seen thus far that learning takes place when we are engaging our whole being. This happens anyway, but in Waldorf education we strive to make proper, conscious use of this knowledge

Steiner spoke little about methods of teaching foreign languages, and when he did, he had in mind mainly the teaching of Latin or Greek. One of those few occasions was in Practical Advice to Teachers, in Lectures 9 and 10. Here he mentioned the importance of letting the children, especially between the ages of nine and ten, speak to each other in conversations in the foreign language. He also stressed the use of reading and not just translating back and forth.

Let’s not forget he is directing his comments to the teaching of fourteen and fifteen-year olds, who have had at least seven to eight years of language lessons. However, these recommendations are meant as an assessment of where they are at in the very beginning of the school year. He basically speaks about how much time is wasted in translation from Latin into German, and back. He recommends there be more reading, focusing more on pronunciation than on comprehension and then asking the students to render in their own words what they understood from it. Of course, this is making the assumption that the students have a fair amount of knowledge of the language.

Then he suggests to do it in reverse form. To discuss a subject in their mother tongue, then asking them to repeat it in the foreign language.

He recommends the teaching of grammar after the age of twelve, but he recommends that the teacher always present examples in which grammar is linked with the practical logic of life, or we could say, to present it in context.

So far, we have gathered two very important elements in teaching foreign language: the use of practical, conversational phrases and to use them to show the grammar points in a specific context.

Steiner also suggests avoiding first working through a reading passage and subsequently pulling the language to pieces. He suggests the grammar piece be worked independently. He suggests we use examples to illustrate grammar points, but not write the examples in the books. Rather, that the examples could be left out, and only the rule would be written down:

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“Let grammar and syntax lessons be conversational; those every-day-life sentences are living conclusions. The next day, you come back and ask the children to make up their own examples of the same rule or example you gave the day before (make them participate, let them own the examples-story). This is a soul activity for them.”12

“There should be such enthusiasm in participation that children do not sit firmly on their chair for the whole lesson!”13 This is every foreign language teacher’s dream. However, how many times are we able to have the whole class participate like this? Foreign language lessons need to be seen as an active engagement where learning takes place in a realm other than the solely academic.

There are also some observations that show how delicate it is to maintain the balance in a foreign language class, and how complex it can become when dealing with more than a couple of curricula: “Teaching in this way, the teacher could later find the gaps and fill them.”

Steiner also suggests that several languages could be taught side by side, meaning that the same teacher could maybe know, for example, Latin, English, and French, and then have the children express the same sentence in the three different languages. Of course this would be a rare case, but think about the support one language can give to another, by using them to compare and contrast. It gives the child the possibility to point in a number of directions. For example, pointing out how in English we need to use the subject pronouns all the time, while in Spanish we can omit them, because they are contained in the ending of the conjugated verb.

Steiner makes several remarks which I have been able to successfully put through the test of time:

“It is possible during a stimulating, living lesson, to develop in the children the capacities you need for teaching. The children need not have the full measure of capacities you intend to use; but you must have the skill to call to life such capacities that can later fade away when the children leave the classroom.”14

Heavy use of conversation, presenting grammar in context. Not to translate, and not to be concerned with full comprehension. Reading, retelling, comparing to native language; separating this work from grammar and syntax lessons,

12 Rudolf Steiner, Practical Advice to Teachers, Lecture 9, p. 134

13 Ibid, p. 136

14 ibid, p. 138

with rules to be remembered and examples to be forgotten. These are a few suggestions for language teaching.

“Do not worry about lack of comprehension, even of whole sentences; your expression and intonation, plus our hearers’ urge to sense the meaning open up one half of what you say; and, given this, time will open up the other. Intonation is for children, as for the Chinese and for seasoned globe-trotters, the half of language….. Have trust in time, the great code-breaker, time and the context.”15

Unfortunately, Steiner did not live long enough to be able to test these ideas and give further suggestions. However, Waldorf foreign language teachers worldwide have come up with creative and effective applications of this basic format.

The intention of this work is to share how the Storytelling techniques can be successfully applied within our work in Waldorf education to achieve a natural, organic acquisition of a foreign language.

15 Rudolf Steiner, The Education of the Child, 1907