Mother Tongue as a Means of Developing Student’s Individuality. Review of the book: Alfyorov A. (1911) Rodnoy yazyk v sredney shkole (opyt metodiki) [Mother Tongue at Secondary School A Methodological Experience)], Moscow.

Abstract

Analyzing the book written by the creator of the most reputable pre-revolutionary methodology of teaching Russian philology, we compare Alfyorov’s views with contemporary beliefs and associate them with problems that are debated today in academic and teaching communities. Particularly, we discuss proportion of methodological and subject-specific components in teacher professional qualification; educative and upbringing objectives of secondary school; role of the mother tongue in the curriculum structure; distribution of subjects in secondary school syllabus; importance of literary standards, popular language and individual language arts; inconsistency between school language rules and linguistics as a science; simplification of orthography. Specific attention is given to writing as a means of development and control at school. The key pre-requisite for productive writing is a subject that is meaningful and interesting to the student. Development of writing skills should always go along the axis of complication, but not changing genres (description, narration, argumentation, etc.). One of the dangers that are posed by misuse of writing in the learning process is that people eventually lose the ability to think real, creating a widespread category of “wordy people” who cannot tell anymore when they talk about facts or argue about words. This fear of the author panned out to the full at the Soviet school.