Didaktinės J. Balčikonio idėjos

STUDIES OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE STANDARD QUESTIONS OF LITHUANIAN LINGUISTICS, XXVI (1987) ADOMAS ŠOBLINSKAS J. BALČIKONIS’ DIDAKTICAL IDEAS Prof. J. Balčikonis devoted more than ten years of his life to work in secondary educational institutions. What didactic ideas J. Balčikonis promoted in teaching Lithuanian language teaching methodology, what didactic principles he himself followed in teaching Lithuanian language, what methods he used, it is not easy to say today. We can only judge about some things indirectly from his reviews, the abstracts of lectures written by students. There is no doubt that J. Balčikonis was familiar with K. Ušinskis’ didactic ideas and his thoughts on the teaching of the mother tongue and its purpose in school. Let us compare the thoughts of Mr Ushinsky and Mr Balčykonis on this issue. In 1861 K. Ušinskis wrote: ",Iloxojienus Hapojia ItpoXOJIST OHO 3a ĮIpyrHM, HO pe3YJIbTaTbI XH3HH KAXJIOTO MOKOJIEHHS OCTAIOTCS B S35IKE —B HACJIEJIME IIOTOMkam. B coKpoBHINHHHIY pOJIHOTO CJIOBA CKJIAJBIBAET OJIHO TIOKOJIEHHE 32 JIpDyTHM TIJIOJIbI TJIyYOOKHX CEpJIEUKLIX Į(ĮBHXEHHŪ, IIJIOJIbI HCTODHYECKHX COOBITHIl, BEpOBaHHUA, BO33peHHS, CJIEJĮbI IIDOXHTOTO rops H IIDOXHTOH pajJlOCTH, —CJIOBOM, BECh CJIeJį CBOEH JyXOBHOM XH3HH Hapojį OepexHo COXpaHseT B HapOXHOM CcJIOBe"!, J. Balčikonis spoke in 1930: "Dear listeners, I hope you have heard that each nation has its own different face, that the spirit of each nation is different from the spirit of other nations. And how can we know the spirit of our people? Mostly from speech. A nation heaps up its spiritual treasures in language, like in a barn. The language reflects the thinking, feelings and humor of the people. But you must know the language well, so that you can understand the spirit of the people from it.”2 Balchikoni probably knew the thoughts of F. Buslayev, J. Grot, I. Sreznevski and other famous Russian philologists of the time about the importance of the mother tongue in the formation of the spiritual world of a young person. The fact that J. Balčikonis had clearly formed didactic views on the teaching of the mother tongue is evident from his review of J. Murka’s “Lithuanian language textbook” written in Voronezh in 1918. This review makes clear J. Balčikonis- ’s attitude to the structure of the textbook for mother tongue. First of all, J. Balčikonis reproaches the author of the textbook for the texts “which occupy about the third part of the textbook and which often do not illustrate any grammar rules”. 1 XpecromaTus IIO METOIMKE pyccKOro si3bIKA | PyccKHit 361K Kak IpejIMET IpenojaBanus, — M., 1982, c. 47. * Balčikonis J. Selected Writings. —V., 1978, vol. 1, p. 105. The following is quoted in abbreviated form: RR I (V., 1978), RR II (V., 1982). 3 RR I 37. 32 He also takes a strong stand against the "great number of rules", most of which are, "dél misunderstanding called rules". Having analyzed J. Balčikonis- ’s criticisms of J. Murka’s textbook rules, it would be possible to formulate the following requirements for this textbook element: the rule must be simple and understandable, agree with the truth and be well formulated. J. Balčikonis rightly laughed at the sophisticated exercises in J. Murka’s textbook, which did nothing to improve language skills. The reviewer quotes the following exercise task: “Read Vaižganto- ’s “Ribbons”, close your eyes: images will appear in your eyes(!). If the images do not appear, read over and over again until the images start to appear” and adds the following: “I, and I hope the students, do not really understand why it is necessary to work so that the images start to appear”*. Balčikonis criticizes J. Murka’s exercises where he tells children to draw all kinds of pictures. Not without irony he wrote: “At first one wonders, not knowing how to draw those pictures in language lessons, until, finally, on page 20, you find the author’s own instruction on how to do the work: ‘While drawing, they decorate the pictures with colors, and the pictures of words decorate with beautiful words and sayings’. And he adds: “But how much similar drawings and ‘different colours’ can help learn a language, it is highly doubtful”- *. J. Balčikonis taught his mother tongue without a textbook, the most basic and necessary teaching aid, using the living word, chalk and chalkboard, as shown by the abstracts that have survived from Panevėžys times. With the school’s poor material base, he could not even think about modernizing the teaching of the mother tongue and relied on traditional teaching methods known from the works of Russian methodologists and practiced in schools of Tsarist Russia. Judging from the lecture summaries, J. Balčikonis chose the method of teaching taking into account the nature of the grammatical material. Paradigms were taught by the method of observation, trying to present not a bare paradigm, as is done now, but so that the pupil or student feels the meanings of its forms, its functioning in language. For example, while teaching the phraseology, he also asked the questions: Who is going? Kid, kid, kid. Stop it! Stop it! Kid-e, kid-e. Whose hat? Kid-o, kid-o. Who got the cheese? Child, children and so on.” The verb form paradigms were presented along with the pronouns: 1. I'm not, 2. 3, No. 3. He neš-a and so on. " The teaching of conjugation of adjectives and adjective parts of speech was linked to the teaching of nouns: „V. good field, K. good field, D. good field” and so on. 3 True, some verbs were called in their own way: in addition to the already mentioned dative (D), they also had an adjective, a toolmaker?. ir 4 RR I 37 5 Idem, p. 38 “RR II 17. " Idem, p. 44. 8 Idem, p. 29. * Idem, p. 18. 2. 1835 33 Sometimes be the bigger comments would tell the students to look at how the phrase jumps in paradigms*- ?. Observation of language phenomena is a specific method of language teaching that has not lost the confidence of educators ir today. It can be said, Balchik. J. used perfectly. In teaching language, it is impossible to be translate analogies. He didn't avoid her ir J. Balchi-konis. For example, after introducing the paradigm of pronunciation of the noun vyras, without analyzing it in more detail, he indicates that the words auksas, inkstas, kaulas, and so on are conjugated and pronounced as vyras, and as lapas —autas, diržas, ginklas, and so on. 2 Language phenomena are better understood, the jų systematic nature is revealed by classification. This method was used by J. Balčikonis to teach conjunctions, explaining the management of verbs. It is much more difficult to trace what principles J. Balčikonis followed when studying Lithuanian, why he chose one or another order of presentation of the grammatical material. J. Balčikonis has identified three most important goals of Lithuanian language teaching: “1) to teach students to consciously use the language material that they bring with them to school from home; 2) to increase the vocabulary of words brought and 3) to teach spelling." And right there he says that of those three things the high school only learned spelling, and adds with bitterness: “but that is not language”?. It is interesting that the shortcomings of Lithuanian language teaching mentioned in the article written in 1919 are still typical today. J. Balčikonis affirmed: "The longer a pupil sits in school, the more he spoils his language: older pupils are less proficient in language than lower-class pupils, only older pupils usually make fewer spelling errors." It seems that a very similar situation still exists in our schools. I will quote another passage from the same article: “It is clear that the school will be able to teach the language when the teachers themselves will know it, and not only Lithuanian language teachers, but also teachers of other subjects. All teachers must teach the language. It is necessary that the pupil hears correct speech throughout all lessons, so that every teacher, regardless of which subject, can correct the language error.”** Those of us who are familiar with the current school know very well that even after more than 65 years the idea raised is still utopian, because as in those days some graduated Lithuanian language teachers help others to pollute the language, often the more lively word, replace the construction in the student’s writing with a worn-out textbook, and sometimes even jargon. Understanding that the theoretical knowledge of the language is not enough for a good command of it, J. Balčikonis paid particular attention to written Lithuanian works both in secondary schools and at the university, patiently correcting them and discussing the language errors that occurred. One of the most extensive and comprehensive articles dedicated to essays, “Written works”, was published in “Švietimo darbe” 1928, No. 9 (108), p. 10 Ibid., p. 19. 1 RR II 20. 12 Ibid., p. 156. 13 RR II 156. 14 Idem, 157. -_ ms __ rr MHmHt g i A TT NET TT DT TT ET TE essay only that for In EN la a long time it was difficult for teachers to access due to almost ir to - Dead. The article is of such a high theoretical level that today many of the ir statements are not jo outdated, they are nė still completely relevant to our schools. Write J. Balčikonis understands the question į as an answer, which, according to him, is "called thema". He acknowledges the creative origin of the writing, therefore such +4rating: “The writings are works of art in their own right. "The Artist's Subjectivity and the Autonomy of the Work of Art". The article encourages to nurture literary ir talents of students, but emphasizes that "there are careless people who support the nonsense of the essay with signs of talent." Relevant ir today J. Balčikonis’ observation that students must be prepared for essays, especially in lower grades, otherwise iš jų work little only will benefit; in higher classes, the preparation may be slightly less, but still necessary. The article sufficiently detailedly examined ir the theory of the ir essay, technical subjects, — types of essays, theme, plan, material collection, draft, blank, volume, etc. ir I will iš present one more relevant methodological idea from the nę aforementioned sections of the article. Speaking about the choice of the theme, J. Balčikonis puts the following requirement1) s: the theme must be suitable for the age of the pupils' ir education; be 2) taken by students iš Known accessible ir area; logically defined 3) precisely formulated. ir Į those requirements ne are always taken into ir account in these times. Mr Balčykonis' position on the draft plan can be fully supported. Let’s listen to his reasoning: “Now the question is, do we always need to write a plan? There are teachers who do not really require it to be written. In my opinion, if a student is given a paper to write at home, a plan is absolutely necessary. It is possible to do without a plan when there is very little time, but a plan must still be at least in mind, otherwise the essay will have no value: omissions may occur in places, repetitions in places, deviations from the theme in places, etc.”1* We could add only that we give up the plan in one other case because of the specific genre of the essay (statement, miniature, aphorism, etc.), but a normal essay without a plan is a meaningless thing, an empty waste of time. A good essay plan develops the student’s thinking, so J. Balčikonis formulated certain logical requirements and presented a scheme, which many teachers still follow today when teaching children to make plans. When collecting material for the essay, J. Balčikonis suggests using 17 x 10 format sheets, we then “easier to organize, divide” the material, rejecting insignificant, secondary things. He suggested writing down the necessary quotes on the sheets, but not overloading the essay with them, so that it does not lose its independence. The article also contains more original and still relevant today thoughts about the draft and the blank, the beginning and the end of the writing. BRR H 231. 15 RR II 234. The primary requirement of writing style J. Balčikonis held the regularity. According to him, "The assertion that there can be good style where speech is incorrect is one nonsense"!". I would think that the requirements he set for a good essay style could be kept as a memo in every school’s Lithuanian language literature classroom. ir Here are they: 1) Write as you speak and it will be fine. 2) Don’t write in long sentences: living language doesn’t like long sentences. 3) The sentences must have an external connection. 4) To express a thought, you need to choose the words that are most suitable for it®. Essential subjects of individual style are covered in an extremely accurate and concise manner: functional dependence, lexicon, syntax, and finally the text. The lectures were of great importance for the development of a good style. “Lectures have a great influence on style : meaning, — he wrote, — so maybe it will be by the way to ne remind students how to read. When reading, you need to note the most important parts of the book and its content in a notebook. WR First, such recording gets students used to writing, second, they o understand better, remember longer, write ir down"! So, if we want our ką students to really benefit from the books they read, we have to get them used to iš reading with a notebook in their hand, only then will they learn to write, get used to generating text. Original savita ir J. Balčikonis' writing correction methodology. In particular he demanded "diligently ir paid" to correct essays, because, badly corrected, "there is almost no use". The task of the teacher was to explain the errors of the whole essay, to write them down in a notebook. i He wrote down the errors of each essay on small sheets į (10cm x 4.5 cm) to be able to group them. At the end of the essay discussion, he recommends 1-2 better essays to be read to the class. The students were required to carefully correct the returned papers, they did not tolerate any neglect or uncleanness, uncorrected or badly corrected errors were suggested to "add to the new work, thus reducing the mark" *?. bo ir As seen in the iš previously written article (1927), J. Balčikonis mainly corrected logically primitive sentences, tautologies and pleonasms, and various anachronisms. Here are some of the sentences written into a special notebook on the topic “Nemunas’s significance for Lithuania”: 1. Like every natural phenomenon, the Nemunas has a significance for Lithuania. 2.Our princes used to sail on the Nemunas, because there were no railways at that time, and even if they were uncomfortable. 3. Nemunas has quite a lot of fish, which are caught by people, called fishermen?". Someone could also reproach the teacher, who chose such narrow topics of a reasoning nature and made the students sweat a lot while they worked through them. For the sake of interest, let’s look at how our school graduates write today. For example: : 1. Pas Lapinin all the time full of children who like to understir and Lapin's Tales. 17 RR II 239. 18 Idem, p. 239. 19 Idem, p. 239. 20 RR II 241. 1 RR I 68-69, 36 Rm Ma T T a ATA I ai as FT I haw 2. Liudas February is — the lyrical hero of literature. Constant doubts, hopes, discontents disappointments surround ir Liudo The Picture of February. 3. Ir when the earth created a man, whose two legs were firmly supported by the globe of į the earth, in his hands he o held the sun, the man was called a tą communisji t. Jo hands were for you, earth. It was the firm hands of a worker. They are — like obels branches, filled with good fruit—works. This is what ordinary ne students, the so-called o firsts, medalists, write. It must be said that today we do ir not have a didactically based writing system for our schools, students do not get or almost do not get any theoretical knowledge about writing, in the discussion of essays in lessons even in higher grades mostly talk about spelling punctuation errors, teachers sometimes correct or leave ir uncorrected gross errors in written language. This is most often the case in those schools, where the head of the school is a non-Lithuanian person who is not interested in ar language matters in general and cannot notice such ir Lithuanian “acts”. Most worrying is the fact that the number of Lithuanianists ta correcting similar mistakes in our schools is decreasing, former prof. J. Balčikonio Lithuanian pupils have already reached a respectable age and are less and less frequently ir seen in schools, methodological ideas are o jo more and more forgotten, and the encouragement to teach children to jo work is forgotten. Teaching In Panevėžys 1921 m. J. Balčikonis wrote: “Let’s not forget that science is work, work cannot be o easy, as a square cannot be round. Let us not consider work as a curse, but as happiness intended for man in this mountain of tears”22. J. Balchik On the 100th birthday, we have a great opportunity to remember jo the merits of the school, once again jo review the published ideas of methodology. To all our joy, they have not become obsolete, they are still relevant as ir in those distant times, iš jo Young Lithuanian teachers can learn a lot by reading the two-volume of writings, choosing interesting material for teaching Lithuanian. ANHMJLAKTHUECKHE HJIEK 10. BAJIbYUKOHHUCA Pe3rome IIpodeccop FO. Bansunkonuc GUT HE TONBKO BEIIAIOIIHMCS SI3BIKOBEIIOM, HO H IIearorom, BHEC CBOH BKJIAJĮ B Metojimky IIPEMOJABAHMS POHOTO JIMTOBCKOTO si3bika. HO He's a 4-to-5-year-old boy. B OH MONMb30BajICH Rebirth of MUNAKTHYECKAMHE K. A. ViomnaCKOro H JIpYI'HX PYCCKMX MeTOMHCTOB. MerojnnueckKas xonmenuust FO. Bansbunkonuca B FACTSeH CTaThe BOCCTAHABIIMBAETCS ITO eTO DEICH3HAM HA YYeOHHKH JTHTOBCKOTO SI3BIKA, IO KOHCTIEKTAM JIEKIIHĖ METHODOLOGY PEIOJABAHMS H IIO METOAMYECKHM CTATESM. MHOTHe IHIakTHIECKHe myer npodeccopa He HOTEp3JIH CBOE SHAREHOLDING B MPEMOJABAHWH JIMTOBCKOrO Si3bIKA, OcoOeHHO IEHHA B [MIAKTHYECKOM OTHONIGHWH error CTATbS O ITKOJBHBIX MHCHMEHHBIX paborax, OnmyOnuKoBaHHas B 1928 r., KoTOpOi B MOIPOGHO pa3bmparoTcst BOMPOCH TeOpHH H IIPAKTHKH CO4HHeHHHÈ B CpejiHel Nobody. 12 RR IT 228.