LIETUVIŲ KALBOS SANDAROS TYRINĖJIMAI

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXVI (1987)

ADOMAS ŠOBLINSKAS

J. BALČIKONIS’S DIDACTIC IDEAS

Prof. J. Balčikonis devoted more than ten years of his life to work in secondary educational institutions. It is not easy today to say what didactic ideas J. Balčikonis advocated when teaching methods of Lithuanian language instruction, what didactic principles he himself followed in teaching Lithuanian, or what methods he applied. We can infer something about this only indirectly from his reviews and lecture notes taken by students.

There is no doubt that J. Balčikonis was familiar with K. Ušinskis’s didactic ideas and his thoughts on the teaching of the native language and its purpose in school. Let us compare K. Ušinskis’s and J. Balčikonis’s thoughts on this question.

K. Ušinskis wrote in 1861: „Generation after generation of a people passes, but the fruits of each generation’s life remain in the language, as an inheritance for posterity. Into the treasury of the native word, generation after generation lays the fruits of profound movements of the heart, the fruits of historical events, beliefs, views, traces of grief endured and joy experienced—in a word, the people carefully preserve in the popular word every trace of their spiritual life“¹.

In 1930 J. Balčikonis said: „Dear listeners, I hope you have heard that every nation has its own distinctive face, and that the spirit of each nation differs from the spirit of other nations. And how can we come to know the spirit of our nation? Mostly through language. A nation stores the riches of its spirit in language, as if in a granary. In language are reflected a nation’s thinking, feelings, and wit. But one must know the language well in order to understand the spirit of the nation through it“².

J. Balčikonis was probably familiar with the ideas of F. Buslajev, J. Grot, I. Sreznevsky, and other famous Russian philologists of the time about the significance of the native language in shaping a young person’s spiritual world.

That J. Balčikonis had clearly formed didactic views on teaching the native language is evident from his review of J. Murka’s “Lithuanian Language Textbook,” written in Voronezh as early as 1918. The review first of all reveals J. Balčikonis’s view of the structure of a native-language textbook. In particular, J. Balčikonis criticizes the author of the aforementioned textbook for the texts “which take up about a third of the textbook and often illustrate no grammatical rules”³.

¹ Reader on Russian Language Teaching Methodology / The Russian Language as a Subject of Instruction. — Moscow, 1982, p. 47.

² Balčikonis J. Selected Writings. — Vilnius, 1978, vol. 1, p. 105. Hereafter cited in abbreviated form: RR I (Vilnius, 1978), RR II (Vilnius, 1982).

³ RR I 37.

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He also takes a firm stand against the “great multitude of rules,” more than half of which “have been called rules through a misunderstanding.” An examination of J. Balčikonis’s objections to the rules in J. Murka’s textbook would allow us to formulate the following requirements for this element of a textbook: a rule must be simple and comprehensible, accord with the truth, and be aptly formulated.

J. Balčikonis was justified in mocking the elaborate exercises in J. Murka’s textbook that did nothing to improve command of the language. The reviewer quotes the following exercise instruction: “Read Vaižgantas’s ‘Juostos’ pattern, close your eyes: little pictures will appear before your eyes(!). If no little pictures appear, read it again and again until they begin to appear,” and adds the rejoinder: “It is not very clear to me—and, I hope, to the pupils—why one needs to close one’s eyes here for little pictures to start appearing”⁴. J. Balčikonis similarly criticizes those exercises in J. Murka’s textbook in which he tells children to draw all kinds of pictures. Not without irony, he wrote: “At first one is puzzled, not knowing how to draw those pictures in language lessons, until finally, on p. 20, one finds the author’s own instruction on how this task might be done: ‘When drawing, pictures are decorated with colors, while pictures made of words are decorated with beautiful words and expressions.’” And he adds: “But one must very much doubt how much drawings like these, especially ‘in various colors,’ can help one learn the language”⁵.

As the notes that have survived from his Panevėžys years show, J. Balčikonis taught the native language without a textbook—the elementary and indispensable teaching aid—relying instead on the spoken word, chalk, and a blackboard. Given the school’s meager material resources, he could not even contemplate modernizing native-language instruction and made do with traditional teaching methods, familiar from the works of Russian methodologists and practiced in the schools of tsarist Russia.

Judging from his lecture notes, J. Balčikonis chose his teaching method according to the nature of the grammatical material. He taught paradigms through observation, taking care not to present a bare paradigm, as is done today, but rather in a way that would help the pupil or student grasp the meanings of its forms and their functioning in language. For example, when teaching declension, he presented questions alongside it: Who is going? Child-ren, child-ren. Stop! Stop! Child-ren, child-ren. Whose hat? Of a child, of children. To whom did he give the cheese? To a child, to children, etc.⁶

He presented verb-form paradigms together with pronouns: 1. I carry, 2. You carry, 3. He carries, etc.⁷

He linked the teaching of the declension of adjectives and adjectival parts of speech to the teaching of nouns: “N. a good field, G. of a good field, D. to a good field,” etc.⁸ Indeed, he called some cases by his own names: besides the already mentioned davininkas (D), he also had the complement case and the instrumental case⁹.

⁴ RR I 37

⁵ Ten pat, p. 38

⁶ RR II 17.

⁷ Ten pat, p. 44.

⁸ Ten pat, p. 29.

⁹ Ten pat, p. 18.

2. 1835

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Sometimes, without providing much commentary, he would tell the pupils to observe how the accent shifts in the paradigm¹⁰. Observing linguistic phenomena is a specific method of language teaching that has retained the confidence of educators to this day. One might say that J. Balčikonis used it to perfection.

It is impossible to teach a language without relying on analogy. J. Balčikonis, too, made use of it. For example, after introducing the accentuation paradigm of the noun vyras, he does not analyze it in detail, but points out that the words auksas, inkštas, kaulas, etc., are declined and accented like vyras, while lapas — putas, diržas, ginklas, etc., follow the pattern of ¹¹

Classification helps us better understand linguistic phenomena and reveals their systematic nature. J. Balčikonis used this method when teaching conjunctions and explaining verb government.

It is much more difficult to determine what principles J. Balčikonis followed when teaching Lithuanian, and why he chose one order or another for presenting grammatical material.

J. Balčikonis identified three principal aims of teaching the Lithuanian language: “1) to teach pupils to use consciously the linguistic material they bring with them from home to school; 2) to expand the vocabulary they bring with them; and 3) to teach spelling.” He goes on to say that of these three things, the gymnasium taught only spelling, and adds bitterly: “but that is not language”¹². It is interesting that the shortcomings in Lithuanian-language teaching identified in an article written as early as 1919 are still characteristic today. J. Balčikonis maintained: “The longer a pupil sits in school, the more he spoils his language: pupils in the upper grades know the language less well than pupils in the lower grades; only the older pupils usually make fewer spelling mistakes”¹³. It seems that the situation in our schools remains much the same to this day. I will quote one more passage from the same article: “It goes without saying that the school will be able to teach language when the teachers themselves know it—not only Lithuanian-language teachers, but teachers of other subjects as well. In other words, all teachers must teach language. Pupils must hear correct speech in every lesson, and every teacher, whatever the subject, must be able to correct a pupil’s language error”¹⁴. Anyone at all familiar with today’s school knows perfectly well that, even more than 65 years later, this idea remains utopian, because, as in those days, some certified Lithuanian-language teachers help others to pollute the language, often replacing a livelier word or construction in a pupil’s essay with a hackneyed bookish one, or sometimes even a slang expression.

Recognizing that theoretical knowledge about a language is not enough to master it well, J. Balčikonis devoted considerable attention to written work in Lithuanian, both in secondary schools and at the university; he patiently corrected the work and discussed the language errors that arose. One of the longest and most comprehensive articles devoted to compositions, “Rašomieji darbai” [Written Assignments], was published in Švietimo darbas in 1928, No. 9 (108), gai-

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 19.

¹¹ RR II 20.

¹² Ibid., p. 156.

¹³ RR II 156.

¹⁴ Ibid., 157.

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only that for a long time it was rather difficult for teachers to access and was therefore almost forgotten. The article is of such a high theoretical level that even today many of its claims have not become outdated at all and remain entirely relevant to our schools.

J. Balčikonis understands an essay as an answer to a question posed, which he calls a “topic.” He recognizes the creative element in an essay, so this assertion is entirely understandable: “By their very idea, essays are little works of art. In a pupil’s little essay, the artist’s subjectivity and the autonomy of the work of art are expressed.” The article encourages the cultivation of pupils’ literary talents, but stresses that “there are careless people who take the nonsense in an essay as a sign of talent¹⁵.

J. Balčikonis’s observation remains relevant today: pupils must be prepared to write essays, especially in the lower grades; otherwise, little benefit will come of their work. In the higher grades, this preparation may be somewhat less extensive, but it is still necessary.

The article examines in sufficient detail both the theoretical and practical aspects of essay writing—it discusses types of essays, the topic, the outline, gathering material, the draft, the fair copy, length, and so on. I will present one or two of the more relevant methodological ideas from the sections mentioned.

In discussing the choice of topic, J. Balčikonis sets out the following requirements: 1) the topic must be appropriate to the pupils’ age and education; 2) it must be drawn from an area familiar and accessible to the pupils; 3) it must be logically delimited and precisely formulated. These requirements are not always taken into account even today.

J. Balčikonis’s position on the essay outline is entirely reasonable. Let us consider his reasoning: “The question now is whether one always needs to write an outline. There are teachers who do not insist very much that one be written. In my opinion, if an essay is assigned to be written at home, an outline is absolutely necessary. One can do without an outline when there is very little time, but one must still have it at least in mind; otherwise, the essay will be of no value: there may be omissions in places, repetitions in others, digressions from the topic in still others, and so on.”¹⁶ We might add only that we also dispense with an outline in certain cases because of the essay’s specific genre (an application, a miniature, an aphorism, and so on). However, an ordinary essay without an outline is pointless, a waste of time. A good essay outline develops a pupil’s thinking, which is why J. Balčikonis also formulated certain logical requirements and provided a model that many teachers still follow today when teaching children to make outlines.

When gathering material for an essay, J. Balčikonis suggests using 17 x 10 format slips, since this makes it “easier to organize and arrange” the material and discard insignificant, secondary matters. He also suggested writing down on the slips quotations needed for the essay, but not overloading the essay with them, so that it would not lose its independence.

The article also contains more original ideas that remain relevant today concerning the essay draft and fair copy (“clean copy”), as well as its beginning and conclusion.

¹⁵ RR II 231.

¹⁶ RR II 234.

2*

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J. Balčikonis considered correctness the foremost requirement of essay style. In his view, “The assertion that there can be good style where the language is incorrect is sheer nonsense”¹⁷. I think that the requirements he set for good essay style could be displayed as a reminder in every school’s Lithuanian language and literature classroom. Here they are:

1) Write as you speak, and it will be fine.

2) Don’t write in overly long sentences: lively speech does not like long sentences.

3) Sentences must have internal coherence.

4) To express a thought, choose the words that suit it best¹⁸.

The essential features of individual style are defined with remarkable precision and concision: functional affiliation, lexis, syntax, and, finally, text.

He attached great importance to reading for the development of good style. “Reading has great significance for style,” he wrote, “so it may be useful here to remind students how they should read. While reading, one should copy notable passages and the contents of a book into a special notebook. First, this copying gets students into the habit of writing; second, they understand better and remember longer what they write down”¹⁹. Thus, if we want our students to truly benefit from the books they read, we must get them into the habit of reading with a pen and notebook in hand; only in this way will they become accustomed to writing and practice generating text.

J. Balčikonis’s method of correcting essays was original and distinctive. First of all, he required essays to be corrected “carefully and skillfully,” because “there is almost no benefit” in correcting them poorly. He considered it the teacher’s task to explain all the mistakes in an essay and record them in a special notebook. He himself wrote down the mistakes from each essay on small-format slips (10 cm x 4.5 cm) so that he could group them. At the end of the discussion of essays, he recommends reading one or two better essays to the class. Students were expected to correct returned essays carefully; he would tolerate no negligence or sloppiness in this regard, and suggested that uncorrected or poorly corrected mistakes be “added to the mistakes in the new assignment and the mark lowered accordingly”²⁰. As can be seen from the article written earlier (1927), when discussing essays J. Balčikonis chiefly corrected logically primitive sentences, tautologies and pleonasms, and various anachronisms. Here are several sentences copied into a special notebook from the topic “The Significance of the Nemunas for Lithuania”:

1. Like every natural phenomenon, the Nemunas, too, is of significance to Lithuania.

2. Our dukes used to sail along the Nemunas because there were no railways back then; and even if there were, they were inconvenient.

3. There are quite a lot of fish in the Nemunas, which are caught by people called fishermen²¹.

Some might perhaps reproach the teacher here for choosing such narrow topics of an argumentative nature and making students sweat quite a bit as they worked them out. For interest’s sake, let us see how our school-leavers write today. For example:

1. Lapinas’s place is always full of children who like and understand Lapinas’s fairy tales.

¹⁷ RR II 239.

¹⁸ Ten pat, p. 239.

¹⁹ Ten pat, p. 239.

²⁰ RR II 241.

²¹ RR I 68–69.

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2. Liudas Vasaris—the lyrical hero of the literary work. Constant doubts, hopes, discontent, and disappointments surround the image of Liudas Vasaris.

3. And when the earth created a man for itself, whose two feet rested firmly on the globe, while in his hands he held the sun, it called that man a communist. His hands were meant for you, earth. They were the strong hands of a worker. They were like apple-tree branches, laden with fine fruits—his works.

Such is the writing not of ordinary pupils, but of so-called top students, medal winners.

It must be said that even today we have no pedagogically grounded system of written assignments for our schools; pupils receive little or no theoretical knowledge about writing; in lessons devoted to discussing written assignments, even in the upper grades, most of the talk concerns only spelling and punctuation errors; teachers sometimes correct, or leave entirely uncorrected, serious errors in the language of written work. This is most often the case in schools where the person at the helm is not a Lithuanian-language specialist, or is generally uninterested in language matters and therefore unable to notice such “mistakes” by a Lithuanian-language specialist. What is most worrying is that the number of Lithuanian-language specialists who correct similar errors in our schools is decreasing: former pupils of Professor J. Balčikonis who became Lithuanian-language specialists have reached a venerable age and are encountered in schools ever less often, while his methodological ideas are increasingly forgotten, as is his encouragement to teach children to work.

While teaching in Panevėžys in 1921, J. Balčikonis wrote: “Let us not forget that learning is work, and work cannot be easy, just as a square cannot be round. Let us regard work not as a curse, but as a happiness granted to humankind in this vale of tears”²².

As we mark the 100th anniversary of Professor J. Balčikonis’s birth, we have an excellent opportunity to recall his contributions to the school and to review once again the methodological ideas he put forward. To our delight, they have not become outdated; they remain as relevant as in those distant days. Young Lithuanian-language teachers can learn much from him by reading his two-volume collected works and choosing interesting material for teaching the Lithuanian language.

DIDACTIC IDEAS OF J. BALČIKONIS

Summary

Professor J. Balčikonis was not only an outstanding linguist but also a teacher, and he contributed to the methodology of teaching the native Lithuanian language. It is certain, however, that in his teaching work he drew on the didactic ideas of K. D. Ushinsky and other Russian methodologists. This article reconstructs J. Balčikonis’s methodological concept on the basis of his reviews of Lithuanian-language textbooks, his lecture notes on teaching methodology, and his methodological articles. Many of the professor’s didactic ideas have not lost their relevance to the teaching of Lithuanian. Particularly valuable from a didactic point of view is his article on school written assignments, published in 1928, which examines in detail questions concerning the theory and practice of composition in secondary school.

²² RR II 228.