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REVIEWS

Ludger Schiffler, EinfUhrun~ in den audio-visuellen Fremd- sprachenunterricht, Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1973, 164 pages.

Since its publication in 1973 Schiffler's comprehensive 'Introduction to Audio-Visual Language Teaching' has quick- ly established itself as a standard book on the subject. It takes the reader from theoretical considerations on the na- ture of language (ch. l) via a discussion of the functions of the visual and acoustic channels in the language learn- ing process (ch. 2) to a fuller treatment of the psycholog- ical problems connected with visual and auditive learning (ch. 3) and, finally, to the longest and probably most use- ful part of the book, a thorough discussion of the didactic and methodological aspects of audio-visual language teach- ing (ch. 4). The final chapter (ch. 5) constitutes something apart in that it provides a (highly interesting) report on some research on the effects of audio-visual language teach- ing carried out by the author in connection with his Ph.D. thesis.

The first two chapters (i0 and 7 pages respectively) on the theoretical aspects of audio-visual work are rather short and general. Guberina's 'm~thode audio-visuelle structuro- globale', originally developed for the purpose of pronuncia- tion teaching, seems to have to serve as the main theoreti- cal basis, which, as Schiffler himself points out (p. 16), is rather narrow: although a number of linguistic and psycho- logical theories are mentioned, audio-visual work is not provided with as secure a theoretical foundation as would be desirable. In this context the high hopes placed on the potential contribution of pragmatics seem somewhat over- optimistic.

The importance of paralinguistic features as provided by the visual element, and of 'abstract listening' as particu- lar to the acoustic channel are interesting points in the second chapter which preludes - and at times anticipates - the wider discussion of the psychological issues, in the third. Here, Schiffler outlines the requirements visual stimuli have to meet (it would have been even clearer if there had been a few appropriate illustrations here) and is particularly explicit about the problem of the in- tellectual demands made on the learner if he is to inter- pret the visual material correctly, a faculty apparently largely dependent on age. It is interesting to note in this context that the usual design of the visual material seems to make it unsuitable for children under the age of about ii.

As it is one of the tenets of audio-visual language teach- ing to rely on the oral form of the language at the expense

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Of the written one, the introduction of reading and writing has been a constant point of discussion. Schiffler recom- mends the early introduction of the written form of the oral dialogues to support the repetition phase, arguing amongst other things that this facilitates the segmentation of the speech chain thereby providing for better understand- ing and pronunciation.

The most substantial chapter of the book (ch. 4, pp. 59-113) provides an enormous amount of practical information and advice on problems encountered in audio-visual language teaching. Particularly interesting points are Schiffler's insistance on and suggestions for 'creative' work in the audio-visual classroom: 'free' phases are seen as normal parts of the activities as much as media-controlled and teacher-controlled ones. The problems of coping with differ- ent ability groups are taken seriously. Much is also made of the initiative of the learners as correctors of their fellow learners, as inventors of alternative dialogues to the pictures presented, as individuals following self-in- structional material within and outside the classroom, as critical 'consumers' of the lesson contents.

Schiffler's own research reported on in the last section compares the results of two courses in French for German school children, one based on a traditional set of materi- als ('Etudes Frangaises'), and the other on the first CREDIF course 'Voix et Images de France' (VIF). The ex- periment evaluates the results of 17 subjects only, but since this small number is the result of a careful elimina- tion from the final analysis of all other subjects in the least likely to distort the basis of comparison between the test group and the control groups, this does not in- validate the results. It is, however, interesting to note (a) that a number of (very sensible) alterations had been made to the VIF material, in particular in the way of pro- viding written material (cf. pp. i15/i16), and (b) perhaps more seriously, that only the experimental group seems to have had the opportunity of doing individual work with tapes at home (cf. p. 127).

A few limitations of the book (which are not necessarily disadvantages) are fairly obvious. Although reference is made to the teaching of English, the main concern of the book is with problems of French as a target language. This is no doubt partly due to the CREDIF origins of most of the audio-visual material in use and legitimately coin- cides with the author's interests as a Professor of French at the College of Education in Berlin. The emphasis is also on learners of the ii-13 age group as beginners: some conclusions and suggestions would probably have to be modified to suit adult learners or advanced students. A somewhat irritating technical arrangement of using fig- ures in the annotations to refer to the bibliography, in-

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stead of providing shortened titles and/or year of publica- tion, sends the reader from annotation to bibliography every time he wants to follow up a reference.

The book should be extremely useful as a handbook for stu- dents in teacher training or for young teachers. Schiffler's own critical distance and modificatory suggestions enable him to convince the reader that audio-visual language teach- ing can be a reasonable alternative and is certainly worth a try.

Bernd Voss Head of Language Laboratory PMdagogische Hochschule Westfalen-Lippe, Abt. Bielefeld Lampingstr. 3 4800 Bielefeld 1

Jacob Ornstein (Ed.) : Three Essays on Linguistic Diversity in the Spanish Speakin 9 World. Mouton, 1975.

With a title like Three Essays on Linguistic Diversity in the Spanish Speaking World, this volume may not need any particular unity. Three Essays on Lin@uistic Diversity in the Spanish Speaking World is exactly what the title states, and that is three separate essays dealing with language diversity in part of the Spanish speaking world. There is no particular theme unifying the three essays other than that these essays explain and exemplify linguistic analysis and deal with Spanish.

Regardless of any quality and scholarship underlying the three essays featured in this volume, the reader is called upon to unify the presentations and to provide the perspec- tive for interpretation of the articles. If the reader is without a background in the field of linguistics or in the field of language diversity, he will have some difficulty in capturing the potential effect of Ornstein's book. The unfamiliar reader will only be able to look at this book as three separate essays, bound together for no particular reason other than the fact that they seem to deal with the Spanish language. Although the Ornstein essay does much to provide perspective in its review of sociolinguistics, the non-familiar reader will still have some difficulty in associating the two technical studies with the general, review-of-literature essay that sets the stage for the bookl Readers who are familiar with the literature on sociolinguistics, bilingualism, and language diversity may very well welcome Ornstein's book as a convenient com- bining of a theoretical essay with two application essays. Of course the readers will have to determine for themselves how the technical essays are indeed applications of the theoretical perspective. Nonetheless, each of the essays