In and beyond Teaching English as a Foreign Language in the Modern Period

Abstract

This paper examines the diverse methodologies used to teach English as a foreign language during the Modern period [...] The production of books in the vernacular was significantly higher than in previous centuries thanks to a growing social mass of middle class citizens [...]. Reading in English was felt as more natural than reading in other less comprehensible tongues for the traditionally unlearned in Latin, Greek or even French. It is rather significant the enormous amount of scientific and utilitarian books written in English rather than in Latin, which was globally considered as the language of scientific communication. In a way, they were but imitating Continental practices, and this involved a bulk of unprecedented translated material in English. In this same context, trading with foreigners stimulated the learning of foreign languages, but English was also a language that foreigners in England and abroad wanted to learn. In this paper I revise (a) the status of Englishaccording to grammarians, and (b) the methods used to teach English as a foreign language in the eighteenth century. For this purpose I analyse eleven printed books from which data concerning authorial stance towards teaching English are excerpted.