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THE SAINT-CLOUD METHOD

A method which has received considerable attention in recent years is variously known as the Saint-Cloud Method, the CREDIF Method, and the Audio-Visual Method. The following discussion is based principally on its treatment by Renard and Heinle (1969).

The Saint-Cloud Method certainly takes into account the first principle stated in Chapter VII: that "language is purposeful behavior between people, intertwined with other kinds of purposeful behavior between the same people." Renard and Heinle are clear that "nonverb­

al ... behavior is ... essential in communicative interaction, and forms an integral part of the presentation of language-in-use" (11 ). "Language is ...

an acoustic-visual [whole] : the situation cannot be separated from the elements that constitute its linguistic expression" (12). "Language-in-use"

is a combination of an expressive and communicative purpose, and a formal linguistic structure, and the purpose of the Method is to teach language-in-use (12). Even structural manipulation in this method takes

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the form of questions and answers because this simulates actual communi­

cation and thus "requires language to perform its social function" (14).

The pictures and the many kinds of questions which the teacher asks, mostly about the picture, are intended to maintain a combination of meaning with form-to keep the student in contact with the language"

(Chapter ^VII, Principle Ill).

Principle 11, that people learn best when they are not busy defending themselves, is less conspicuous. But the authors quote Guberina and Rivenc, the originators of the method, that the French people and their language must appear to the student "as little intimidating as possible"

(viii). Renard and Heinle also refer briefly to "the limited amount of research" on the effects of various characteristics of the person who is serving as model, and of the person who is observing and imitating that model (10).

Principle IV recognizes the desirability of "helping the student to maintain wholesome attitudes." In this respect, it seems to me that the greatest strength of the Saint-Cloud Method lies in the very fundamental area of "security" (Chapter IV). A teacher who has had the prescribed training course, and who uses the materials as they were intended to be used, will always know what he is doing, and what he is going to do next, and why. Similarly, his students will always feel that their learning endeavors are receiving firm and dependable guidance. On the level of

"esteem" (Chapter IV), the constant stream of question-answering and repetition after a recorded model, if carefully guided by the teacher, provides opportunities for progressive satisfaction resulting from a growing facility with the language.

The Saint-Cloud Method-a method with many successes to its credit-thus complies to some degree with the four principles which we have quoted from Chapter VII. This is of course a vindication, not of the method, but of the principles. I believe, further, that these same principles can illuminate some of the limitations of the method. This is particularly true if we take into account the dimension of depth, or the concept of the whole person.

This method, as we have quoted its practitioners above, correctly emphasizes that what is to be taught is "language-in-use," which consists of a form-meaning composite. But in its concern to make all of the meanings clear through pictures, it limits (except in the very last part of the last phase of each unit) the meaning to the fixed, and therefore dead,

Some Other Methods 151

world of the filmstrips. What is happening in almost the entire unit, then, is not "having lunch"; it is, rather, "talking about someone on the filmstrip having lunch, using vocabulary and structures that we may someday need while actually having lunch." Even the very final step (Renard and Heinle 74f) usually has the students acting out situations that the teacher has already outlined for them. There appears to be little room for investment that is drawn from the nonacademic parts of the student's personality.

Furthermore, a method in which students spend almost all of their time either answering questions or repeating after a tape is bound to be highly reflective, as I have used that term in Chapter V 11. For most of the time, whatever creativity the student exercises and whatever choices he makes are under careful control of the method and the classroom teacher.

When students are finally allowed to "behave a new but related situation"

(74), they do so at the end of a long series of gradually relaxed controls.

The features which make the Saint-Cloud Method so very "reflec­

tive" also place the students in a parallel-or competing-relationship with one another relative to the teacher. All are trying to do the same thing, and it quickly becomes clear which ones are doing it better than others.

The last few paragraphs have been descriptive, but also critical, of the Saint-Cloud Method: we have said that it restricts students, both in the spectrum of reality about which they talk, and in the areas within their own personalities which may contribute to creative personal investment in the learning process. We have implied that it has within it relatively meager opportunities for satisfaction of the needs for "belonging" and "self­

actualization" (Chapter IV). How can such a method be successful?

No method is always successful, of course. I am acquainted with at least one adult who was destroyed as a learner of French by the constant barrage of questions, and the judgmental manner of the teacher, in a course taught by this method. Early in the course, failure to give back specific items correctly was expanded and institutionalized into a pattern of overall failure. The only possible source of reassurance-the teacher's approval-was thus cut off. This style of instruction minimizes the interpersonal dynamics among students, which in the methods of Chapters VIII and IX provide alternative sources of support.

But the method often does work. When it does, the reasons are probably of two kinds. First, some students are able to survive and even to thrive (cognitively at least) in the kind of atmosphere we have described.

These are students whose mistakes in the first lessons are few enough so that they are not withered by the teacher's disapproval; whose imagina­

tions are suggestible enough and vivid enough to bring to life the two-dimensional filmstrips; whose needs for security, clear structure and teacher approval are more urgent than their needs for group support or for immediate relevance; who are happily Adapted Children (Chapter V) when the teacher acts as their Controlling Parent. There are many such people, and in many parts of the world they represent the cultural norm for the role of Student.

The Saint-Cloud Method may also succeed because individual instructors provide an atmosphere which contains elements not called for by a literal reading of the procedures: unconditional personal acceptance by the teacher, group spirit among the students, opportunities for greater personal investment and a wider range of creativity.

This method, then, like most other conventional methods but unlike the methods of Chapters VIII and IX, subordinates learning to teaching, and teaching to materials. The materials are, however, worked out with unusual care, thoroughness, and ingenuity.