Welsh Journals

Next year's school will review fifty years of Welsh education, and a programme of great in- terest is being prepared. It will be well in this subject also to look at Welsh education in the light of progress and thought in other countries, for it is in this way only that we can appreciate properly the values of our achievements up to the SWANSEA WELSH SUMMER SCHOOL ONE of the features of this year's Welsh Summer School held at Swansea was the marked interest shown by the teacher- students in the question of teaching Welsh to infants and juniors. After a series of lectures and discussions it was conclusively proved that it is possible for infant children to acquire Welsh (not only as a mother tongue, but also as a second language) entirely through the medium of games and action songs. The scheme consists of a series of thoroughly graded games and action songs based on the direct or natural method of language teaching, inasmuch as it conforms to the natural manner in which a child acquires his first language or mother tongue. The games, together with the handwork action songs, illustrate the four main periods in the de- velopment of the mother tongue (a) Cyfnod y Syllu.- The observing period. For the child when first acquiring speech, listens long before he understands and understands long before he speaks. (b) Cyfnod y Personoli a'r Dynwared.-The impersonating and imitating period, when the child's imagination transmutes a piece of wood into a live prancing horse. (c) Cyfnod yr Holi.­The questioning period, when the child not only questions continually, but breaks his toys to see inside. (d) Cyfnod Siarad y Frawddeg Fer.—The short sentence period, first in the third and later in the first person. But it is essential that the teaching should commence when the child enters the infant school, not as systematic lessons, but to hear commands in Welsh, without being required to say anything in that language for some time, so that the ear gets attuned to it. because at that stage the child's imagination, his tendency to imitate, his instinct of curiosity and his love of ritual and repetition are invaluable aids to the accumulation of knowledge." Indeed, to postpone the teaching of Welsh until Std. I. or Std. II. is to ignore the normal conditions of organic growth. The plastic con- present and fix standards to which we must aim in the future. Full particulars of the Welsh School of Social Service are obtainable from Mr. Edward Jones, 22, High Street, Newtown, Mont. The annual subscription is 5s. by Margaret Rosser, LL.A. dition of the child's mind and of the organs of speech make this period a time, above all, when the training of his powers should receive most abundant attention." In fact, not a single important subject of the curriculum is taught in Std. I. without a period of preparation in the form of games, etc., in the infant school. The English, number, geography, drill, etc., of Std. I. are preceded in the infant school by language games and plays, number games and plays, stories of other lands, and games imitating the movements of animals and occupations. The two great sources of his experiences are his instinct for play and his imagination, and the experience that he derives from these are the most pleasurable and satisfying of all, and hence the most real." The words of old singing games linger in our minds long after we have left the realms of childhood behind. They become almost part of ourselves bv reason of their con- nection with our happiest times. Therefore, the child is to be pitied whose ex- perience for the first nine years has not included much cheerful play. He may learn the same lessons or many of them later, through study, but the effect is a borrowed one and comes grudg- ingly. But if the child be taught Welsh in the infants' school through the medium of games, he is vigorous and alert and assimilates the language unconsciously, whereas if the teaching be post- poned until Std. I, "the child has begun either to lose or to abandon this delightful gift, for each stage in the process of development demands its appropriate conditions and leisure, and undue hastening of any form of organic growth is fol- lowed by some loss or abnormality." In all earnestness, infant teachers are asked, Shall we deprive the child of his inheritance? Shall we make the acquiring of Welsh (which is the language of the land in which he is born and bred) devoid of delight? Shall we make the ac- quiring of this subject less pleasant to the child than the acquiring of any other subject? Our advice is-consider the child, how it grows.