18

JAMES R. NORD

The focus on speaking in foreign language instruction for the past twenty years has, I believe, been detrimental to the field. It has been detrimental not just because it now appears less effective or efficient, but rather because of its corrosive effect. By concentrating public and professional attention on dramatic overt behavioral changes which could be observed by anyone, the focus on speaking has also succeeded in diverting attention away from the more elusive, but more fundamental changes which are going on inside the brain as one learns to "listen" and "think" in a foreign language. The focus on learning to speak has diverted attention, research and money away from the development of theories, methodologies and instructional materials for learning aural comprehension. It is time to change the paradigm.

REFERENCES
1. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p.5.

2. Ibid., p.6.
3. Ibid.

4. Nelson Brooks, "The Meaning of Audiolingual", Modern Language Journal 59, (September--October 1975):234--40.

5. Richard 1. Brod, "Trends in Foreign Language Enrollments", The Britannica Review of Foreign Language Education, Vot. II (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1970).

6. John H. Lawson, "Is Language Teaching Foreign or Dead?" Modern Language Journal 55, (October 1971):354.

7. T. H. Mueller and R. R. Leutenegger, "Some Inferences about an Intensified Oral Approach to the Teaching of French Based on a Study of Course Drop-outs", Modern Language Journal 48, (February 1964):91--4.

8. Valerian A. Postovsky, "On Paradoxes in Foreign Language Teaching", Modern Language Journal 59, No. I--2 (January--February 1975): 19.

9. Kuhn, Structure of ScientiJic Revolutions, p.5.

10. Ibid.,p.7.

11. E. Muscat-Tabakowska, "The Nature of Competence and Performance in Language Teaching", Language Learning 19 (1969):44.

12. Kuhn, Structure of Scientifc Revolutions, p.23.

13. James J. Asher, "The Total Physical Response Approach to Second Language Learning", Modern Language Journal 53, No. I (January 1969):4.

14. Harris Winitz and James A. Reeds, "Rapid Acquisition of a Foreign Language (German) by the Avoidance of Speaking", IRAL 11, No. 4 (1973):296.

15. Harris Winitz, "Problem Solving and the Delaying of Speech as Strategies in the Teaching of Language", ASHA (American Speech and Hearing Association) 15, No. 10 (1973):586.
16. Ibid .