Our beautiful bridges
The fascinating coincidences between the beautiful bridges of
Budapest and the history of our beautiful profession
In 1845, Henry (Higgins) Sweet was born, our first phonetician,
es grnt so grn wenn Spaniens blten blhen
Pygmalion, put on in the Burgtheather, Vienna for the first time
in 1913 in German.
And at the same time, the Scot, not the Englishman, Adam Clark
was working on the Lnchd
1878 Margit Hd and Maximillian Berlitz
Zichy Mihly Arany Jnos
1898, Szabadsg hd, previously Ferencz Jzsef hd, Francois Gouin
discovered that you cant learn a language by learning its rules
like you cant learn to drive by reading the highway code.
1937 Petfi hd, formerly Horthy Mikls hd and A.S Hornby
A pontoon bridge in Budapest observed by my grandfather in
1946
Spanning the Danube from Buda to Pest is a bridge of boats built
by the Russian armies. Over that frail structure, hour after hour
passes the flotsam and jetsam of Europe.
1950, Stalin bridge, now rpd Hd and the rise of audiolingualism.
B.F. Skinner, so much to answer for! Teachers of the world unite,
we have nothing to lose but our behaviouristic beasts. In 1958,
Stalins name disappeared from the face of this bridge
Erzsbet hd 1964 and Dell Hymes Language in Culture and
Society
And the Mria Valria hd, just up the river in Esztergom. Sissys
daughter!
1995 Lgymnyosi hd and the start of the Cambridge International
Corpus, Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy
Even Jim Scrivener saw the newest Budapest bridge, the Megyeri hd
2008, to be the key to the sales of the latest edition of his
book
Can teaching still be a subversive activity?
Has ELT settled down into a calm, measured maturity? Have the
years of exciting creativity and risk passed by? Should we now
obediently open our expert-written coursebooks and tick off a few
more can-do statements?
So who was the most influential?
The baby chain bridge
Pestalozzi and Ironbridge 1779Dont throw out the bridge with the
bathwater
Never divide ELT from general pedagogy
Understanding and knowing where weve come from helps us to work
out better where were going to
Enjoy our bridges, pause for a moment when you pass one,you may
never see them in the same light again. Bridges are like languages
Connecting people and places!
