J. T. Roberts read German and French at the University of Leicester and later Applied Linguistics at the University of Essex, where he currently teaches German Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. His early posts included those of Senior Lecturer in Modern Languages at the then North East London Polytechnic and Maître Assistant Associé d'Anglais at the University of Nancy. Among his particular interests is language teaching methodology, including its history.
1999 0-7734-7988-0 In the literature of the history of language teaching, there are frequent references to the names of Claude Marcel and François Gouin, two of the most imaginative among the 19th century language teaching reformers in Europe. The present book argues that neither of them has been understood properly, so that Marcel has come down to posterity as the inventor of a ‘reading method' and Gouin as a founder of the Direct Method. Such views are countered here and , in effect, a plea is made to accord them a new status in the history of language teaching.