THE CHICAGO INVESTIGATION *

I take it that An Investigation of Second Language Teaching attempted to survey and evaluate what, at the time it was made, was actually going on in the teaching of foreign language (including the teaching of English as a foreign language). Fortunately, or unfortunately, the work of the investigation itself came at a time when there was great activityinmaking changes in the teaching of language, partly as a result of the popular discussion of the work done in language courses for the armed forces. I suspect that those courses that displayed this $reat activity in making changes were the ones called the ‘new” courses, the experimental courses, and the rest were the “old” courses. As indicated in the report neither the “old” courses nor the “new” courses were homogeneous in their practices and objectives. The report seems to indicate, however, that the basic difference that the investigators used to differentiate the “new” courses from the “old” was the greater emphasis upon oralaural procedures and objectives.