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CHAPTER 2
A MODULAR APPROACH

Similarly, in the introduction to Adams, Modular Vietnamese (1970, unpublished) we read:

This elementary course in Vietnamese is composed of several different 'modules.' Each module is a series of related lessons which will guide the student toward accurate conversation on a particular topic. It does not matter whether the student begins his study of Vietnamese conversing, say, about geography, street directions, or personal matters; each module begins at the beginning.

In 1968, MacDougall produced for the Peace Corps her deliberately modular Active Introduction to Sinhala. In this set of materials, one module introduces the writing system. A second is a grammatical sketch of Sinhala. The third consists mainly of a series of Cummings devices (p. 310-314). This series is broken into a subseries on classroom expressions, a subseries on matters of general conversation, and further subseries on specialized topics such as rice growing and the preparation of food.


A set of fourteen modules has been developed by Goodison and the staff of the Foreign Service Institute's Russian language section. These materials are designed especially to fit the scope and nature of Russian training at the Institute, and are therefore unpublished. They include an introduction to pronunciation and to printed and handwritten letters: a series of lessons based on using a simplified table-top model of Moscow; narratives and conversations suitable for use with the table-top model; introductory, intermediate and advanced readings taken from newspaper advertisements and announcements; general or specialized newspaper stories, charts and maps on the economic geography of the Soviet Union; selections from a sixth-grade geography book used in the soviet Union.

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