The Rassias Method®

"The understanding of other cultural traditions begins with language. Dartmouth Professor John Rassias' high-powered language drills reveal the values of foreign cultures more tellingly than a dozen weight treatises. It would be easier for all of us to continue insisting that the rest of the world learn English. But such complacency has already placed Americans at a serious disadvantage in the international marketplace... We isolate ourselves from a wide range of opportunities- diplomatic, economic, and cultural."

-James O. Freedman, President Emeritus of Dartmouth College, in "American Glasnost" (Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, November 1990)

The Rassias Method includes some fifty dramatic techniques that banish inhibitions, which retard the acquisition of foreign languages. Originally developed during the advent of the Peace Corps, it has been adopted by language teachers in colleges, universities, and high schools in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

The goal of the Rassias Method is to make the participant feel comfortable and natural with the language in a short period of time. This is accomplished through a specific series of teaching procedures and dramatic techniques which seek to eliminate inhibitions and create an atmosphere of free expression from the very first day of class. Our method of language instruction places the participant at center stage and seeks to replicate the relevant, life-like situations encountered in the target language. The emphasis throughout is spoken language and familiarity with the culture of the country whose language is being studied. The classroom techniques involved are rapid-paced, theatrical, highly creative, imaginative, and necessitate great quantities of enthusiasm. Positive reinforcement is immediate.

The Rassias Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of Dartmouth College, assists academic institutions, corporations, government agencies, and individuals in their efforts to learn foreign languages through the Rassias Method of language instruction. We also have several satellites that are fully trained in using and teaching the Method.

Advantages to the Method
The Method encourages contextual learning, specifically designed to meet the needs of our clients. The Method presumes a holistic approach, viewing language and culture as a single entity, whole and indissoluble. Language is as much a phenomenon of culture as it is a measure of culture. Good language teaching must prepare students to appreciate the entire cultural experience. Culture captures the temperament of its people. To interpret this temperament culture must be understood and that means knowing its language.
Good language teaching also focuses on helping the student to communicate in a variety of situations. The Method familiarizes the student with the language with the aim of making that human connection with someone to allow communication to occur.

The aim of the method is to provide a non-competitive atmosphere where the second or third language student is highly motivated and feels comfortable with the language in as short a time as possible. This goal is achieved through a series of specific teaching procedures, techniques, and tools that:

• Create and maintain a dynamic classroom pace and atmosphere, thus capturing and holding student attention.
• Foster spontaneity and creative expression, eliciting an extremely high rate of student response from the earliest to the advanced stages of language training.
• Eliminate the learner's natural self-consciousness and fear of mistakes.
• Emphasize the relevance of the language to the student's own life experience.
• Engage the student on an emotional level.

How It Functions in the Classroom
Through scheduling small support groups to work through structured activities, the Rassias Method can ensure that the material is presented and reinforced constantly in real-life contexts. This layering of the teaching function allows for greater participant exposure to the language and more individualized attention.

The close monitoring of the progress of each individual allows the staff to make immediate adjustments in the learning pace and teaching approach. A daily diagnostic analysis of each student enables the teacher to note areas needing improvement providing each student with ways to act positively on these suggestions.

In addition to the aforementioned theatrical strategies, certain feedback communication techniques are implemented. These include pacing, the use of different teaching positions in relation to the classroom, choral repetition, backward buildup, rewards, and creative new ways to present grammar structures. The dramatic interplay between teacher and participant evokes responses at an average of at least 65-times in a 50-minute sequence creating a highly conducive learning situation.

History
John Rassias developed the Rassias Method while working as a consultant for Peace Corps language programs. He served as Director of Language Programs at Dartmouth from 1964 to 1968, in French and various other African languages. He directed the first pilot operation for in-country training for the Peace Corps in the Ivory Coast in 1966, as well as the first total immersion program in the United States in 1967 at Dartmouth.

His inspiration for the Method came when he was faced with the decision to take to the stage or to enter the classroom. He decided to do both. “So I just took the essence of acting—the ability to touch an audience—and the essence of teaching—communication and fused them.”