Grammar-translation language teaching
In the schoolrooms of Europe at the close of the nineteenth century, the teaching of modern foreign languages was heavily influenced by the more established and prestigious academic study of the dead classical languages, Latin and Ancient Greek. Curriculum aims were largely a matter of consensus, and thus seldom spelled out as they would be today. Modern language learning, it was assumed, brought students into contact with the great national civilizations and their literatures. It trained minds in logical thought, developed elegant expression, and perpetuated the study of the language as an academic discipline. The best—if inimitable— examples of the language were its greatest writers: Shakespeare for English, Dante for Italian,Pushkin for Russian, and so forth.