Spotlight, July 2000
Few professionals in TESOL have had such a wide impact on our field as Earl Stevick. His nearly a dozen books spanning 40 years have influenced several generations of ESL/EFL teachers. Here, in his own words, CETESOLers can read Stevick's account of how God has led him through his remarkable career. He also writes about what Christian readers in particular should look for in his books.

The Quakers have an expression "as way opens," and a hymn by John Henry Newman begins, "Lead, Kindly Light ... one step [at a time is] enough for me." These two quotations pretty well summarize my life.

I majored in government at Harvard, having been informed that there was no worthwhile career in foreign languages. Just before graduation, however, an apparently chance encounter in a stairwell got me signed up to teach English for the Methodists in Warsaw. The dropping of the Iron Curtain killed that plan, but as part of the preparation for it I'd had an intensive two-week exposure to teaching English as a foreign language. That was how the way opened for my career in TESOL. With the help of the GI Bill and a working wife, I got an M.A. TEFL. Another apparently chance encounter, this one in an elevator, led me into training short-term missionaries in the learning and teaching of languages. That work put me in touch with Eugene A. Nida of the American Bible Society, who was later helpful in arranging a teaching fellowship at Cornell, where I got a degree in linguistics.

My first post-doctoral job was at Scarritt College for Christian Workers, in Nashville. There the president twisted my arm to apply for a Ford Fellowship, which gave me two years in Central Africa, thereby catapulting me into the position of eleventh-ranking African languages specialist in the United States (out of a field of twelve in those days). That in turn led me to the Language School of the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of State, where I spent the rest of my career. During that time, I was frequently lent to the Peace Corps for a variety of tasks in language training. This opened my eyes to how limited my understanding of learning and teaching had been up to then, which led to most of my books, all of them aimed at nudging language teachers toward a better understanding of themselves and their work. (It also led indirectly to an avocation in what might be called "lay pastoral care.")

I took early retirement in 1984, precipitated by my wife's health. She is doing fine these days, though I have been struggling with Parkinson's Disease. I'm still trying to live according to Philippians 1:27: "Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ."

I have mentioned my books-here are a few more details about them. As part of my employment I prepared a number of language textbooks for use by missionaries or government workers. What I most enjoyed writing, however, were books for language teachers:

• Helping People Learn English (1957), A Workbook in Language Teaching (1963),
• Adapting and Writing Language Lessons (1971), Memory, Meaning and Method (1976),
• Teaching Languages: A Way and Ways (1981),
• Teaching and Learning Languages (1982),
• Images and Options in the Language Classroom (1986),
• Success with Foreign Languages (1989),
• Humanism in Language Teaching (1990),
• Memory, Meaning & Method: Revised [actually 78% new] edition (1996),
• Working with Teaching Methods: What's at Stake? (1998).

In writing the first four of these books, my thoughts were purely professional, with no conscious attention to matters of faith. The reactions to Memory, Meaning & Method (1976 edition) changed that.

1. Three unconventional approaches that I described in the 1976 book came to be called "humanistic" (apparently in the sense that all of them tried to explore and exploit human potential more fully than previous approaches had done) and I came to be known as an exponent of "humanism" in language teaching. That didn't bother me. What did bother me was that in another sense, "humanistic" in philosophy is the position that there is no "god" of any consequence, and that we humans are responsible for our own salvation, mainly through the use of reason. Anyone who thinks otherwise is regarded as a dangerous saboteur of the scientific quest for a better world.

2. The words "humanism" and "humanistic" carried a wide range of meanings and emotional associations which were sometimes overlapping and sometimes contradictory. As a result, discussions in this area were generating more heat than light.

3. Some critics of the three unconventional approaches seemed to use words like "theological" as epithets to discredit those approaches. Religion was now portrayed not as a saboteur of right thinking, but as a feeble-minded cousin.

In Humanism in Language Teaching I tried to deal in a non-polemic way with these three concerns, pointing out that the supposedly objective stance adopted by some critics both of "humanistic" methods and of religious faith, is itself dependent on unprovable articles of "faith" in a more generic sense.

In this same book, Christian readers may also want to look at my assessment of the religious content in Community Language Learning and the Silent Way, and at a style of teaching that I called "sacramental." I also began the casual use of the phrase "the created order" in contexts where many other writers had been equally casually referring to "evolution." (In the 1996 and 1998 books I listed the Christian touches in the index under "outlook.")

Now that my book-writing days are past, I've been looking back at my life overall, trying to integrate its professional aspects with its faith aspects. This has led to a few short pieces, two of which have appeared in the CETC Newsletter. I do not plan to publish these, but will gladly make them available on e-mail to anyone who is interested. Meantime, Newman's hymn continues:

So long Thy love hath blest me, sure it still

will lead me on

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till

the night is gone.

..................

Spotlight is a column in which we introduce individuals and organizations that exemplify what it means to be a Christian educator in TESOL. Do you know someone who should be spotlighted? Are you part of an organization which should be spotlighted? Please contact the editor of this column, 

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