Abstract
This year marks Comenius's (1592-1670) one hundred
tenth birthday. Along with Avicenna, Bruno Bettelheim, Erasmus,
John Dewy and other world's greatest pedagogues, John Amos Comenius
(Yan Amos Komensky, in Bohemian) belongs to the cohort of philosophers
and innovators who over the centuries contributed to the development
of the field of education. Barely recognized until a century ago,
Comenius was an outstanding thinker whose views on education foreshadowed
those of Rousseau. Although
his writings were translated into English earlier in the 20th century,
it was Piaget's 1957 edition of Comenius's works that introduced
the Czech thinker to a broad contemporary audience. She has aptly
noted at that time that it is important to examine "what makes
the vital unity of the thinking of the great Czech specialist in
theory and practice, and to compare this with what we know and
want today" (11). This essay is a tribute to Comenius’s educational
philosophy, particularly his views on language instruction in relation
to contemporary views on foreign language pedagogy.
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