James Hamilton (language teacher)

James Hamilton (* 1769 in London ; † October 31, 1831 in Dublin ) is the inventor of the method named after him of learning foreign languages.

Life

He settled in Hamburg in 1798 , where he learned the German language using a peculiar method under the guidance of the French emigrant d'Angeli. He made the condition that he should be spared the rules of grammar. The lesson therefore proceeded in such a way that the teacher translated the text of a German anecdote book for him and only added grammatical explanations where it was unavoidable. After only twelve hours, Hamilton was able to read simple texts. The attempt to earn a living as a businessman in Holland, England or America failed. So he settled in New York as a language teacher in 1815 and began teaching the French language using this method. His students only needed 10 teaching units to translate, for example, texts from the Gospel of John from French into English without a dictionary. In doing so, he again relied on his teaching style, which deviated from the grammatical method, with the literal linear translation of related texts.

In 1823 he returned to England, where he taught Latin, Greek, French, Italian and German until his death. His method of teaching met with great approval in America , England , France, and Germany , although in the latter country it had the philologists as fierce opponents; the widespread Toussaint-Langenscheidt teaching letters are also based on it.

The "Hamilton method" was introduced by some German schools, especially in Württemberg, where Leonard Tafel developed it.

literature

• Christian Friedrich Wurm: Hamilton and Jacotot. A contribution to the history of the latest reform of language teaching. Campe, Hamburg 1831.
• Christian Schwarz: Brief criticism of the Hamiltonian language teaching method. Metzler, Stuttgart 1837.
• Franciscus Christ Nordström: De methodo instituendi Hamiltoniana . Berling, Lund 1839 (dissertation).
• Leonhard Tafel: The analytical language teaching method. Cotta, Stuttgart / Tübingen 1845 ( Digitale-sammlungen.de ).
• Warwick William Wroth:  Hamilton, James (1769-1829) . In: Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee (Eds.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 24:  Hailes - Harriott. MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London, 1890, pp 186 - 187 (English).
• Hamilton, 9) James . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition. Volume 8, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1907, pp.  695–697 .
• FA von Schéele: Hamilton [hä'milten], James . In: Theodor Westrin (Ed.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 10 : Gossler-Harris . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1909, Sp. 1228-1229 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
• Hamilton, James . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 12 : Gichtel - harmonium . London 1910, p. 885–886 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
• Gunnar Carlquist, Josef Carlsson: Hamilton, [hamm'iltən], James James . In: Svensk uppslagsbok . 2nd Edition. tape 12 : Grimberg – Hedebomsöm . Förlagshuset Norden, Malmö 1949, Sp. 880 ( svenskuppslagsbok.se ( memento of December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive )).

Web links

• Entry on James Hamilton in the Database of Classical Scholars (English)