The Polis Method

The Polis Method is a dynamically composite, learner-centered, and usage-based method of language learning and teaching developed in The Polis Institute. Originally designed for the teaching and learning of ancient languages, it has now been adopted for the teaching of modern languages. The method’s development and application began in 2001 when linguist and foreign-language educator Christophe Rico started teaching ancient Greek using the full immersion approach.
Introduction: General description and motivations
The Polis Method uses specific approaches and techniques aligned to each other through a specific set of principles. "Dynamically composite" means that the integration of complementary strategies by design into one working system called the Polis Method is an open-ended process. "Learner-centered," means that it is focused both on the use of language and the needs of its learners, in contrast to methods that are "language-centered" and "learning-centered." The method is “usage-based” because the preferred approaches and strategies are those that expose students to actual and meaningful language use and provide them primarily with necessary authentic input and, in due time, occasions for meaningful output.
In designing this new method, Christophe Rico and his team were motivated by two main ideas.
The first was to promote the study of classical cultural sources, if possible in their most authentic contexts. Since “close to three quarters of ancient and medieval texts cannot be read today except in the original Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic,” accessing the content of many important documents requires knowledge of the languages in which they were written. .
Elements of the Polis Method
The elements that comprise the Polis Method encompass a variety of theoretical principles and practical techniques for teaching modern languages and developed to teach the so-called ‘dead’ languages as ‘living’ ones.
Theoretical principles
Practical strategies and techniques incorporated by design into the system follow two theoretical principles.
Total immersion
In the Polis Method instruction is given only in the target language following the principle that language learning best happens when it takes place in a full immersive environment, i.e. only the target language is heard, read, spoken, and written. This theoretical principle marks the main difference between the Polis Method from traditional grammar translation methods and is the main basis for the inclusion of certain practical techniques into the method.
Dynamic language development
The Polis Method is based on the principle that grammatical structures are best learned according to their natural order of acquisition. The principle recognizes both the student's progressive language acquisition based on the four basic language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, and the modes of discourse or literary genres (dialogue› narration› argumentation› poetry) involved in this process.
Total Physical Response
Total Physical Response (TPR) is a language teaching technique first developed by the psychologist James John Asher (San José State University). The Polis Method uses this approach from the very first class, during which the student is required only to react physically to a series of commands given by the instructor; no verbal interaction is expected to take place. More advanced students are asked to describe their actions as they perform them or to describe what they have just seen. TPR activities decrease as the course progresses but are still used in the most advanced stages especially when some particularly complex grammatical structures are tackled.
Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling
TPR Storytelling is a language acquisition technique created in the 90’s by Spanish teacher Blaine Ray, inspired by Steven Krashen’s theory on foreign language acquisition and its emphasis on the role of "comprehensible input," i.e., sentences whose meaning students fully grasp. In order to provide students with a learning environment where "comprehensible input" could take place, Blaine Ray developed a series of stories or narrations that correspond to students' linguistic level and actively engages them. Through the narration new vocabulary is introduced.
In adapting this strategy of storytelling, the Polis Method completely excludes translations and explanations in any language other than the one being taught.
Within the Polis Method, the Story Building Technique is often used to practice the switch from present to past tense.
Images and props
The Polis Method presents new vocabulary using pictures and props in order to enable students to directly associate a new word with a sensorial experience rather than words that are not of the target language.
Conversation in pairs or small groups
Conversations between students in class is a common and important feature in modern language teaching which Polis applies to the teaching of ancient languages. In more advanced classes these interactions, involving two to five students at a time, provide more opportunities for authentic speaking experiences as well as for correcting possible errors.
Living Sequential Expression (LSE)
The latest element in the Polis Method is a technique called Living Sequential Expression (LSE). Inspired by the work of the French educator and foreign language teacher, François Gouin (1831-1896), who developed the Series Method of language acquisition at the end of the 19th century, LSE uses a series of sentences that express sequences of logically connected actions. Students show that they understand the meaning of the sentences by performing and then reporting on the actions referred to. This principle is further elaborated below.
Other activities and techniques
To increase opportunities for more natural immersive experiences the Polis Method encourages students to attend engage in extra-class activities using the target language.
The Polis Method also employ songs with lyrics in ancient languages as teaching tools
Distinctive features
Several independent global initiatives, which includes The Polis Institute, have arisen in recent years to revive the teaching of classical languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, and Biblical Hebrew using immersion and communicative approaches to engage students of the 21st century. In modifying these modern approaches, the Polis Method uses a framework that guides learner’s progress in language acquisition without neglecting the issue of correct grammar. The framework's distinctive features are the following.
Dynamic Language Development
The Polis Method evaluates language learning advancement holistically, i.e., beyond a strictly grammatical scale, based on the idea that language development is a dynamic and iterative process rather than a linear one. Informed by usage-based theory, WPA is operationalized in the Polis Method according to the following model: a horizontal movement from language reception (input) to language production (output) and a vertical movement from oral-aural language to written language. In other words, learners using the Polis Method ideally first hear a set of sentences, then enact them, retell them, read them afterwards in certain exercises, and finally write them down.<ref name=":20" /> This movement is applied to phrases as well as to morphological and syntactic patterns.
The “listen-first” approach paradigm is especially important for languages that require learning a new alphabet or writing system (e.g., Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek). For this sort of languages, the only way that beginning students could immediately use the target language for actual communication is through listening first and then speaking afterwards.<ref name":1" /><ref name":14" />
Living Sequential Expression
Living Sequential Expression (LSE) is a language teaching strategy conceived and being developed in the Polis Institute mainly to enhance a student’s ability for storytelling and narrating experiences.<ref name":17" /><ref name":5" /> It combines Asher’s Total Physical Response (TPR) approach with a modified version of the Series Method of François Gouin. Two main ideas of the Series method that has inspired LSE are: a) the importance of sequentiality in the learning process, and b) the importance of expressing basic human experience into the language that the learner is in the process of acquiring.<ref name=":21" />
Key to the LSE strategy is identifying and mapping out regular tasks that cover the average learner’s experience and classifying these into daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly tasks. For each task and event, one or several sequences that consist of four to seven actions - consistently related to one another - are then articulated. The idea behind this is that learners who can express as many of their regularly done activities in the target specific language would have attained a certain degree of fluency in that language.
For example, the task “taking the bus” could include the following sequence of actions:
1. Walk to the bus stop.
2. Wait for the bus.
3. Enter the bus.
4. Go towards the driver.
5. Buy your ticket.
6. Sit down.
7. Alight from the bus.
Assuming a total of one hundred and fifty regular activities that may be divided into two to five different tasks, and which in turn may each contain four to seven actions, the LSE map might accumulate some 2,500 commands and some 3,500 different words. This number of words comprises the core vocabulary of any language.

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