The commonest cry of the campus revolutionary who concerns himself with his campus is "Good teaching is dead." The famous professors who attract good students to their campuses never see the students, the story goes; instead the undergraduates are left to a handful of graduate-student teaching fellows--and they, it is assumed, are bad teachers.

That is a large assumption, but it is at least half true--the bulk of a student's contact with faculty members is likely to be not with the Galbraiths, Eriksons, and Freunds, but with the teaching fellows, instructors, and occasional assistant professors who teach his sections, who tutor in his House or in his department.

And there is evidence that graduate-student teaching leaves something to be desired. Many departments permit first-year graduate students to teach sections without any prior instruction in how to teach. Thrown back on memories of their own high school or college teachers, the grad students must rely on their intuition to become good teachers. If some succeed, student reaction suggests that the majority do not. "The section men either make or break it," this year's Confidential Guide said of the College's largest course. "Last year, for the most part, they broke it." The Guide is dotted with courses whose sections were "a dismal waste of time," or "worthless," with section men who drew no favorable comments and several obscene ones.

But if one continues reading the Confy Guide, an oasis arrives with the courses offered by the German Department. "No matter who your section man is, you'll describe him in superlatives," a recent Guide said of German A. And the same year's analysis of German B waxed lyrical: "All of the section men and women, without exception, were praised; you can be sure that the same situation will prevail this year. The German Department has an incredible number of good section men."

How does the German Department do it? Its task is harder than the average department's, for language teaching has been revolutionized within the last decade; few section men can make use of the techniques that were used to teach them languages back in high school. The translation since then has given way to the language lab, the memorized passage to the audio-visual aid.

So the department begins by asking its graduate students to take a course in elementary teaching methods before they teach a section. Jack M. Stein, professor of German and the man responsible for the department's teacher-training courses, says that the department "has the most elaborate and complete program for teaching fellows in the whole country."

If this is true, it is a very recent development. While Cornell led the major universities in developing modern language teaching in the postwar years, using techniques borrowed from the Army's wartime programs, Harvard lagged behind. It was not until 1959 that Boylston Hall was renovated and turned over to the language departments. The latest in laboratory methods was installed, including 30 listening booths and a console that can play six separate programs simultaneously, and monitor any or all booths at once. A huge library of tapes, a lab director and assistant, and six employees completed the laboratory set-up.

William Riley Parker, who dedicated the renovated Boylston in 1960, demanded "Now that you have nice facilities, what are you going to do with them?" The German Department's answer was to match the facilities with teaching skill. They had already brought Stein with his modern audio-lingual and anti-grammarian philosophy from Columbia in 1958. In his newly-established position as co-ordinator of Language Instruction in the German Department, Stein developed the present teacher-training course.

It goes under the unlikely title of Germanic Philosophy 280, subtitled "The German Language and the Teaching of German." It is not just a course in teaching; it investigates the variety of methods now available to the teacher of elementary languages, and goes on to examine such professional matters as text books and the leading pedagogical journels.

The teaching techniques which Stein stresses in the course and for which the German Department at Harvard is famous are aural-oral. Stein counsels his future college teachers to develop in their students the ability for automatic response and communications--the same kind a child develops learning his native language. He opposes this to the old-fashioned grammar-and-translation approach. In fact, a "Do's and Don'ts" sheet which Stein distributes to his teaching fellows concludes with a warning: "There is a departmental ban on the use of the words 'memorize' and 'translate,' and a total ban on the translation of any sentence German-to-English or English-to-German from an open book by the student. No exceptions!"

Instead, modern language teachers must drill, drill, drill, orally and in the foreign language, too. But they must vary the drills, Stein thinks; a single technique will reduce in effectiveness after about 20 minutes.

Active attention and participation of every student every minute is required, and the teacher must construct natural conversations, the advice sheet notes. Also, "Don't be satisfied that one student can get the right answer (least of all a volunteer). Be sure all understand and can perform."

After learning about teaching techniques, the graduate students observe them in practice during visits to classes given by experienced instructors. Then the students are briefed in the language laboratory, which was completely resupplied with up-to-date equipment last summer.

The whole emphasis is on elementary teaching, because this is what the graduate students will be doing first--this is the burning issue for them, Stein says in his introduction to a forthcoming anthology of modern language-teaching papers.

Only now is the student able to begin teaching. But the department does not permit him, even with his new-found knowledge, to plunge into teaching on his own. He may take only one section, and the department continues to guide him and offer advice. In the first place, it provides him with a plan for the day-to-day conduct of his course, a thorough discussion of its aims, an analytical examination of the textbook and other materials used, assistance in preparation of tests and examinations, and a program of observation and visits. The new teaching fellow is encouraged to visit classes similar to the ones he is teaching. Permanent members of the department visit his class with advanced warning (surely a harrowing experience) and then consult with him.