Henry H. Goldberger: English for Coming Citizens

"Non-English-speaking immigrants in America have an immediate need to learn such English as will enable them to find their way among English-speaking people, to improve their conditions, to escape injury, and to make known their immediate pressing daily needs. They must be taught English which they can therefore use at once to satisfy these immediate pressing needs not only because the needs are pressing but because the satisfaction of present desires is the surest guarantee of the development of future larger needs in learning English. To the foreigner, ability to speak English is of greater value than ability to read English; the former gives him the power to communicate his thoughts, the latter the power of receiving the thoughts of others. Writing in English is even less necessary for the foreigner than is reading, because his writing is limited by his desire to communicate with Englishspeaking people in letter forms.
Not only is speaking more vitally necessary for foreigners learning English in America than are either reading or writing, but it is also psychologically and pedagogically the basis for reading, as reading is the basis for writing. Hence the emphasis in this book at all times on conversational English which the pupil can immediately use outside of the classroom and which at the same time serves to stimulate his desire to read and to write."