Dr. Robert Lado (born May
31, 1915, Tampa
, Florida
) was an
American expert on modern linguistics. Born to Spanish
immigrants,
his parents relocated to Spain before he had a chance to learn
English. He returned to the
United
States
at the age of 21, and began to learn English as an
adult. This allowed him to develop and understanding and
sensitivity to the challenges confronting
immigrants and speakers of other languages
learning English as a second language.
Dr. Lado
received his Bachelor of Arts from
Rollins
College
in Winter Park, Florida
and his Master of Arts from the
University of
Texas at Austin
. He later receceived his doctorate from the
University of
Michigan
. He later became a Professor of English and
the Director of the University of Michigan's English Language
Institute.
After several years at the University of
Michigan, he joined the staff of Georgetown University
in Washington, D.C.
At Georgetown, served as dean of the
Institute of Languages (later renamed the Faculty of Languages and
Linguistics), for 13 years.
Dr. Lado obtained a Ford-Fulbright Foundation grant to establish
English departments at five universities in Spain and has
cooperated with universities in
Latin
America.
He traveled extensively throughout the world
lecturing on linguistics and has received worldwide recognition and
honors including honorary doctorates from Georgetown and Sophia University in Tokyo
,Japan
.
He later founded and served as president of the Lado International
College, a successful language instruction institution based on an
academically rigorous English education program for speakers of
other languages.
The school has three campuses in the Washington Metropolitan Area
(Washington,D.C., Arlington, Virginia
and Silver Springs, Maryland
).
During his life, he was member of the Spanish Catholic Center in
Washington. He also received the medal of honor from the
Daughters of the American
Revolution of the District of Columbia, and was one of the
co-founders of
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other
Languages (
TESOL), a
professional association with a mission of teaching English to
foreign students.. The
Robert Lado Memorial Award for
Outstanding Student Paper award is named after him.
Contrastive Linguistics
Robert Lado is considered one of the founders of modern
contrastive linguistics, which as a
subdiscipline of
applied
linguistics, served the purpose of improving language teaching
materials. His most influential book is
Linguistics across
cultures: Applied linguistics for language teachers which
states that "…in the comparison between native and foreign language
lies the key to ease or difficulty in foreign language learning" .
The book outlines methods for comparing two systems of sound,
grammar,
vocabulary, writing and
culture.
Lado and Fries have both been associated with the strong version of
the
contrastive hypothesis: the belief that difficulties
in learning a language can be predicted on the basis of a
systematic comparison of the system of the learner’s first language
(its grammar, phonology and lexicon) with the system of a second
language.h
References
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