Colleagues
Sidney Whitaker
Formerly of Bangor University
One would like to think that the great respect for Eric Hawkins' work and ideas, with reference not only to language-teaching but also to the success and achievement in school of the many pupils for whom "education" is an unknown term, and for whom "school" is regarded with distaste and even hostility, will be shared by politicians and directors of Education who make decisions for the lives of new generations.
Eric's direct account of the very restricted language, and general knowledge based on language, of the children he worked for e.g. in Liverpool - to take a shocking, concrete example: their inability to name "the days of the week" - will be taken into account as much as the more theoretical but no less profound insights into the true contribution of language-learning to a person's education.
For teachers, the most condensed adage one could quote - lapidary, and obscure until it has been elaborated - is perhaps the principle he advanced of "Percept before Precept", in teaching, and not only in teaching languages.
For myself, apart from his narrowly pedagogic advice, the most memorable is the music that is particularly salient in his Listening to Lorca, where a leitmotiv is visibly printed in each chapter. No dry pedagogue, but a singing troubadour.