Does Learning by Rote Have Any Place in the Modern Classroom?

"Rote learning is the process of acquiring material as discrete and relatively isolated entities that are relatable to cognitive structure only in an arbitrary and verbatim fashion, not permitting the establishment of meaningful relationships." (Brown ) This rather complex definition says learning by rote is not a meaningful process since the new material has little or no association with the previously acquired knowledge. Consequently, it does not have a great potential for retention. What is more, not only is it old-fashioned and difficult a process but also may require a good attention span or even photographic memory. Nevertheless, there are people who claim to see positive sides of learning by rote.
The audio-lingual method heavily based on rote learning was developed during World War II and was grounded on audio drills that were to be learned by rote in order to master the language of the enemies.…