methodologies around the world
Methodologies around the world | Murray Keeler | March 31st, 2000
I've just sent off my FND module and now have a little time to stop lurking on the list.
From both the FND module and some of the background reading (Challenge and Change), I've noticed that it appears to have become almost axiomatic that PPP is still the pre-eminent paradigm/methodology in TESOL but that there is a shift towards/search for other paradigms.
I'd like to know whether you think that this situation is true of the majority of language teaching that takes place in the country where you live/teach. Here in Azerbaijan, grammar translation is the dominant methodology and in some schools, equipped with record players / cassette players, audiolingualism is also in evidence. What might be broadly termed a 'communicative approach' does not exist and a PPP methodology is not implemented to any large extent, if at all.
My second question is whether English language teaching methodology in Azerbaijan will necessarily move through a PPP paradigm before it reaches what might be termed a post-PPP paradigm such as a task-based approach or is it possible for established methodologies to be 'missed out' in a developmental process and move from grammar translation to TBL, for example?
The above obviously has implications for teacher development/education. If PPP's days are numbered, should a focus on this methodology be included in a teacher development course?
Best,
Murray Keeler
Re: Methodologies around the world | Rob Salter | April 1st, 2000
Murray,
Hey that must feel good to have the FND done. That was a tough one. I'd have to say that in my experience PPP is going strong here in Japan. It's a long way from Azerbaijan by the sounds of it. I don't think that history of language teaching necessarily has historical laws that are followed regardless of human agency, but I would suspect that any innovations to the existing system might require a heck of a lot of work that is related to the prevailing methodology- sort of like Hegel's influence on Marx perhaps. In Johnson's book, The Second Language Curriculum, there are some good bits on innovation and change. I think it's Johnson's book, but that book is packed away so I can't check it right now.
I might be alone on this but I think that any methodology I have seen in the literature of ESL has had something to offer teachers and students who were there doing work in the classroom (on this point I am not in agreement with Lewis), but even more importantly I think that teachers and learners have so much input in classrooms that questions about a single methodology in any classroom that I have seen are hard to pose let alone answer. I don't know what others think but I feel that one strength of the course is that our tutors are not trying to prove that any single methodology is a cure all. From your question I have assumed that utility is one of the issues. After reading your question I thought to myself, 'does it hurt to know?'
In the places I have worked here I have seen so many materials and courses that operate roughly on the PPP principles. Even grammar translation could, in the roughest of terms operate on those principles I suspect. I have overheard teachers explaining the "rules" in Japanese, and then I have seen the student doing practice drills in the book, and finally heard the teacher quiz the student orally with a few invented examples to show that the student can produce the "rules" when necessary. I don't what to call it.
What module are you doing next?
Best,
Rob Salter
Re: Methodologies around the world | Jonathan Clifton | April 1st, 2000
Reply to Murray:
Yes, I was also surprised at the fact that the PPP approach appears to be so out of fashion. I did my cert and diploma in the early 90s and PPP was more or less prescribed as the way to teach. Lewis (in chapter 2 of "Challenge and Change") really slags it down as a way of teaching. I suppose (like many people??) I had used the PPP as a model especially earlier in my career but had always adapted this model to my particular circumstances.
PPP in France.
I have been working in France for the past eight years. Here some teachers come from a certificate background and use the PPP system. Others are "untrained" locally recruited native speakers who I suspect use a mix of grammar translation mixed with whatever else they have picked up on the way - usually notions of communicative language teaching. Others are non-native speakers recruited locally who are mainly untrained and use a school type grammar translation approach - all very teacher fronted. Others have just come off the ferry and are thrown in at the deep end with the philosophy "your are a native speaker, so you can teach" - some survive, some don't but at least they don't ask for large salaries.
So all in all it is a bit of a mess. I am not suggesting that teachers with different approaches can't work together but it is difficult to work in a school (and I suspect my school is not untypical for France) that has no stance at all on methodology. Anything goes as long as the punters are happy and the money rolls in.
This reminds me of a quote from lewis (I think) where he says something along the lines that principled eclecticism is fine but eclecticism without principles is just a mess.
Best wishes to all,
Jonathan Clifton
Re: Methodologies around the world | Rob Salter | April 1st, 2000
Jonathan,
Did you see the stuff in Challenge and Change about the Cert and Dip? I was taken aback by the directness of the exchanges in that article.
Best,
Rob Salter
Re: Methodologies around the world | Murray Keeler | April 1st, 2000
Rob,
I agree with what you say about the variety of influences at play in the classroom and the difficulty of isolating one methodology at play but a teacher's personal beliefs about how languages are learnt, which may be heavily influenced by the way they learnt/studied English, will influence classroom practice and I do think that in many cases a predominant methodology can be identified, whether it is led by materials, teachers or administrative/institutional factors. I also think that most methodologies have something to offer when applied in a principled manner.
I agree with you when you say that the course does not advocate a particular methodology and this is certainly a positive aspect - it is definitely more important to understand what's happening in the classroom in any situation, under any methodology.
I think that my point may have been partly cultural, as has been pointed out by another participant, in that the writers who assume that PPP is the dominant methodology are reporting what is happening in their own context and extrapolating this context to the rest of TESOL teaching.
On the point of the evolution of language teaching , I remember being in Istanbul during the upsurge of the lexical approach (early 1990s), particularly as advocated by Lewis. There was a teachers' newsletter at the time entitled something like 'How can we work through this paradigm shift?' As far as I can see, there hasn't been a shift. To what extent is lexical awareness an element of teaching where you are?
I agree with Jonathon when he says it's good to work in a place where all staff have a principled approach to what they do and are in agreement on certain methodological issues. Widdowson also said something like 'eclecticism is fine as long as it doesn't become a euphemism for confusion.'
Next I plan to do TDA in conjunction with GE. These are two areas that I'd like to get to grips with and I think they'll provide a strong technical grounding for the rest of the course.
Best
Murray Keeler
Re: Methodologies around the world | Rob Salter | April 1st, 2000
Murray,
I have been thinking this methodology stuff over today. My partner wants to study English in Canada. I have been reading ESL websites for a few hours. Thank goodness a participant sent me a chapter of her paper to read as that gave me a wonderful break from the websites. Those websites seemed to represent the courses as part of the PPP methodology. It did surprise me. I was just thinking what an interesting batch of text ESL websites would make for an assignment.
Ah, I see now what you mean about folks reporting what is happening in their own context as if it is the received context.
I have been meaning to ask whether any of could go through an entire MSc without citing Widdowson. That would be some fun research. I think I cited him once or twice in the past, and I know he's in my MAP assignment. I just couldn't resist.
TDA and GE. Heck yes they'll provide a strong technical grounding. I was looking at a couple things in Bloor and Bloor just yesterday. I was looking at stuff in regard to Thematic Progression. How about the quotation from Halliday at the beginning of chapter one of Advances in Written Text Analysis?
"The higher level of achievement is a contribution to the evaluation of the text?"
I found some papers about cognitive/functional grammar the other day and came away from them thinking about that quotation. Cognitive/Functional grammar is a little known school of grammar, but I find the work I have read interesting in how it tries to account for pragmatic features.
Best,
Rob Salter
Re: Methodologies around the world | Mary Lynn Hughes | April 2nd, 2000
Murray and others,
I've been following the discussion about PPP, etc with interest. I spent a year in Russia teaching in a state school where grammar-translation was the dominant methodology. However, one class I observed clearly incorporated PPP (with a very teacher-fronted 'practice' stage) in tandem with the grammar-translation methodology. And a few teachers were experimenting with current UK-produced materials, so presumably they were also incorporating the 'communicative' approaches reflected in them into their usual methodology.
What intrigued me was how successful the learning was in this school. Why? The only convincing explanation I could find was that the school's culture prioritized and gave high status to English (through the curriculum, extracurricular events and the attitudes of everyone concerned), so that both teachers and pupils were highly motivated. It might also be that grammar-translation was a culturally appropriate methodology. Because familiar (and taught with commitment and belief)? Because it reflected the culturally dominant learning style? When I started teaching with my 'strange' methods, I ran into minor difficulties until pupils got used to my style. If they had not been children, I suspect the difficulties might have been greater (the strangeness harder to overcome).
Your question about what changes lie ahead for ELT in Azerbaijan, paradigm-wise, is interesting in a similar way. (Would make an interesting long-term study). I wonder how much it will depend on outside influences (and how these are viewed locally), eg the presence of British Council or American institutions, an increase in foreign teachers, etc. 'Imported' teacher-training programmes would also presumably influence local teachers' practices (if not beliefs?) to some extent. (The last two issues of ELT Journal have articles on 'overseas' teacher training courses that focus on issues of local autonomy, appropriateness, etc). What do you see as most likely to happen there yourself?
From where I am (Ireland), I don't perceive any unified paradigm shift in ELT. I was trained in a predominantly PPP/'communicative' methodology. Since then (to the best of my knowledge), teacher training has been at least nominally influenced by ideas about learner autonomy, TBL, lexical approaches, etc. These topics appear frequently in conferences, workshops, etc, but how much individual teachers have taken them on board I can't say. My own teaching has been influenced to some extent by lexical approaches (not specifically Lewis) and corpus linguistics. One possible reason for the endurance of PPP may be because publishers are reluctant to put out radically revised coursebooks that may/may not sell widely in their markets.
My guess is that, at least in what emanates from 'inner circle' sources, we're likely to see more and more acceptance (at least in the academic/teacher education sphere) of variety in, and maybe local influence on, methodological practices. Perhaps that is actually the next 'dominant' paradigm, as reflected in this course - a paradigm of diversity, based on fitness to context?- This may actually reflect long-term market-driven realities, as more of the world becomes L2 English-speaking, with concomitant demands for locally-relevant English teaching (as suggested in 'The Future of English', Graddol 1997 - a very interesting read, I thought). But this is just my own view and I'd like to hear others' opinions.
Mary Lynn Hughes
Re: Methodologies around the world | Andrew Packett | April 3rd, 2000
In response to Murray's query from Azerbaijan:
Passed your email on to someone with 22 years' experience of teaching English in Portuguese state schools. She said eclecticism was the keyword, though felt it didnt necessarily collocate with 'principled'! She then outlined the various paradigms she had lived through as a teacher since 1978 - each of them exported out to this particular periphery from the academic centers of the USA/UK, backed up by the might of the EFL publishing industry and disseminated in the field by British Council or IH teacher-trainers. It's this kind of experience that might explain some of the wry smiles I was met with a few years back when I did a session on task-based learning here in Portugal. The younger teachers were eager for any kind of input but the older ones initially saw it simply as 'the latest fad' and told me as much.
It's been a while since I did FND but I recall it took a very interesting position on the whole question of 'methodology' debates. Could anyone jog my memory on this one?
Best wishes,
Andrew Packett
Re: Methodologies around the world | Simon Cole | May 3rd, 2000
Andrew, the FND on methodology emphasized that, above all, there is no ONE method. I remember that because it was what I had suspected from the beginning of my EFL career, and the conclusion I arrived at, years later, in my first published paper. (1998. How and when to use L1 in monolingual classrooms. The Language Teacher, JALT, December).
Simon Cole
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