LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

1. LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY:PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE MARIANNE CELCE-MURCIA Intermountain TESOL Conference October 12-13, 2012

2. Presentation Outline • Pre-Twentieth Century Trends • Early & Mid Twentieth Century Approaches • More Recent Approaches • Current ‘Post Methods’ Era • Future Challenges

3. PRE-TWENTIETH CENTURY TRENDS

4. Classical Era (Greek and Latin)—pre printing press • focus on listening and speaking • no textbooks-some handwritten texts and dictionaries

5. Rise of European Vernaculars • Gutenberg- invented printing press-1440 • J. Belot (l580) Earliest known ESL textbook; published in England for Protestant refugees. • Comenius- one of the first widely acknowledged teacher-practitioners. (published 1631-1658)

6. GRAMMAR TRANSLATION (Karl Ploetz, 1819-1881) • Instruction and explanation in L1 • Little use of target language • Focus on parsing parts of speech, inflections • Translate from L1 to L2 (and vice versa) • Result: inability to use the L2 (Beginning of pedagogical tension: analysis vs. use)

7. THE DIRECT METHOD F. Gouin-began to publish in l880 • No use of L1 allowed (teacher must be proficient) • Use of actions, pictures to give meaning to dialogues and anecdotes • Grammar is learned via exposure • Literature read for pleasure, not parsing • Result: ability to use L2

8. THE REFORM MOVEMENT • (IPA founded 1886): Sweet, Vietor, Passy, etc. • Spoken language is primary- teach first • Apply phonetics to language teaching • Train language teachers in phonetics • Give learners basic phonetic training in L2

9. EARLY & MID TWENTIETH CENTURY APPROACHES

10. THE READING APPROACH • Teach only the grammar needed for reading • Control vocabulary initially then expand • Translation is once more respectable • Only reading comprehension is emphasized • Result: Learners can read but not speak/understand L2.

11. AUDIOLINGUALISM (U.S.) • Begin lessons with dialogues (constructed) • Mimicry and memorization are used to reflect that lg. learning is habit formation • Grammar is sequenced; rules taught indirectly • Skills are sequenced (L, Sp, R, Wr) • Accurate pronunciation is emphasized early • Vocabulary is very limited initially • Effort is made to prevent errors • Lg. is often manipulated with minimal attention to meaning or context.

12. ORAL-SITUATIONAL APPROACH (U.K.) • Spoken language is primary • Lg. is practiced orally before any reading or writing occurs • Only the target language should be used • The most useful and general vocabulary is taught • Grammar is sequenced: simple to complex • New vocabulary and grammar are introduced and practiced in situations (post office, bank, dinner table, etc.)

13. MORE RECENT APPROACHES

14. THE COGNITIVE APPROACH • Lg. learning is rule acquisition, not habit formation • Instruction is individualized and learners are responsible for their learning • Grammar can be taught either deductively or Inductively • Pronunciation is de-emphasized • Reading and writing are as important as speaking and listening • Vocabulary is important again, especially for intermediate and advanced learners • Errors are inevitable and useful for feedback and correction

15. AFFECTIVE-HUMANISTIC APPROACH • Lg. learning is a process of self-realization • Respect for each individual’s feelings emphasized (teacher and students) • Class atmosphere is more important than methods or materials • Priority given to personally meaningful communication • Instruction often involves pair- or group-work • Peer support and cooperation help learning • Teacher is a counselor or facilitator (instead of the ultimate source of knowledge) • Translation can be used, especially in the early stages

16. THE COMPREHENSION-BASED APPROACH • Listening comprehension is the basic skill that allows other skills and lg acquisition to develop   • Learners begin with an initial silent period so they can just listen and understand • Learners do not speak until they feel ready to   • Exposure to meaningful input that expands their experience in the L2 leads to acquisition • Explicit rule learning is helpful in monitoring and editing one’s L2 production but not for acquisition or spontaneous production • Error correction is unnecessary if the learner’s message is understandable

17. THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH • Communication is the goal of L2 learning • Semantic notions and social functions are as important as linguistic structure • Content (academic or job-related) is often taught along with lg. • Students work in pairs or groups to transfer information and negotiate meaning • Role play and dramatization help achieve register flexibility and social sensitivity in L2 • Tasks often make use of authentic texts and tasks or involve the completion of projects • The 4 skills (L, Sp, R, Wr) are integrated • Teacher (1) facilitates communication and (2) offers feedback and correction

18. THE 1970’S “DESIGNER METHODS” • Silent Way (Gattegno) • Community Language Learning (Curran) • Total Physical Response (Asher) • Suggestology/Suggestopedia(Lozanov)

19. RESEARCH-BASED CONCLUSION • (Strevens, Richards, Prabhu) • No single method or approach is optimal for all learners under all circumstances

20. CURRENT ‘POST-METHODS’ ERA (a transition)

21. Kumaravadivelu • Base pedagogy on principles established by research. He offers 10 ‘macrostrategies’ • Maximize learning opportunities • Facilitate negotiated interaction • Minimize perceptual mismatches • Activate intuitive heuristics • Foster language awareness • Contextualize linguistic input • Integrate language skills • Promote learner autonomy • Raise cultural consciousness • Ensure social relevance • Teachers should design situation-specific materials and procedures to achieve the above objectives

22. TEACHER PREPARATION SKILLS • (needed for post-methods language teaching) • Assess learners’ needs • Examine instructional constraints • Determine attitudes, learning styles, and cultural backgrounds of students to tailor materials/activities • Identify the discourse genres, speech activities, and text types students need to learn L2 when designing materials • Identify assessment instruments and requirements and prepare learners to deal with such tasks as part of classroom instruction • (Note: This is in addition to the traditional teacher preparation core subjects such as methodology, pedagogical grammar, syllabus/curriculum design, practical phonetics, teaching listening & speaking, teaching reading & writing, etc.)

23. FUTURE CHALLENGES

24. How to integrate everything we now know into better, more encompassing practices? • Research into the following six areas could yield new methodological paradigms (Canagarajah): • Motivation • Learner Variability • Discourse Analysis • Corpus-based Research • Cognitive Processing • Social Participation • To this list we can add: • New Technologies • Second Language Acquisition (new ways to study it) • Others?