Tradition and Innovation: The Evolution of Revolution

Pamela Hartmann,ELT Author, McGraw-Hill

Are we getting closer to finding the “holy grail”?

Influences on Our Teachingsetting, purpose

curriculum

textbookour own

experience in FL classes

students’ needs/motivation

method

Setting or purpose: informs choice of method(s) and textbook.

• EFL or ESL?• Cramming for the TOEFL/other

exam)?• Travel English?• Vocational English?• EAP?• TENOR?

Influences on Our Teachingsetting, purpose

curriculum

textbookour own

experience in FL classes

students’ needs/motivation

method

A Brief, Selective Overview of Approaches/Methods

• GTM• AL• CLT (and some versions/variations) --TBLT --TPR --Silent Way --Natural Approach• CALLA/the teaching of strategies• the Lexical Approach/Corpus Linguistics

Today’s Focus

• CLT

• Motivation

• CALLA/Strategies (in EAP)

• The Lexical Approach/Corpus

Linguistics

• The “postmethod” world

CLTEvolution

GTM What’s good about it?

What’s problematic about it?

AL What’s good about it?

What’s problematic about it?

CLT In constant evolution; “nobody knows what it is.” (Littlewood)

Communicative Teaching

• Notional-Functional notion = context function = specific purpose

• Activities (many the same as in other methods) Role plays Pair work Info gaps Group work Problem solving Learning-by-teaching Surveys“Flipping” the classroom

Games

Common sense, perhaps, but . . . .

“Common sense ain’t so common.”--

humorist Will Rogers

CLT: Challenges and Obstacles

• “one-size-fits-all” assumption—the “CLT attitude” (Bax)

• teacher’s lack of confidence• conflict and demands of exams• “quantum leap” (Chow & Mok-Cheung)

from T-centered to S-centered• students’ lack of motivation Result: Teachers often skip over communicative activities in textbooks.

CLT Direction Today

• compromise: “expanding [the] repertoire rather than rejecting previous approaches”

(Zheng & Anderson)

• analytic + experiential language: complementary functions (Ellis)

• student motivation (Wang; Grabe)

Motivated Students

Are encouraged to be:

✓ interested

✓ autonomous, to a degree

✓ collaborative

✓ confident, successful

• clarity on goals; question/fact/anecdote; everyday English

• vocabulary review/some choice of material

• pairs, groups, class

• accessible materials, spoken English; tests; “secrets”

The Teaching of Strategies: Why?

• Common sense/instinct: secrets of good language learners

• Supported by research

• Students “fail to invoke” strategies

(Garner)

Types of Strategies

• Cognitive• Metacognitive• Social• Affective• Compensation• Memory

But there are so many! How can I teach them all?

• Weave them in.• Teach them in combinations.• Recycle them.• Encourage transfer.• Choose some to focus on.

My Own, Subjective “Spotlight List”

• Activating background knowledge/previewing

• Using compensation strategies• Getting meaning from context• Building awareness of text structure/

graphic organizers• Using various strategies for the

learning of new vocabulary

A New Stage in the Evolution of LT/Innovations from Corpus Linguistics

What do we know now? How can we make use

of it?

From corpus linguistics

How?• Teach students to be good noticers.• Encourage use of a good dictionary.• Teach how to use it.

What?

Real-world language is often different from how it is presented in class.

From Corpus Linguistics

How?• Don’t just hand out these lists.• Use a textbook informed by these lists.• Beyond the text, use these lists to inform your teaching.

✓

What?Students need to learn most frequent words first (whether from general English or the AWL).

From Corpus Linguistics

How?

1. with a text that recycles a lot & has a lot of vocabulary work

2. discussion topics that lead to use of certain words

3. your own supplemental cloze exercises (run through lextutor.ca) ✓

What?

Students must encounter/use a word multiple times.

From Corpus Linguistics

How?

4. extensive reading outside class

5. quick vocabulary list as a warm-up for each class

(Folse) ✓

6. “old-fashioned” rote memorization (but with a twist—suggested by Folse)

(Continued)

Multiple encounterswith new words

One Entry in a Word Journal

cramstudy hard at the last minute

vIf you ________ for an exam, you might do well, but you won’t remember the material later.

From Corpus Linguistics

What?(from brain research)

The brain retains chunks better than bits.

From Corpus Linguistics

How?

1. Explain to students why you emphasize collocations.

2. Encourage memorization of sentences in the Word Journal. 3. Encourage students tobecome good noticers + test on collocations.

What?

Focus on collocations.

This Postmethod Era

Are we getting closer to finding the “holy grail”?

• The bad news: “There is no best method.” (Prabhu, in Kumaravadivelu) i.e., no holy grail

• The good news: no longer chained to one method

Postmethod Pedagogy

Our new “compass” (Kumaravadivelu):

Framework: broad principles, theoretical convictions,

macrostrategies

Microstrategies: classroom activities

The Best of Various Approaches/Methods

• GTM• AL• CLT (and some versions/variations) --TPR --Silent Way --Natural Approach• CALLA/the use of strategies• the Lexical Approach/Corpus Linguistics

Conclusion

Détente!