What is Communicative Language Teaching and is it appropriate? Session 3 Approaches to Teaching and Learning

L1 to teach L2? Discuss your responses to the questionnaire. What arguments does Brooks-Kelly put forward for using L2? Do you agree? Which is better as a teacher, a native speaker of English or a non-native speaker?

What is ‘methodology’? ‘the study of practices and procedures used in teaching and the principles and beliefs that underlie them’. Richards, Platt and Weber, 1985

Characteristics of CLT Focus on meaning Speaking is primary Interaction through pair and group work Language divided into ‘systems’ and ‘skills’ PPP (presentation, practice, production) STT rather than TTT Games/fun/involvement

CLT in action Q

Criticisms of CLT Western approach to teaching and learning exported abroad (BANA vs TESEP) (Linguistic Imperialism) Developed for adults not children Does not take into account cultural realities Resource heavy Teacher’s role changes.

Responses ‘Appropriate Pedagogy’ (Holliday) Improvement in status of non-native teachers of English. Increase in attention given to sociolinguistic perspectives on language teaching. Heightened awareness of ‘Linguistic Imperialism’, Linguistic Varieties, and English as a World language.

Classrooms round the world TASK Read the descriptions of three different classrooms and answer the questions. Write a description of a typical English classroom in your country.

Post-modern pedagogy There is no one method that ‘suits all’. Methods must grow from the context in which they are to be used. Particularity Practicality Possiblity (Kumaravadivelu, 2001)

Particularity ‘A pedagogy of particularity, then, is antithetical to the notion that there can be one set of pedagogic aims and objectives realisable through one set of pedagogic principles and procedures’. (ibid:p.538) Key ideas – situational understanding; local understandings; starts with teachers;

Practicality Encourages and enables teachers themselves to: ‘theorise from their practice and practice what they theorise’ (ibid:541). Key ideas: teachers construct own context- sensitive knowledge; theory is constructed from practice; teacher’s sense of what works and what does not.

Possibility There is a process of sensitising to the prevailing sociopolitical reality (who is in power; what inequalities exist) and of understanding individual identity. Key ideas: language as the tool and site for social organisation and through which we construct and display identity; transformational power of learning.

Discussion 1.To what extent do you agree with Kumaravadivelu? 2.How can you take into account Particularity, Practicality and Possibility in your teaching practice? Kumaravadivelu B ‘Towards a Postmethod Pedagogy’. TESOL Quarterly VOl 35 (4)