JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES - VOLUME 3, (2001-2), 277-281

DIANE LARSEN-FREEMAN, 2000.

TECHNIQUES AND PRINCIPLES IN LANGUAGE TEACHING.
SECOND EDITION. OXFORD: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. 189 PP.

MARA DUEAS VINUESA

University of Murcia

This second edition of Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching

constitutes a revised, updated and enlarged version of the authors original
book published in 1986. The first edition has been for years one of the books
most widely used by students, practitioners and teacher educators in the area
of language teaching. The main goal of the book is to present the different
methods that have outlined the history of language teaching methodology
throughout the years and, particularly, in the second part of the twentieth
century. The term method in this work is defined by the author as a
coherent set of links between actions and thoughts in language teaching' (1),
and hence the title of the book, as it uses the term techniques to refer to
actions, and principles to encompass thoughts. Additionally, the book aims
not only to present a variety of techniques but also to encourage their
implementation by providing suggestions and indications for their practical
classroom application.
The different methods are introduced by entering a fictional classroom
where each method is being practised, as the author believes that observing
a class will give the reader a greater understanding of each particular method
and offer wider opportunities to reflect on them. By doing so, readers are
exposed to the specific techniques and the teachers behavior and actions
within each method. However, as the author points out, these classroom
encounters are idealized and belong to a non-real world in which students
always catch on quickly and teachers do not have to contend with the many
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management matters of real-life instruction. Nevertheless, I consider this

strategy of depicting an imaginary classroom as highly interesting since some
of the methods may be perceived as difficult to comprehend by readers unless
a practical referential framework is offered. Once each lesson has been
observed, the principles on which the teachers techniques and behavior are
based are inferred and stated. After the principles have been identified, a series
of questions is asked and answered for each particular method, thus providing
information about the goals and roles of teachers and students, the
characteristics of the teaching/learning process, the nature of the studentteacher and student-student interaction, the attitudes of the students, the
perceived view of language and culture, the linguistic areas and skills
emphasized, the role of the students native language, the accomplishment of
evaluation, and the teachers response to student errors. Following these
specifications, the techniques used are reviewed and in some cases,
expanded so as to provide further information for eventual application. In the
conclusion to each chapter, the reader is asked about the potential of the
information provided for practical use, thus encouraging us to view the
methods through the filter of ones own beliefs, needs, knowledge and
experience. Additionally, two types of exercises are included at the end of
each chapter. The first type allows the reader to check their initial
understanding of the method presented, whereas the second type requires the
reader to relate it to their own teaching situation. Each chapter ends with a
complete list of references and additional resources for further reading.
The innovations of the new edition have had hardly any impact on the
initial chapters, which have merely been updated and very slightly modified,
with the exception of Chapter 6, which originally was strictly focused on
Suggestopedia, and has now been thoroughly revised so as to reflect the
evolution of this method toward what has been defined as Desuggestopedia.
The substantial modifications of the book are mainly perceived in the last part
of it, for which two new chapters have been added to accommodate the
treatment of a number of approaches and strategies mostly developed in the
last fifteen years. These have been grouped around single chapters
considering what the issues have in common, and with the intention of not
making a second edition that would double the length of the first one. The
final structure is made up of twelve chapters, the first and last ones being the
introduction and conclusion, and integrating the chapters in-between (2 to 11)
the body of the book. Chapter 2 is focused on the Grammar-Translation
Method; Chapter 3 on the Direct Method; Chapter 4 on the Audiolingual
Method; Chapter 5 on the Silent Way; Chapter 6 on Desuggestopedia; Chapter
7 on Community Language Learning, Chapter 8 on Total Physical Response;
Chapter 9 on Communicative Language Teaching; Chapter 10 on Contentbased, Tasks-based, and Participatory Approaches; and Chapter 11 on Learning
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Strategy Training, Cooperative Learning, and Multiple Intelligences. As

Chapters 10 and 11 are the ones which cover the most updated trends in
teaching methodology, I consider that they deserve a more individual review.
Chapter 10 deals with three innovative approaches which, having the
principles of Communicative Language Teaching as a common basis, also
share the goal of teaching through communication rather than for it. Contentbased instruction integrates the learning of a language with the learning or
appreciation of some other content, often academic subject matter. The
rationale for this approach derives from well-established educational
paradigms such as immersion education, languages for specific purposes, and
the language across the curriculum movement. The model is illustrated in the
book by the description of an international school class in which both English
as a foreign language and geography are taught and learnt through contentbased instruction. By means of the customary procedure of relating individual
observations extracted from the fictional class with their corresponding
theoretical underpinnings, the principles that underlie the paradigm are clearly
stated in an organized taxonomy which synthesizes the fundamentals of the
approach. Additionally, some more academic insights into the approach are
also included.
Task-based instruction the second approach described within this
chapter is presented through a class in which young students fulfil the task
of completing a timetable. Once again, features inferred from the fictional
observation of the class are linked with the underlying principles of the
methodological paradigm. TBI foundations lie on the belief that it is highly
beneficial for students to be provided with a natural context for language use
by means of the completion of assigned tasks which offer both a perceived
purpose and a clear outcome, as well as abundant opportunity for studentstudent and student-teacher interaction and negotiation using the target
language. Although tasks are used in mainstream Communicative Language
Teaching classes as a common pedagogical activity, their focus being task
completion, in the task-based lesson, however, it is not only the tasks product
or result that is important, but also the language used in the process itself. As
in the section devoted to the content-based approach, after the reflection on
the experience, some more detailed theoretical information and references are
also provided.
The third methodological proposal within this chapter is the participatory
approach, which constitutes a less common paradigm similar in some ways to
the previously described content-based approach. Although both models rely
on meaningful content as the basis from which formal, lexical and skills
development activities derive, the originality of the participatory approach lies
in the nature of the content itself, which is not embedded in subject matter
texts, as in CBI, but rather based on issues of concern to students. Originally,
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the participatory approach was developed in the early 1960s in Brazil, in a

native-language literacy program for non-educated population, and since then,
it has developed multiple variations in different contexts always sharing the
common goal of helping students mainly adults who lack formal
education to understand the social, historical, or cultural forces that affect
their lives. The underlying principle is the belief that education is most
effective when it is experience-centered and when it relates to students real
needs. The recurrent pattern of class observation and principle association is
successfully used once more to match procedural features with their
theoretical rationale.
Chapter 11 deals again with three methodological innovations: learning
strategy training, cooperative learning, and multiple intelligences. What these
three paradigms have in common differs from those explored in the previous
chapter in that the main concern of these is with the language learner and not
with the pedagogical applications. For this reason, as the author states,
Because of their different focus, they complement, rather than challenge,
those found in Chapter 10 (159). Although these innovations do not
constitute comprehensive methods in the conventional sense, they reflect
interesting and enduring methodological practices which reasonably justify
their presentation.
The foundations of training in strategy learning the first of the models
described are based on the realization that, in order to maximize students
potential and contribute to their autonomy, language learners need training in
learning strategies. The imaginary experience reported is based on the
teaching of a learning strategy called advanced organization, which will help
students to improve their reading skills in terms of both comprehension and
speed. After describing the lecture, the experience is examined in the usual
manner observations on the left, matching principles on the right.
Additional information about the typology and purposes of strategies are
included in a subsequent short though clarifying section. The second model is
cooperative or collaborative learning, which essentially involves students
learning from each other in groups. It has to be said, however, that as the
author points out, it is not the group configuration that makes cooperative
learning distinctive; it is the way that students and teachers work together that
is important. In cooperative learning, teachers teach students collaborative or
social skills so that they can work together in a more effective manner. The
principles of this trend are, as usual, inferred from the observation of a class
working 24 young students in a second language context and, once again,
additional explanations are provided. It is important to point out the authors
insistence on the complementarity of the trends in the Chapter and the ones
presented in the previous one. The last methodological innovation considered
in Chapter 11 is multiple intelligences, an approach in which teachers expand
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beyond language, learning strategy, and social skills training, to address other
qualities of language learners (169). The rationale for the model is based on
the recognition that students have different learning and cognitive styles, and
bring with them specific and unique strengths which are often not taken into
account in classroom situations. These personal capabilities have been defined
as seven distinct multiple intelligences: logical/mathematical, visual/spatial,
body/kinesthetic, musical/rhythmic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and
verbal/linguistic. Although everyone might possess these seven intelligences,
it is believed that they are not equally developed individually. For this reason,
this perspective proposes the plan of lessons not only to promote language
acquisition among students with diverse capabilities, but also to help them
realize their own full potential with all seven intelligences. It has to be
pointed out that this final section only follows the customary procedure
partially, as the matching column method for relating practices with
theoretical explanations is not used here. The example of the imaginary
classroom is presented, however, once again.
Further substantial modification is also found in the conclusion chapter
which, from just an epilogue in the first edition, has evolved into a complete
chapter of its own in the new one. This section includes a referential chart in
which the methods discussed are summarized and their major differences are
explicitly highlighted.
Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching is, in short, a highly
informative book, as it provides an exploration of methods in which complex
pedagogical issues are presented with great clarity in a well-structured
organization. It can be particularly interesting for students and new teachers,
as it offers a practical, not too technical overview of the evolution of
methodology throughout the years. For more experienced teachers and
educators it can also be of relevance, as it introduces organized and
coordinated information and references about recent methodological
innovations whose literature is usually found independently.
Anecdotally, I cannot finish this review without mentioning the most
solomonic decision made by the author in order to cope with political
correctness in terms of gender reference, for which she has decided to
assume that the fictional teacher is female in even-numbered chapters, and
male in the odd-numbered ones. A wise though most curious decision that by
no means alters the quality of the work.

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