02-0246 ETF_02-09 12/6/02 8:48 AM Page 2

William P. Ancker
U N I T E D S T A T E S

Cand
The
hallenge
O pportunity
of echnology:
T
A I N NTERVIEW WITH
MARK WARSCHAUER
M ARK WARSCHAUER IS VICE CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

University of California, Irvine and a faculty associate at the university’s Center for Research
AT THE

on Information Technology and Organizations. He has previously taught and conducted

research at the University of California (Berkeley), the University of Hawaii, Moscow

Linguistics University, and Charles University (Prague). Dr. Warschauer’s research focuses on

the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in second/foreign language

learning and teaching; the impact of ICT on literacy; and the relationship of ICT to

institutional reform, democracy, and social development. He is the founding editor of the

journal Language Learning & Technology and editor of the Papyrus News email list. This

interview was conducted by the editor-in-chief of the Forum on April 9, 2002 at the

international TESOL convention held in Salt Lake City, Utah.

2 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 2 E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M
02-0246 ETF_02-09 12/6/02 8:48 AM Page 3

WPA: Can you tell us how your career in second/foreign lan- net but not necessarily on the World Wide Web. Now, of
guage teaching began? course, with Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, many people are
MW: After I graduated from college, I traveled in Mexico doing email and chatting on the Web and that’s why there’s
and Central America and learned some Spanish. My first confusion between the two. Technically, the Internet is the
job when I came back was as a Spanish bilingual teacher broader communications protocol that allows people to
aide in an elementary school in San Francisco helping stu- connect to the World Wide Web, and the Web is a just a
dents with math and English. I enjoyed that very much, part of it, but an increasingly large part of it.
and I got my secondary teaching credential and became a
bilingual teacher. I worked as a teacher for a number of
WPA: Having asked you to distinguish between the two of
years. Eventually I went back to school and got my M.A.
them, is it really important to make a distinction?
and Ph.D. in language education-related fields.
MW: No. I remember back about eight or nine years ago
when I first started doing workshops on using the Internet.
WPA: What advice would you give teachers who are just We talked about things such as “archie” and “gopher,” and
beginning their careers as English language teachers? there were all these terminology changes over the years.
MW: Try to get yourself to a professional conference. The Some people get really hung up on them but it’s just like
first time I went to an international TESOL conference, it the difference between a blackboard and a chalkboard and
had a huge impact on my career to realize that I was part of a white board. I mean, you have something to write on and
this large international community of dynamic people you should concentrate on what you write there. What you
teaching English, plus attending all the sessions, seeing all call it is not really that big of an issue.
the materials, and getting all the new ideas. I try to go every
year if possible and to other local and national conferences;
it doesn’t have to be an international conference. To really WPA: Your 1999 book is called Electronic Literacies:
become part of the profession rather than someone who Language, Culture, and Power in Online Education (pub-
just happens to work in a school teaching. lished by Lawrence Erlbaum). Can you explain the term “elec-
tronic literacies”?
MW: By “electronic literacies,” I’m referring to the reading
WPA: What do you enjoy most about teaching? and writing, and the knowledge, skills, and practices that
MW: I really enjoy the communication and interaction take place in the electronic medium; the way people read
and just having a chance to talk with people from so many and write using computers and the Internet. We use the term
parts of the world. For several years, I taught adult immi- “literacies” because there are many kinds of literacies. The lit-
grants in the San Francisco area. Now I don’t teach ESL, I eracy involved in reading a comic book is very different from
do teacher training and research, but I still enjoy being in the literacy involved in writing a doctoral dissertation.
touch with people from the English language teaching There are several kinds of literacy that make up elec-
community around the world. I hope that some readers of tronic literacies. There is information literacy, being able to
the Forum will send me email and tell me about what navigate the Internet and find, then critically analyze and
they’re doing.1 make use of information found there. There is what might
be called computer-mediated communication literacy,
being able to use the Internet as an information tool to
WPA: This is not a trick question, but a clarification question send an email message that has an impact and is appropri-
because I think a lot of readers of the Forum may be wonder- ate for the circumstances. There is multimedia literacy,
ing, too. “World Wide Web” and “Internet” are used inter- which is knowing how to create texts on the Internet com-
changeably, but my understanding is they’re actually slightly
bining different multimedia and also to read and interpret
different.
media to make a message.
MW: It is a little confusing especially now, because some of
the things that we used to do on the Internet, we’re now
doing on the World Wide Web. The Internet refers to the WPA: In the book you write: “...it is in schools and colleges
bigger thing. So, anytime you get online, you send email, where people will become more or less knowledgeable users of
or you hook up—what you’re hooking up to is the Internet. electronic media, critical or less critical readers and writers in
Then, when you get on the Internet and you launch your an electronic era” (p. 21). Getting back to the idea of multiple
browser program, Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, or literacies, doesn’t this put an unfair burden on teachers? In
any other browser, you’re going on the World Wide Web. addition to teaching their content areas, they have the respon-
Traditionally, some things like email were done on the Inter- sibility to teach computer skills.

E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M O C T O B E R 2 0 0 2 3
02-0246 ETF_02-09 12/6/02 8:48 AM Page 4

MW: It seems that way now because they’re so new, and skills and using English online are probably very valuable
teachers are catching up. But the medium is not really sep- skills for professional reasons.
arate from the content. In the past, we didn’t think that we
had to teach English and we also had to teach books and
magazines and libraries. Part of teaching English was teach- WPA: In your article “The Changing Global Economy and
ing people how to understand books, how to use a table of the Future of English Teaching” (TESOL Quarterly, Autumn
contents and an index, how to write on a piece of paper leg- 2000) you describe various attitudes people have toward com-
ibly, etc. Because electronic literacies are new, they seem so puter technology and human problems. For example, the
demanding and challenging, and they are in some ways. “techno-optimists” believe computers will solve problems; the
But let’s take things one step at a time. This doesn’t mean “techno-pessimists” think computers can’t solve our problems (p.
that everything that everybody has been doing should be 525). Do you think the divide is growing between those who
thrown out. You can add on gradually to what you’re have the resources and those who don’t? How can we discuss the
already doing and accomplish a lot. “digital divide” without becoming techno-pessimists?
MW: Again, I think it’s a challenge but it’s also an oppor-
WPA: This next question is from the point of view of students. tunity. I have seen wonderful projects done with a single
A student who wants to learn English now has got to learn the computer. There was a teacher in Romania (this was seven
keyboard and learn to use a computer. Is it unfair to put this or eight years ago and the Internet barely existed in Roma-
responsibility on them? nia). He brought his home computer into the classroom
MW: It’s a responsibility, but it is also an opportunity. I and helped his elementary school children hook up with
studied French for several years and the first time I really elementary school children in Canada. I heard a very good
got excited and motivated about French, and actually expression the other day. It was something like “A good toy
learned it, was when I was traveling in Europe and I spoke is 90 percent child and 10 percent toy.” I think a good ped-
French to communicate. I’ve seen language learners, chil- agogical device is 90 percent learner and 10 percent device.
dren who know very little English, in different parts of the Often, we put too much emphasis on having the fanciest
world have the opportunity to actually communicate with equipment and how many ROM and how many RAM,
people in other parts of the world in English and become when sometimes with just one simple computer we can do
tremendously excited. Kids love computers. I don’t think so much.
the situation is that we have to force kids into the comput-
er lab. It’s that we can barely drag them away from the com-
puter lab. WPA: Let me ask you a follow-up question. Given there are
classes where there is only one computer available for all the
students or perhaps no computer, what’s your favorite piece of
WPA: Do you find the same holds true for all age levels? That low-tech technology?
the computer is intrinsically interesting to students?
MW: My favorite piece of low-tech technology has nothing
MW: Everything has to be evaluated in terms of the oppor-
to do with computers. It’s the guitar. Does a guitar count as
tunity. There might be a situation, let’s say, English for
a technology?
occupational purposes, where a person such as a waiter or
tour guide mostly needs conversational English. Of course,
there’s some computer activity you could develop for them WPA: Absolutely!
but computers are not essential. At this point in time, the
MW: When I used to teach adults, once a week I would
computer is not yet essential for all communication. It’s
principally a realm of written communication. For people bring in my guitar and we would sing songs together. That
in schools and universities who are developing English for was a lot of fun. In terms of low-tech computer technolo-
academic purposes, I would say that computers and the gy, email is fairly low-tech. You don’t need any multimedia.
Internet are essential. You can get a computer for $100 that can do email. I think
there is a lot that can be done with only email.

WPA: Would it be fair to say that electronic literacy is now a

4 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 2 E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M
02-0246 ETF_02-09 12/6/02 8:48 AM Page 5

WPA: I think in every school where I have taught there has how much faster the production of knowledge can take
been a serious Beatles fan. place. So, I do think we are going through a revolutionary
MW: Their music is very singable and is known by stu- period in communication that matches the development of
dents around the world. We had a great time. It’s great for the printing press.
learning English, too.
WPA: Much faster, however.
WPA: Let me ask at the other end of the spectrum. What’s your MW: Yes, much faster because the printing press took hun-
favorite piece of high-tech teaching technology? dreds of years to spread and have an impact. I don’t know
MW: I think digital video is exciting. What you can do the latest numbers, but now well over 10 percent of the
with the Macintosh and the iMovie software! You can have people in the world are using the Internet and in another
youngsters and adults, people of any age, very easily mak- 20 years, it could be 30, 40, or 50 percent.
ing movies and editing them. It’s great not only for lan-
guage learning but for media skill development and cultur-
WPA: Electronic journals are offering much faster publication
al development to have learners make their own movies.
than print journals. If there is more knowledge available, there
must be more... what should I say...?
WPA: Can you tell us one thing that all language teachers can MW: Junk.
and should do with educational technology in their classes?
MW: One of the points I was trying to make earlier is that
WPA: Yes, junk. There is faster production of good as well as
we have to do what is appropriate in our own circum-
bad information.
stances. It might be the case in your circumstances that it’s
not appropriate to use computers or the Internet at all. MW: That’s why critical literacy is so important. And this
There is no computer program that everybody should isn’t a new concept; this isn’t a post-Internet concept. Long
use, but I think there is an underlying philosophy that’s before the development of the Internet, Paolo Freire and
important for all teachers, which is: help students master the many other people were talking about critical literacy. Crit-
technology for their own active mastery and empowerment ical literacy has existed as a teaching concept for at least 50
rather than thrust things on students. Whatever technology years, but it has become a much more important concept
it is, let the learners learn to create with it. I mean, even with today, I would argue.
the tape recorder, rather than using it just to play tapes for When I was growing up in Los Angeles, California, if
children, they can record their own stories or they can inter- we were assigned to do a paper, we went to the library to
view people. Whatever the technology is, let’s involve learn- get materials and do research. The information in the
ers in active use, constructive use, and mastery of the tech- books had been vetted twice, once by the publisher who
nology for producing content rather than just passively decided to publish it, and again by the librarian who decid-
receiving it. Borrowing from a metaphor of my colleague, ed to stock it in the library. Of course, we had to think crit-
Daniel Pimienta, anybody can sit “behind a screen.” Let’s ically about it, but it wasn’t complete nonsense or junk.
instead put our students “in front of a keyboard.” Now, if children have to do a paper, the first place they
want to do research is the Internet. That can be a problem,
because the material on the Internet hasn’t been vetted.
WPA: Getting back to your book Electronic Literacies, you
and other authors (for example, David Crystal in Language
and the Internet, Cambridge University Press, 2001), have WPA: How do you respond to the prescriptive grammarian or
written about a fourth revolution in human communication. linguist who proclaims that the immediacy of email and the
The first three revolutions you cite are language, writing, and use of emoticons 2 and other features of electronic communica-
print. Are we at the beginning of a fourth revolution in tions are, in fact, debasing our language?
human communication? MW: We could also say that the immediacy of conversation
MW: Yes, I think we are. One area, for example, is the is debasing the language, if you’ve ever done syntactic
scholarly production of knowledge. It used to be, only 20 analysis of a typical conversation! I think the broader point
or 30 years ago, if a scientist came up with a new discovery, is that in most situations in schools and universities, we are
most people would not hear about it until it was published striving to help our students achieve what might be called
in a journal and that process might take a year or two. Now, academic literacy. We want them to argue, to persuade, to
a scientist is communicating with other scientists around use sophisticated language, and that doesn’t always match
the world immediately on the Internet. Just think about the type of language that appears in a chat room.

E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M O C T O B E R 2 0 0 2 5
02-0246 ETF_02-09 12/6/02 8:48 AM Page 6

It’s up to us, the teachers, to make use of the Internet in velopment. The main point of the book is that we shouldn’t
ways that match our pedagogical goals. Let’s say your stu- “fetishize” the machine itself, that the computer is only one
dents in one country are communicating with students in element and one small element of the bigger package of how
another country about a project. You might let them have technology has an impact on people’s lives. That package
informal discussions because they can develop basic con- includes literacy skills, content available on the Internet,
versational skills that way. But have the project gear up to training, community relationships, goals, and leadership.
higher standards. Have the students interview each other, I think the way this applies to school is: don’t think that
then write their interviews and publish a newsletter together. when you’ve ordered your hardware, or even your hardware
In the online newsletter, you would expect more sophisti- and software, you’ve done most of the work of integrating
cated writing. computers in education. For example if you start with teach-
You mold the medium. Just like we wouldn’t put chil- ers who have a very good approach to project-based curricu-
dren in a room and say, “Talk and learn,” you also wouldn’t lum, they will be able to very easily integrate computers into
just put them in a chat room online and say, “Talk and that. But if you start with computers without a good cur-
learn.” You have to deploy the Internet towards your own riculum or a good pedagogy, the computer itself won’t help
pedagogical ends. very much. The hardware is just one part of the broader
package of what technology can do, and all those other parts
need as much as or more attention than the computers.
WPA: Could we say that emoticons and these other features of
immediacy indicate the language we use in email is just a dif-
ferent register? WPA: Let me ask a hypothetical question, Mark. If you were
MW: Exactly. That would be a very good learning activity given time and unlimited resources to conduct a research proj-
in school: have students write an email message in several ect in foreign language teaching or applied linguistics, what
different registers. For example, to tell a friend you can’t would you study?
come and meet him, to tell your professor you can’t come MW: I’m fascinated with the impact that informal use of
to class, and to tell your boss you can’t come to work today. the Internet has on language learning abilities. So many
people are reading and writing English outside the class-
room without any assignments from their teacher. Before I
WPA: I want to change the subject slightly, from Internet and came to the University of California at Irvine, I was work-
the Web to a different impact computers are having. As soft- ing in Egypt for three years. A number of people I spoke
ware for translation gets more reliable, is our profession feeling with and interviewed there told me that spending a lot of
the effects of improvements in machine translation? time online helped them improve their English very much.
MW: It certainly will, but it’s hard to predict what the I would love to do ethnographies, that is, longitudinal
long-term effects will be. In the short-term, I think that qualitative research with individuals from different coun-
people are naturally going to try to machine translate their tries and from different walks of life, to look at how people
language first to see what the computer comes up with. A are using computers and the Internet in their home, work,
Chinese person who is writing something in English might and school environments. I would look at how their infor-
write it in Chinese and translate it by machine first to see mal uses of English on the Internet contribute to their for-
what it looks like. mal knowledge as it relates to what they’re doing in school,
One of the ways that I think we can respond to this as for example.
teachers is to take advantage of these machine translations, With unlimited resources, maybe you could choose a
which, at this point, are very awkward and to teach students dozen people in each of 20 countries and do a comparative
to edit them. What a great pedagogical tool: give students a study looking at whether people who use computers and
bad translation that was done by translation software and the Internet at home learn English earlier and faster, and
teach them how to convert it into a good translation, then whether they tend to learn more at home or in school. In
let them analyze what the differences are. situations where people are learning in the home environ-
ment, what can you do in a school environment to com-
plement that?
WPA: Can you tell us about your new book published by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press?
MW: Sure. The title of this book is Technology and Social WPA: Hotmail and Yahoo email as language learning tools.
Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divided. Of course, it covers MW: There you go! You asked earlier about low-tech.
language, literacy, and education, but it goes further to look Email is low-tech computer use. Some Web-based email is
at the way new technologies can serve human and social de- even free.

6 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 2 E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M
02-0246 ETF_02-09 12/6/02 8:48 AM Page 7

WPA: I’m happy to report that in cooperation with TESOL, people and how to set up computers for blind people! He
the U.S. Department of State is going to print and distribute was one of our best participants in the CELT program.
your 2000 book Internet for English Teaching (with co- I learned about a year after I left Egypt that people from
authors Heidi Shetzer and Christine Meloni). In the book UNESCO heard about him. Actually, somebody inter-
you mention that the Web works best when its strengths are viewed him for the newspaper. And then people from
exploited and integrated rather than resisted. For example, UNESCO invited him to consult on setting up a special
when students are allowed to pursue topics of their own choos- information technology center for the blind within the
ing, they’re very enthusiastic and motivating. How can a Alexandria library. You might have heard about the huge
teacher exploit students’ own interests while making sure that library that they’re rebuilding in Alexandria in honor of the
they don’t get sidetracked with technical glitches on the com- library that was there almost 2,000 years ago. So now this
puter or end up surfing the Internet all day instead of using teacher is having a national impact in Egypt on issues relat-
their time productively? ed to overcoming disability with technology and multiple
MW: I’m a firm believer in high-quality products. What- language material.
ever computer-based activity you assign should result in the
students producing high-quality products. Of course, you
WPA: Looking ahead to the next 10 years, where do you see
can’t expect them to create a product without giving them
the field of computer assisted language learning (CALL) going?
a lot of support and structuring the activity. You have to
pay a lot of attention to the language issues involved. Most MW: I think there are two big components of CALL. One
students want to write expertly if they’re going to publish is language learning software and the other is online activity
something on the Web; they want it to be accurate. on the Internet. I think that we’ll see a combination of these
things in a couple of ways. First, a lot more language learn-
ing software will be moved over to the Internet platform as
WPA: So you need to start with your final product—What do bandwidth becomes higher. Secondly, because of that, we
I want my students to accomplish?—and from there, plan how will be able to combine more traditional language learning
to reach the goal. activity with communicative activity, all combined in the
MW: Yes. At one school in California, instead of calling the same Internet software. I don’t know what it will be called,
computer lab a computer lab, they call it a production lab, but I think we’re going to bridge the gap between Internet-
because it is a place where students go to produce high- based learning activity and language learning software.
quality work.
WPA: What do you think will be the CALL issues that are
WPA: Is there an inspirational anecdote from your career that provoking discussion and debate among teachers and
you would like to share with readers of the Forum? researchers in the future?
MW: Yes, it’s about a young teacher that we worked with MW: One area that’s becoming quite important is learners’
in Egypt, where I was the director of educational technol- use of new corpora. A corpus is a set of texts that have been
ogy on a very large U.S. government-funded teacher train- put in a format on a computer. (Corpora is the plural of
ing program called CELT: Computers in English Language corpus.) Now there are text-based corpora, so if you don’t
Teaching. Basically, we were trying to build up a cadre of know, for example, whether a verb is usually followed by
experts in using technology in English language teaching so this preposition or that preposition, you can search through
they could spread the word among other teachers. Part of 10 million words from British newspapers to see how that
being in CELT was to go for training in the United States, particular verb has been used in the past.
so it was very competitive to get into the program. There Now all of these corpora only take advantage of print-
was one teacher who stood out in the program, named ed texts. Building up corpora of oral texts can be done in
Ahmed Khater. And he was blind. Even though he was many different ways, for example, by recording television
blind, he was better at using computers than anybody else announcers or by having people wear microphones all day
in the entire program. He depended on using computers a recording their speech. These oral corpora are not only put
lot because he couldn’t read a piece of paper, but he could in written form, but they’re put in oral form, too, meaning
scan it and then use text-to-speech software. He really took that when you search for something, you can see it and you
advantage of the computer to overcome some of the diffi- can also hear it.
culties of blindness. All of this is in a very primitive stage now, but the tech-
Ahmed was absolutely amazing. You could send him an nology will be developed in perhaps five or ten years and
email and he’d send you back a lengthy email in 10 min- the amount of corpora will expand, plus the computer’s
utes. What he knew, self taught, about software for blind ability to sort it, find it, and hear it will expand. I think one

E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M O C T O B E R 2 0 0 2 7
02-0246 ETF_02-09 12/6/02 8:48 AM Page 8

issue that people will be debating and discussing is whether basically, things that you grew up with, you don’t think of
and how learners can make use of this sort of authentic lan- as being new technology; they’re just part of everyday life.
guage data that they themselves can search for and find. I mean, the pen that you’re writing with right now, Bill, is
It’s kind of a tricky issue because it’s been overestimated a writing technology. But nobody says, “Oh! I just bought
by some, at least in terms of what can be done today. It some brand-new technology. Do you want to see it? It’s my
sounds a lot better in theory than actually having somebody pen.” Pens and paper and books and blackboards are a per-
fectly normal part of teaching now. We don’t talk about
look through all the data and being able to make sense of
BALL: blackboard assisted language learning.
what they find. But who knows? Five or ten years from now,
This is my prediction. It might not be in ten years, it
it will get better and be more useful to more people.
might not be in twenty years, but at some point in the
future, computers and the Internet will become so regular-
WPA: If you look at the interview with Diane Larsen-Free- ized that we won’t have special courses on CALL. We won’t
man (in the October 2001 issue of the Forum), she mentions have special books on CALL. Computerized media will be
corpora and how they might affect language teaching. the pens and paper of tomorrow. We will have new chal-
lenges, but they will be challenges that we’ll face in all
MW: That’s another level, which is from the teaching point aspects of teaching and not in a special place that we com-
of view and the research point of view. We have a lot more partmentalize and call CALL.
information available about how language is really used. So
even if the teacher doesn’t tell her students to go to the
computer files and examine corpora, concordancing soft- WPA: It’s been a pleasure to meet you and do this interview,
ware allows this. The teachers themselves might want to Mark. On behalf of the readers of English Teaching Forum,
develop their materials by using these concordancers thank you very much! z
because at least they will know they’re coming up with real
life examples that have been found in the newspaper. Notes:
1. You can reach Mark by email at <[email protected]> or
via his Web site at <http://www.gse.uci.edu/markw>.
WPA: Do you care to make any predications about the future 2. An emoticon is a symbol created with keyboard letters
of computers and educational technology apart from what and other characters to express emotion or convey facial
you’ve already said? expressions in an email message. Here are some common
MW: Sure. Somebody once asked me what technology is. examples of emoticons and their meanings: :-) [happy,
One way of defining it is to say that technology is anything smiling] :-( [sad, frowning] ;-) [a smile with a wink] :’-(
that has been developed since you’ve been born. Because [crying] :-D [laughing]

8 O C T O B E R 2 0 0 2 E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M
02-0246 ETF_02-09 12/6/02 8:48 AM Page 9

What Works in the ELT Classroom?… | Harshbarger

not they would “work” with your students. In Johnson, K. 1999. Understanding language teach-
addition, it includes making conscious deci- ing: Reasoning in action. Boston: Heinle and
sions as to the most effective way to reinforce Heinle.
Krashen, S. 1981. Second language acquisition and
the positive and respond to the negative ele-
second language learning. Oxford: Pergamon.
ments of classroom interaction.
Long, M. H. and G. Crookes. 1992. Three
Using robust reasoning to answer the ques- approaches to task-based syllabus design.
tion, “Did my students benefit from what TESOL Quarterly, 26, 1, pp. 27–56.
happened in class today?” will lead us to defi- Murphey, T. 1998. Multiple assessment action log-
nitions of effective teaching that are context- ging. In New ways in classroom assessment, ed. J.
appropriate and applicable to our classrooms. D. Brown. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
This in turn will enable us to develop teaching O’Malley, J. M. and A. Chamot. 1990. Learning
methods and activities that “work.” It will also strategies in second language acquisition. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
make it easier for us to explain to others why
Oxford, R. 1990 Learning strategies: What every
we do what we do in our classrooms and why teacher should know. Boston: Heinle and Heinle.
we believe that what we do “works.” In an age Reid, J.M., ed. 1998. Understanding learning styles
when there are very few instant solutions to in the second language classroom. Upper Saddle
the teaching issues that confront us when we River, NJ: Prentice-Hall Regents.
enter a classroom, robust reasoning is an effec- Richards, J. 1999. Beyond training. Cambridge:
tive way to generate our own solutions to Cambridge University Press.
classroom realities. Richards, J. and T. Rodgers. 2001. Approaches and
methods in language teaching (2nd ed.). Cam-
References bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Savignon, S. 1983. Communicative competence:
Adams, E. and H. Brewer. 2001/2. Teaching cre-
atively: A symbiotic process. IATEFL Issues, Theory and classroom practice. Reading, MA:
164, pp. 14–15. Addison-Wesley.
Brown, H. D. 2001. Teaching by principles: An Scarcella, R. C. and R. L. Oxford, eds. 1992. Tapes-
interactive approach to language pedagogy. White try. Boston: Heinle and Heinle.
Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman. Widdowson, H. G. 1978. Teaching language as com-
Fanselow, J. 1987. Breaking rules. New York: Long- munication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
man. Zahorik, J. A. 1986. Acquiring teaching skills. Jour-
Fries, C. C. 1945. Teaching and learning English as nal of Teacher Education, 37, pp. 21–25. z
a foreign language. Ann Arbor, MI: The Univer-
sity of Michigan Press. Lisa Harshbarger is the Regional English
Holliday, A. 1994. Appropriate methodology and
Language Officer assigned to the American
social context. Cambridge: Cambridge Universi-
ty Press. Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. She also
Hymes, D. 1971. On communicative competence. wrote the anniversary section, A View of the
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Past, in the July and October issues.

E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M O C T O B E R 2 0 0 2 9