David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 1 Updated Edition EPO

UNIT 1

EVOLUTION OF THE LANGUAGE TEACHING.

PRESENT-DAY TRENDS IN THE TEACHING OF
ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE.
COMMUNICATIVE APPROACHES.

By David Navarro Sarabia

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David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 1 Updated Edition EPO

OUTLINE

1. INTRODUCTION.

2. A HISTORY OF LANGUAGE TEACHING.

2.1. Early Language Learning Methods.
2.2. First Approaches to the Teaching of Modern Languages.
2.3. Twentieth Century Innovations.

3. WHAT'S NOW, WHAT'S NEXT?

4. CONCLUSION.

5. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 1 Updated Edition EPO

1. INTRODUCTION.
Language is a pure human activity and involves the communication of ideas from the
mind of a speaker to the mind of a listener. Great importance has been given to the study of
language from very early stages in human history, people our early ancestors came in
contact with. We know that language is learnt or acquired but we do not know how first
language is learned, that is, every child can learn any natural language as a first language,
under the appropriate conditions and no theory can explain this fact.
The psycholinguistic field is now an important area for research and its results are
likely to have interesting implications for the learning of a second language.
Language teaching came into its own as a profession in the last century. Central to
this phenomenon was the emergence of the concept of "methods" of language teaching.
The method concept in language teaching—the notion of a systematic set of teaching
practices based on a particular theory of language and language learning—is a powerful
one, and the quest for better methods was a preoccupation of teachers and applied linguists
throughout the 20th century. Howatt's (1984) overview documents the history of changes of
practice in language teaching throughout history, bringing the chronology up through the
Direct Method in the 20th century. One of the most lasting legacies of the Direct Method has
been the notion of "method" itself.
Methodology in language teaching has been characterized in a variety of ways. A
more or less classical formulation suggests that methodology is that which links theory and
practice. Theory statements would include theories of what language is and how language
is learned or, more specifically, theories of second language acquisition (SLA). Such
theories are linked to various design features of language instruction. These design features
might include stated objectives, syllabus specifications, types of activities, roles of teachers,
learners, materials, and so forth. Design features in turn are linked to actual teaching and
learning practices as observed in the environments where language teaching and learning
take place. This whole complex of elements defines language teaching methodology.
The content of this unit has an extremely useful value at classroom level, since the
methodology used in our daily didactic organization and lesson planning plays a relevant
role in the exploitation of the for macro-skills, included both in the Curricular Treatment
stated by the current legislation and in programming of didactic units. Therefore, the
connection of this theoretical component is referred to how we can make a good use of all
the elements taking part in the teaching learning process, which are summarised as follows:
 Communicative approach.
 Strategies to exploit L, S, R, & W.
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 Individualised teaching.
 Appropriate setting.
 Classroom grouping & management.
 Changeable role of the teacher.

2. A HISTORY OF LANGUAGE TEACHING.

Within methodology a distinction is often made between methods and approaches, in
which methods are held to be fixed teaching systems with prescribed techniques and
practices, whereas approaches represent language teaching philosophies that can be
interpreted and applied in a variety of different ways in the classroom. This distinction is
probably most usefully seen as defining a continuum of entities ranging from highly
prescribed methods to loosely described approaches.
Two approaches to TEFL can be appreciated, namely, the traditional one and the
communicative one. The most outstanding differences between them are:
a) The communicative approach concentrates on the rules needed whereas the traditional
approach concentrates on the grammatical rules that are needed to produce correct
sentences.
b) A great deal of work in the classroom is concerned with learning in the communicative
approach and with teaching in the traditional approach.
c) Fluency is prior to accuracy in the communicative approach but grammatical correctness
comes first in the traditional approach.
d) The concept of language use differs in both approaches; the communicative approach
sees language use as something dynamic, as the creation of meaning by negotiation; on
the other hand, the traditional approach sees language use as being static.
e) This point leads up to the role of both teacher and student and the relationship between
them. The communicative approach defends the active participation of the student in the
class and sees the teacher as an adviser. In the traditional approach the teacher is the
protagonist and the student has to listen, copy and answer when asked, without much
active participation and little interaction with his/her fellow-students.
f) The communicative approach concentrates on oral English whereas the traditional
approach concentrates on written English.
g) The traditional approach is deductive, whereas the communicative approach is inductive.
For instance, if the third person singular of the present simple has to be taught, it can be
presented as follows: (see table 1)
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TABLE 1

METHOD 1st STEP 2nd STEP

3rd person singular takes
Inductive. She works every day. an “s” in the simple
present affirmative.
3rd person singular takes
Deductive. an “s” in the simple She works every day.
present affirmative.

Since it is the communicative approach which is widely used nowadays, we shall

concentrate further on its characteristics. Following Brumfit (1985), these are the major
developments in communicative teaching:
a. The needs of the learners are taken into account so as to provide them with the necessary
kinds of language use.
b. Materials force students to express themselves through the language.
c. Group work and pair work are used to allow students to work intensively on their own.
d. Materials and techniques are devised to individualise work, that is, to allow all students
in a class to work in different ways and in their own time.
e. Mistakes are seen as a natural phenomenon when learning a new language, so students
must be given the opportunity to experiment with English.
Of the above-mentioned methods, only Grammar-Translation is considered to be
completely traditional. The rest are taught in a communicative way or by combining both
approaches, there exists so much literature on them that there is a constant risk of confusion.
Therefore, we have considered it convenient to give a general outline.
2.1. Early Language Learning Methods.
Languages were studied even in the most ancient civilizations. The Egyptian,
Babylonian and Assyrian Kings sent bilingual representatives in their delegations to foreign
countries, and wealthy Romans were taught Greek by teacher-slaves. Teaching in those
days was probably done through conversation, grammar learning, reading and writing.
Later on, the first Christian missionaries were forced to learn the language of the
people they were trying to convert as the only means of communicating with them.
Nevertheless, during the Middle Ages the only languages considered fit for learning were
Latin, Greek and Hebrew which were taught in the monastic schools.
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In the Renaissance, Queen Elizabeth I was reported to have known Hebrew,

Aramaic, Greek and Latin and the entry requirement for Harvard when it was founded in
1636 was to understand any Latin Classic on sight.
In the 18th century, the study of modern languages was first introduced officially in
the United States.
2.2. First Approaches to the Teaching of Modern Languages.
During the 19th century and in the 20th, foreign languages were taught in the same
way as classical ones though different approaches have coexisted for longer than it is
thought. There are several methods in the teaching of languages, most of which are
analysed below.
The period from the 1950s to the 1980s has often been referred to as "The Age of
Methods," during which a number of quite detailed prescriptions for language teaching were
proposed. Situational Language Teaching evolved in the United Kingdom while a parallel
method, Audio-Lingualism, emerged in the United States. In the middle-methods period, a
variety of methods were proclaimed as successors to the then prevailing Situational
Language Teaching and Audio-Lingual methods. These alternatives were promoted under
such titles as Silent Way, Suggestopedia, Community Language Learning, and Total
Physical Response. In the 1980s, these methods in turn came to be overshadowed by more
interactive views of language teaching, which collectively came to be known as
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). Communicative Language Teaching advocates
subscribed to a broad set of principles such as these:
• Learners learn a language through using it to communicate.
• Authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities.
• Fluency is an important dimension of communication.
• Communication involves the integration of different language skills.
• Learning is a process of creative construction and involves trial and error.
However, CLT advocates avoided prescribing the set of practices through which
these principles could best be realized, thus putting CLT clearly on the approach rather than
the method end of the spectrum.
Communicative Language Teaching has spawned a number of off-shoots that share the
same basic set of principles, but which spell out philosophical details or envision instructional
practices in somewhat diverse ways. These CLT spin-off approaches include The Natural
Approach, Cooperative Language Learning, Content-Based Teaching, and Task-Based
Teaching.
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It is difficult to describe these various methods briefly and yet fairly, and such a task
is well beyond the scope of this paper. However, several up-to-date texts are available that
do detail differences and similarities among the many different approaches and methods
that have been proposed. (See, e.g., Larsen-Freeman, 2000, and Richards & Rodgers,
2001). Perhaps it is possible to get a sense of the range of method proposals by looking at
a synoptic view of the roles defined for teachers and learners within various methods. Such
a synoptic (perhaps scanty) view can be seen in the following chart.
TEACHING METHODS AND TEACHER & LEARNER ROLES
Method Teacher Roles Learner Roles
Situational Language Context Setter Imitator
Teaching Error Corrector Memorizer
Language Modeller Pattern Practicer
Audio-lingualism
Drill Leader Accuracy Enthusiast
Communicative Needs Analyst Improvisor
Language Teaching Task Designer Negotiator
Commander Order Taker
Total Physical Response
Action Monitor Performer
Community Language Counsellor Collaborator
Learning Paraphraser Whole Person
Actor Guesser
The Natural Approach
Props User Immerser
Auto-hypnotist Relaxer
Suggestopedia
Authority Figure True-Believer

Figure 2. Methods and Teacher’s and Learner’s Roles

As suggested in the chart, some schools of methodology see the teacher as ideal
language model and commander of classroom activity (e.g., Audio-Lingual Method, Natural
Approach, Suggestopedia, Total Physical Response) whereas others see the teacher as
background facilitator and classroom colleague to the learners (e.g., Communicative
Language Teaching, Cooperative Language Learning).
There are other global issues to which spokespersons for the various methods and
approaches respond in alternative ways. For example, should second language learning by
adults be modelled on first language learning by children? One set of schools (e.g., Total
Physical Response, Natural Approach) notes that first language acquisition is the only
universally successful model of language learning we have, and thus that second language
pedagogy must necessarily model itself on first language acquisition. An opposed view (e.g.,
Silent Way, Suggestopedia) observes that adults have different brains, interests, timing
constraints, and learning environments than do children, and that adult classroom learning
therefore has to be fashioned in a way quite dissimilar to the way in which nature fashions
how first languages are learned by children.
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Another key distinction turns on the role of perception versus production in early
stages of language learning. One school of thought proposes that learners should begin to
communicate, to use a new language actively, on first contact (e.g., Audio-Lingual Method,
Silent Way, and Community Language Learning), while the other school of thought states
that an initial and prolonged period of reception (listening, reading) should precede any
attempts at production (e.g., Natural Approach).
Once having presented an overall view of the general evolution of all the different
methods, a more detailed analysis will be provided below.
▪ Grammar-Translation Method.
It has been used up to very recent times. The Grammar is presented in a rigid way
and it is based on Latin and Greek. In this method, students of foreign languages had to
master the terminology of Latin grammar. The vocabulary learnt was predominantly literary
using passages for translation from Molière, Shakespeare or Cervantes. At the beginning,
students were also given very simple sentences to translate including the grammar and
vocabulary just learnt which were not meaningful and disconnected form real life. This
methodology did not include conversation because the purpose of foreign language learning
was to assimilate the prescriptive grammar of the language and to read its literature. The
student acquired a thorough knowledge of grammar, syntax, etc., and this could obviously
be transformed into conversational knowledge as it has happened in many cases.
▪ Direct or Natural Method.
The best-known early example of natural foreign language teaching dates back to the
16th century when Montaigne's father decided to have his son taught Latin by a German
tutor, totally ignorant of French, before he even learnt to speak his mother tongue, while the
rest of the members of the family were forbidden to speak anything but Latin in his presence.
Locke defended that as soon as the child could speak English it was time for him to
learn some other language and stated that the natural approach is the fundamental one,
applicable to all in the early stages.
J. S. Blackie, a 19th century Scottish professor of Latin and Greek, gives us a detailed
natural method teaching syllabus in eighteen steps and denunciates not only the existing
methods but also the public attitudes towards foreign language teaching and the appalling
state of the teaching profession. Blackie said that normal and healthy specimens of the
genus homo, can speak two, three or more languages if only external circumstances were
favourable for such a result. The problem is that external circumstances in mid-nineteenth
century were extremely unfavourable in England: teachers were badly prepared and had the
neglect of society towards educational problems.
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Blackie established four elements to teach languages which were the basis for the
natural method: first step, -a direct appeal to the ear because it is the natural organ by which
the language is acquired. Secondly, this appeal should be made in circumstances where
there is a direct relation between the sound and the thing signified. Thirdly, the same living
appeal to the ear is continuously repeated. Fourthly, the appeal should be made under
circumstances which excite the attention and engage the sympathies of the hearer.
Unfortunately, these suggestions were not paid much attention until a generation later.
Sauveur in his book "An Introduction to the Teaching of Living Languages without
Grammar or Dictionary" (1874) described that his students did not start the book until they
had spent a month on intensive oral work in class. He was famous for his method and was
seriously considered in language teaching in America.
In Europe, 'Direct Methods' became important towards the end of the 19th century.
Viëtor published, 'L'Art d'Enseigner et d'Étudier les Langues', which was not translated into
English until 1889. In this book, he maintained that a foreign language should be learned in
the same way as the mother tongue.
In 1890, phonetic was passed as the basis of language teaching. Passy, Viëtor and
Henry Sweet were in favour of using phonetics and phonetic script in language teaching.
Grammar was not taught but it was to be learnt inductively through experience in the
language. Words were incorporated into the student's vocabulary by direct association, as
far as possible. The significant unit of language was considered to be the sentence rather
than the word. But when adapted schools, programmes, materials and the textbooks
provided the method presented problems. For the method to be successful, able teachers
were required, the method demanded an awful amount of effort from the teacher and the
use of active methods often led to lapses in discipline.
So, we could summarize the belief of the Direct Methodists as follows:
1) Languages should first be taught through speech. The written language is only presented
at a later stage.
2) Language should be learnt by using the language rather than by memorizing grammatical
rules. The real unit of language is the sentence rather than the word. Translation was to
be avoided.
3) The mother tongue was not to be used. Words were to be explained through direct
association.
2.3. Twentieth Century Innovations.
At the beginning of the 20th century several efforts were made to change language
teaching. More current literary texts were given for translation and there was an effort to
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provide some conversation, which was not always successful as many of the conversational
sentences and phrases were artificial and stilted.
▪ The Berlitz School.
It was founded in 1878 in Rhode Island, whose slogan was 'The eye is the enemy of
the ear'. Its founder Maximilian Berlitz, made the Direct Method available to large number of
language learners in Europe and America through his system of schools, and by 1914 had
nearly 200 schools, the largest number in Germany. Berlitz was an excellent systematizer
of basic language teaching materials on the direct method line. His teachers were all native
speakers many of them young and rarely trained linguists. The teacher's directions are: no
translation under any circumstances, a strong emphasis on oral word, avoidance of
grammatical explanations until late in the course, and the maximum use of question-and-
answer techniques. The use of the mother tongue was prohibited during the class.
▪ The Contribution of Anthropology, Psychology and Sociology.
o Basic English.
It was based on the following discoveries made by language research:
1) Every language has a basic grammar as well as a complicated grammatical structure.
The basic grammar should be taught first.
2) There is greater frequency of some words than others. The basic vocabulary should be
taught first.
Several years before the Second World War C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards who
were working on a semantical treatise were struck by the recurrence of certain common,
frequently used words. They found that it was possible to classify 850 basic words in English
which occur most frequently. Basic English eliminates all but eighteen verbs which combined
with operational works or with nouns would replace any other verb in the English language.
It also contains 400 general nouns, 200 picturable objects and 150 adjectives. Basic English
works through paraphrases: 'small tree' for 'bush'. However, it has as its starting point the
living language so it must be seen from two points of view, that of the native speaker, who
must learn Basic in order to communicate and that of the non-speaker of English speaker
would probably have as much difficulty expressing himself in Basic English as learning to
use a foreign language. And, it also presents difficulties for foreigners.
o Structuralism: The A.S.P.T. Contribution.
The main figures in American linguistics were Edward Sapir and Leonard Bloomfield
both worked on Structuralism but along different lines: Sapir was interested in linguistics and
anthropology, the social aspect of language and the relationship between race, culture and
language. Bloomfield contributed more to the spreading of American Structuralism. He
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makes linguistics as scientific as possible. He was influenced by behaviourist psychology

seeing language as a series of stimuli and responses.
* The A.S.T.P. Contribution.
With the intervention of America in the Second World War there was both a motivation
to learn European languages and the opportunity to practise them. This was also the
opportunity for linguists to use some of their theoretical notions in a practical way because
conventional methods were both slow and inadequate to make soldiers speak and
understand the many languages they would come in contact with. So, it was created the
Army Specialized Training Programme (A.S.T.P.) a linguistic programme which was
considered revolutionary: it combined the Berlitz technique, mechanical aids, some
controversial features incorporated from the new methodology developed in the study of
Indian languages and phrase books and phonographic recordings prepared for self-
instruction.
The programme was intensive during a six to eight-week period. The average number
of students per class was 10 or 12 and the acquisition of conversational skills was stressed
to the partial exclusion of reading, writing, composition and literature. Conversational
practice and drills were imported by native speakers who were not necessarily teachers.
Grammatical instruction was imported by trained teachers; mechanical and phonograph
recordings, radio broadcasts, foreign language films, etc. were all used extensively. Only
students with a previous linguistic background, a high level of intelligence and high
motivations were accepted.
After the war, progressive institutions began to use the most practical of its features.
Conversational fluency became one of the aims of language teaching and most colleges
and universities continued to experiment with various modifications of the intensive
language course, stressing conversation, small groups, native speakers and mechanical
aids hut, nobody could supply the main factor which probably made success possible, the
strong motivation.
Structuralist grammars are compiled on the assumption that every language consists
of a series of unique structures and the construction of sentences follows certain regular
patterns. Linguists compare the structures of the pupil's mother tongue (L1) with the
structures of the target language (L2). The similar structures can be transferred positively to
the pupil and different structures can cause interference.
Pattern practice is essential, tape recording and oral work is necessary.
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▪ Criticism to the Direct Method.

In reaction to the antiquated method of grammar-translation the advocates of the
Direct Method went to the opposite extreme, as translation can play a useful role in language
teaching. The inductive method of learning grammar can be extremely slow, and for many
adult pupils the learning of a certain number of grammatical rules tends to make learning
more rapid.
▪ Criticism to Structuralist Method.
Chomsky is one of the linguists who have shown the deficiencies of structural
grammar: the first one is that it only deals with surface structure. It does not take into account
ambiguity and intuition, which form part of deep structure. Other linguists are no longer so
enthusiastic about structuralism because the traditional structural drill exercises are purely
mechanical and have no connection with actual situations. Another criticism is that this
method did not show how to teach the material and did not contribute to advances in
language teaching methodology.
▪ The Oral Approach and Situational Language Teaching.
Palmer, Hornby and other British applied linguists from the 1920s onward developed
an approach to methodology that involved systematic principles of selection. S.L.T. adopts
an inductive approach to the teaching of grammar. The meaning of the words or structures
is not to be given through explanation in either the native tongue or the target language but
is to be induced from the way the form is used in a situation. If we give the meaning of a
new word, either by translation into the home language by an equivalent in the same
language, as soon as we introduced it, we weaken the impression which the word makes
on the mind.
▪ The Audiolingual Method.
The emergence of the audiolingual method resulted from the increased attention
given to foreign language teaching in the United States toward the end of the 1950s. The
combination of structural linguistic theory, contrastive analysis, aural procedures and
behaviourist psychology led to the Audiolingual Method. Audiolingualism claimed to have
transformed language teaching from an art to a science, which would enable learners to
achieve the mastery of a foreign language. Language is primarily speech in audiolingual
theory; the mechanistic aspects of language learning and language use are stressed.
▪ Transformational Generative Grammar.
In 1957, the publication of Syntactic structures by Noam Chomsky offered a different
approach to linguistics based on a theory of transformational generative grammar. He
pursued the theoretical implications of generative grammar into other areas of linguistic
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enquiry, notably the psychology of language, which was dominated at the time by the
behaviourism of writers like Skinner.
Transformational grammar presents a criticism to structuralist grammar Chomsky
criticized that structural grammar deals only with surface structure and not with deep
structure. Language is essentially creative for him, which means that a native speaker is
able to generate an infinite number of sentences which he has never heard nor will hear
again, yet they are grammatically correct. He is concerned with the structure of language
and the nature of cognitive processes. Transformational grammar has shown that although
certain differences in surface structure may exist the deep structure may be similar, though
this theory is debated at present, too.
Until Chomsky's days it was preached that pupils should only be given grammatically
correct examples. Now it is thought that there is a value in offering him ungrammatical
examples. He can study and compare them with grammatical forms and decide himself what
the difference is. Pupils should be allowed to make errors, because the learner can test like
that his hypotheses about the nature of the language he is learning. The structuralists
banished explanations almost completely.
Priority is given to free expression and creativity.
▪ The Notion of 'Situation'.
The concept of 'situation' has played a central role in the thinking of Firth and the
`London School of Linguistics', and it is an important contribution in the field of language
teaching. From Malinowski, Firth derived the concept of 'context of situation' which says that
the meaning of an utterance is a function of the cultural and situational context in which it
occurs. The proposed three major categories in terms of which language events could be
described: The verbal and non-verbal action of the participants in the event; what he called
the 'relevant objects'. The observable effect of the verbal action. He places emphasis on the
unity of language and social activity. He was working on the idea of the existence of
specialized varieties of language related to social roles, professional interests, working
activities, etc.
▪ The Notion of Communication.
After 1970, new ideas in the teaching profession were accelerated, this was due to
the expansion of university-level courses to meet a growing demand for professional
qualifications and to the appearance of large numbers of overseas students. Publishers
were then tempted into expansionist investment policies which brought about a large growth
of the teaching materials available up to the moment.
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o The Threshold Level.

It began as a result of a symposium held in 1971. It set out a model of the European
adult learner of foreign languages in terms of an analysis of communicative needs, then, it
was attempted to create a syllabus for the fundamental 'common core' which all learners
would need before moving to their special areas of interest.
Its author, Wilkins, started from Jespersen's national categories and recognizes three
different types of categories:
1).- Semantic-grammatical categories: future, location, etc.
2).- Categories of modality: possibility, necessity, obligation, etc.
3).- Categories of communicative function, which include asking questions, making
requests, expressing agreement and disagreement, etc.
▪ The Notion of Cognition.
P. Corder stated that given motivation in a normal human being would learn not only
his mother tongue but also any other languages he was exposed to. He also studied the role
played by the interference of the first language in the acquisition of the second one and paid
attention to the strategies used by second language learners. The practical value of
psycholinguistic research will lie probably in providing teachers with an insight into the
learning processes of their students. According to this, the aim of a language teaching
course is to promote communicative performance. The real contribution of the
communicative approach has been 'to enrich and extend the traditions of language teaching
initiated by the reformers at the end of the last century'.
▪ Total Physical Response (TPR).
TPR is a language teaching method built around the coordination of speech and
action; it attempts to teach language through physical activity. It was developed by James
Asher, a professor of psychology in California.
The general objectives of TPR are to teach oral proficiency at a beginning level.
Comprehension is a means to an end, and the main aim is to teach basic speaking skills. A
TPR course aims to produce learners who are capable of an uninhibited communication that
is intelligible to a native speaker.
Imperative drills are the major classroom activity in TPR. They are typically used to
elicit physical actions and activity on the part of the learners. Conversational dialogues are
delayed until after 120 hours of instruction. Other class activities include role plays and slide
presentations, centred on everyday situations, such as the restaurant, supermarket...
Learners listen attentively and respond physically to commands given by the teacher.
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▪ The Silent Way.

The silent way is the name of a method of language teaching devised by Caleb
Gattegno. It is based on the premise that the teacher should be silent as much as possible
in the classroom and the learner should as possible.
The general objective is to give students oral and aural facility in basic elements of
the target language. A correct pronunciation and the mastery of the prosodic elements are
emphasised. The learner is provided with a basic practical knowledge of the grammar. The
teacher may say a word and have a student guess what sequence of symbols comprised
the word. After practice with the sounds of the language, sentence patterns structure, and
vocabulary are practised. The teacher models an utterance while creating a visual
realization of it.
▪ Suggestopedia.
It is a method developed by the Bulgarian psychiatrist educator Georgi Lozanov is a
specific set of learning recommendation derived from Suggestology, which he describes as
a science concerned with the systematic beings are constantly responding to. The main
characteristics of suggestopedia are decoration, furniture and arrangement of the
classroom, the use of music and the authoritative behaviour of the teacher.
The claims for suggestopedia learning are dramatic. The memorization in learning by
suggestopedic method seems to be accelerated 25 times over that in learning by
conventional methods.
Suggestopedia can perhaps be best understood as one of range of theories that
describe now attentiveness is manipulated to optimize learning and recall. A number of
researchers have attempted to identify the optimal mental states for facilitating memorization
and facilitating recall.

3. WHAT'S NOW, WHAT'S NEXT IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING?

▪ The European Language Portfolio & the CEFR
The European Language Portfolio was developed and piloted by the Language Policy
Division of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, from 1998 until 2000. It was launched on a
Pan-European level during the European Year of Languages as a tool to support the
development of plurilingualism and pluriculturalism. What is a European Language
Portfolio?
It is a document in which those who are learning or have learned a language - whether
at school or outside school - can record and reflect on their language learning and cultural
experiences.
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The portfolio contains a language passport which its owner regularly updates. A grid
is provided where his/her language competences can be described according to common
criteria accepted throughout Europe and which can serve as a complement to customary
certificates. The document also contains a detailed language biography describing the
owner's experiences in each language and which is designed to guide the learner in planning
and assessing progress. Finally, there is a dossier where examples of personal work can be
kept to illustrate one's language competences.
The European Language Portfolio project has two main aims:
a) to motivate learners by acknowledging their efforts to extend and diversify their language
skills at all levels;
b) to provide a record of the linguistic and cultural skills they have acquired (to be consulted,
for example, when they are moving to a higher learning level or seeking employment at
home or abroad).
Points a) and b) refer to the two basic functions of the European Language Portfolio:
a) The pedagogic function:
· Enhance the motivation of the learners
- to improve their ability to communicative in different languages
- to learn additional languages
- to seek new intercultural experiences
· Incite and help learners to
- reflect their objectives, ways of learning and success in language learning
- plan their learning
- learn autonomously
· Encourage learners to enhance their plurilingual and intercultural experience, for example
through
- contacts and visits
- reading
- use of the media
- projects
b) The documentation and reporting function:
The European Language Portfolio aims to document its holder's plurilingual language
proficiency and experiences in other languages in a comprehensive, informative,
transparent and reliable way. The instruments contained in the ELP help learners to take
stock of the levels of competence they have reached in their learning of one or several
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foreign languages in order to enable them to inform others in a detailed and internationally
comparable manner.
There are many occasions to present a Language Portfolio which is up to date, for
example a transfer to another school, change to a higher educational sector, the beginning
of a language course, a meeting with a career advisor, or an application for a new post. In
these cases, the ELP is addressed to persons who have a role in decisions which are
important for the owner of the Language Portfolio. A learner may also be interested in having
such documentation for him-/herself.
➢ Principles
All competence is valued, regardless whether gained inside or outside of formal education.
- The European Language Portfolio is the property of the learner.
- It is linked to the Common European Framework of reference for Languages.
- A set of common principles ad guidelines have been agreed for all Portfolios.
The Committee of Ministers to Member States concerning Modern Languages
recommends among other measures the development and use by learners of a personal
document (European Language Portfolio) to record their qualifications and other significant
linguistic and cultural experiences in an internationally transparent manner as part of an
effort to extend and diversify language learning at all levels in a lifelong perspective.
The Ministers of Education of all the member States of the Council of Europe have
recommended that governments, in keeping with their education policy, support the
introduction of a European Language Portfolio.
▪ Spanish Methodology.
It is a new way of teaching in Spain based on communicative methods. Knowledge
is not as important as the development of skills. The goals are proposed by the Ministry of
Education in order to develop social interaction. Didactic goals are imposed in every unit
and English has gained importance. Contents can be learnt in a meaningful way developing
the skills distributed in different content blocks. There is no specific methodology, although
some basic principles have been established. The pupil himself should construct his learning
and the teacher will take as an essential reference the student’s previous knowledge and
starting-off moment. There exists a continuous effort and interest to achieve the autonomy
of the student; on the other hand, special emphasis is made on the oral use of the language.
One important innovation has been individual teaching, paying attention to the student’s
mixed ability.
Successive Education Laws, from LOGSE 1/1990, LOCE 10/2002, LOE 2/2006 to
LOMCE 8/2013, have also introduced a special interest towards immigrant students and
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 1 Updated Edition EPO

gifted and talented children. Some more characteristics of this latest law are the importance
and effort made on the fostering of Reading for Pleasure and on the use of Information and
Communications Technology as two of our country’s priorities, together with the emphasis
made on immigration and the contrast between the target foreign language or languages
and those other languages spoken by the students.
The evaluation is a continuous process, researching how the student develops the
four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. The learner will be able to contact foreign
language speakers in everyday situations and they will also be given the chance to maintain
social contact with native speakers in face-to-face communicative situations, through mass
media, and Internet. Since technological advances and their use is one more innovation of
the law.
▪ Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner,
professor of education at Harvard University. It suggests that the traditional notion of
intelligence, based on I.Q. testing, is far too limited. Instead, Dr. Gardner proposes eight
different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and
adults. These intelligences are:

• Linguistic intelligence (“word smart”)

• Logical-mathematical intelligence (“number/reasoning smart”)
• Spatial intelligence (“picture smart”)
• Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence (“body smart”)
• Musical intelligence (“music smart”)
• Interpersonal intelligence (“people smart”)
• Intrapersonal intelligence (“self smart”)
• Naturalist intelligence (“nature smart”)
The theory of multiple intelligences proposes a major transformation in the way our
schools are run. It suggests that teachers be trained to present their lessons in a wide variety
of ways using music, cooperative learning, art activities, role play, multimedia, field trips,
inner reflection, and much more. The good news is that the theory of multiple intelligences
has grabbed the attention of many educators around the country, and hundreds of schools
are currently using its philosophy to redesign the way it educates children. The bad news is
that there are thousands of schools still out there that teach in the same old dull way, through
dry lectures, and boring worksheets and textbooks. The challenge is to get this information
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary English Unit 1 Updated Edition EPO

out to many more teachers, school administrators, and others who work with children, so
that each child has the opportunity to learn in ways harmonious with their unique minds
The theory of multiple intelligences also has strong implications for adult learning and
development. Many adults find themselves in jobs that do not make optimal use of their most
highly developed intelligences (for example, the highly bodily-kinesthetic individual who is
stuck in a linguistic or logical desk-job when he or she would be much happier in a job where
they could move around, such as a recreational leader, a forest ranger, or physical
therapist). The theory of multiple intelligences gives adults a whole new way to look at their
lives, examining potentials that they left behind in their childhood (such as a love for art or
drama) but now have the opportunity to develop through courses, hobbies, or other
programs of self-development.
▪ Competence-based Learning
A curriculum that emphasizes the complex outcomes of a learning process (i.e.
knowledge, skills and attitudes to be applied by learners) rather than mainly focusing on
what learners are expected to learn about in terms of traditionally-defined subject content.
In principle such a curriculum is learner-centred and adaptive to the changing needs of
students, teachers and society. It implies that learning activities and environments are
chosen so that learners can acquire and apply the knowledge, skills and attitudes to
situations they encounter in everyday life. Competency-based curricula are usually designed
around a set of key competences/competencies that can be cross-curricular and/or subject-
bound.
In Spain, this Competence-based methodology has been implemented through Order
ECD 65/2015, which describes the Seven Key Competences to be included in the curricula
of Primary, Secondary and Bachillerato:
• Linguistic competence.
• Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology.
• Digital competence.
• Learning to learn.
• Social and civic competencies.
• Initiative and entrepreneurship.
• Cultural awareness and expression.

These competences must be put in relation with the rest of the curricular elements:
Contents, Objectives, Assessment Criteria and Assessable Learning Standards.
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▪ Teaching through Projects

Project-based learning is a methodology that allows students to acquire the key
knowledge and skills in the 21st century by developing projects that respond to real-life
problems. Students become protagonists of their own learning and develop their autonomy
and responsibility, since they are the ones in charge of planning, structuring the work and
elaborating the product to solve the question posed. The teacher's job is to guide and
support them throughout the process.
Amongst its benefits we can find an increase in students’ motivation, preparing
students for real life, real connection between school and real life, cooperative work and
increase in social abilities and communication.
▪ Gamification
Games are being used in today’s classrooms because they are strongly related with
motivation. They will liven up our sessions and students will leave the classroom with the
feeling that they like learning English. Games serve a lot of purposes in the classroom, we
can use them to warm up the class, to give the students a break, they make things like
grammar more fun, we can practice a specific vocabulary point or just finish the class on a
positive and fun note. They encourage cooperative learning and They facilitate bonding
between students and between the students and teacher.

▪ The Flipped Classroom

The phrase ‘flipped learning’ came into general use in the early mid-2000s when it
was popularised by chemistry teachers Jon Bergman and Aaron Sams (Bergmann and
Sams 2012) and the founder of the Khan Academy, Salman Khan (TED 2011). Flipped
learning is a pedagogical approach in which the conventional notion of classroom-based
learning is inverted, so that students are introduced to the learning material before class
through video or audio, with classroom time then being used to deepen understanding
through discussion with peers and problem-solving activities facilitated by teachers.

5. CONCLUSION.
It is easy to get the impression that our ancestors had some magic formula for the
learning of foreign languages. Henry Sweet proclaimed that 'until everyone recognizes that
there is no royal road to languages... the public will continue to run after one new method
after the other, only to return disappointed to the old routine' and 'nothing will ever make the
learning of languages easy'.
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Despite the ever-expanding literature, learner autonomy remains a minority pursuit,

perhaps because all forms of 'autonomisation' threaten the power structures of educational
culture. The Council of Europe's European Language Portfolio (ELP; Little 2002), however,
is a tool that may bring 'autonomisation' to much larger numbers of learners. The ELP was
first launched as a concept in 1997 and has since been realised in almost 40 different
models, all of which conform to Principles and Guidelines laid down by the Council of Europe
(http://culture.coe.int/portfolio). The ELP has three obligatory components: a language
passport, which summarises the owner's linguistic identity; a language biography, which is
designed to provide a reflective accompaniment to the process of learning and using second
and foreign languages; and a dossier, in which the owner collects evidence of his or her
developing proficiency in second and foreign languages. Perhaps because regular goal
setting and self-assessment are central to its effective use, the ELP has been shown to
engage teachers as well as learners in processes likely to lead to more autonomous learning
(see Schärer 2000, Little and Perclovŕ 2001, Ushioda and Ridley 2002). It seems probable
that in the next few years much of the research relevant to learner autonomy will be
prompted by the desire to explore the impact of the ELP on learners, teachers and
educational systems.
Being rather sceptical about 'magic solutions', we would like, however, to quote here
an authority on the subject, Mary Finocchiaro, who wrote that the best method is "a method
which will work with your student population with your school organization, with your
personality, and in your environment".
This piece of advice is particularly valuable as it does not come from a theoretician of
language but from a very experience teacher who knew the actual classroom environment.

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