ENG 345 Methods and Materials - Week 5

Bax -  The End of CLT

"Here we have the main problem of CLT-- by its very emphasis on communication, and implicitly on methodology, it relegates and sidelines the context in which we teach, and therefore gives out the suggestion that CLT will work anywhere--" p 281

"Any training course should therefore make it a priority to teach not only methodology but also a heightened awareness of contextual factors, and an ability to deal with them--" p 283

"Good teachers naturally take account of the context in which they teach-- the culture, the students, and so on-- even when they hold that CLT is essentially the answer." p 284

Stephen Bax in this article argues that the CLT methodology overlooks or marginalizes the issue of classroom context, and then goes on to suggest an alternative approach to CLT called the Context Approach. As the name implies, the approach places at the forefront the context of the ESL/EFL classroom.

In the context approach, the teacher is responsible for understanding "individual students and their learning needs, wants, styles, and strategies... as well as the coursebook, local conditions, the classroom culture, school culture, national culture, and so on, as far as is possible at the time of teaching." (285)

The teacher then "identifies as suitable approach and language focus" (285) which is reliant upon the context analysis.

Response: I agree with Bax when he says that the profession needs to move beyond CLT and focus more on context. It seems intuitive that there should be no one Method with a capital 'M', free to be used anywhere regardless of the context in which it is being used. This article was written ten years ago, I wonder how the profession has responded Bax's intended paradigm shift away from CLT. The only thing that concerns me is the amount of responsibility that is placed on the individual teacher. Like, I wonder if I am even completely aware of my own context as a student in this very class*, so how would I even begin to assess the context of the classroom I'll supposedly be teaching in? So much, I feel, goes into being aware of all the things Bax suggests that a teacher be aware of, that it seems like an overwhelming task. Perhaps teachers should also be trained on how to look at context/culture.

*and further I wonder if this lack of awareness of context is in fact a result of the context I am a product of.


Hu - Potential Cultural Resistance to Pedagogical Imports


In this article Hu argues that transplanting CLT into the People's Republic of China ELT programs is problematic. This problem arises due to the differences in education philosophy between the origins of CLT and the traditional or mainstream attitudes toward education held by people in China. There are certain different expectations for how a classroom should be run in either (CLT vs. Chinese pedagogy) system. This does not mean however, Hu argues, that there are not parts of the CLT method that could work within a Chinese ELT classroom.

Response: This seems to me like a good example of how being unaware of the culture and context that you work in can be detrimental to the sort of ELT teaching you wish to do. Being aware of these classroom expectations is very important, it seems like. I just wonder what sort of information is out there like this for all the cultures, or if this research still needs to be done and organized and presented to local teachers in an efficient manner.

Skehan - Task-based instruction review

"The teacher, in other words, has to be prepared for learners to take interactions in whatever direction they choose. Then the teacher has to be ready to provide the unpredictable help that will be required." (p 11)

This article discussed the finer points of the theories that influence task-basked instruction. The author is very well read (to an overwhelming degree sometimes). The article covers the origins of task-based instruction, the prevailing perspectives on task-based instruction (cognitive, sociocultural, psycholinguistic, etc), how performance is measure in task-based instruction, how tasks are used in a classroom, and then finally some critiques of task-based instruction. It is a lot to cover in a short article. Very densely packed.