The first step toward developing a principled approach to language teaching will be to turn back the clock about a century in order to learn from the historical cycles and trends that have brought us to the present day. After all, it is difficult to completely analyze the class session you just observed (Chapter 1) without the backdrop of history. In this chapter we focus on methods as the identifying char- acteristics of a century of “modern” language teaching efforts. What do we mean by the term “method” by which we tend to characterize that history? How do methods reflect various trends of disciplinary thought? How does current research on language learning and teaching help us to distinguish, in our history, between passing fads and “the good stuff"? These are some of the questions we will address in this chapter. In the next chapter, this historical overview culminates in a close look at the current state of the art in language teaching. Above all, you will come to sec how our profession is now more aptly characterized by a relatively unified, comprehen- sive “approach” rather than by competing, restricted methods. That general approach will be described in detail, along with some of the current professional jargon associated with it As you read on, you will encounter references to concepts, constructs, issues, and models that are normally covered in a course in second language acquisition (GLA). I am assuming that you have already taken or are currently taking such a course. If not, may I recommend that you consult my Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, Fourth Edition (2000), or a book like Mitchell and Myles Second Language Learning Theories (1998) that summarizes current topics ' and issues in SLA. Throughout this book I will refer here and there to specified chapters of my Principles book (PLET) for background review or reading, should you necd it.14 awertr 2A "Methodical” History of Language Teaching APPROACH, METHOD, AND TECHNIQUE In the century spanning the mid-1880s to the mid-1980s, the language-teaching pro- fession was involved in a search. That search was for what was popularly called “methods; or ideally, a single method, generalizable across widely varying audi- ences, that would successfully teach students a foreign language in the classroom. Historical accounts of the profession tend therefore to describe 2 succession of methods, each of which is more or less discarded as a new method takes its place. ‘We will turn to that“methodical” history of language teaching in a moment, but first, we should try to understand what we mean by method. What is « method? About four decades ago Edward Anthony (1963) gave us a definition that has admirably withstood the test of time. His concept of “method” was the second of three hierarchical elements, namely approach, method, and tech- nique. An approach, according to Anthony, was a set of assumptions dealing with the nature of language, learning, and teaching. Method was described as an overall plan for systematic presentation of language based upon a selected approach. ‘Techniques were the specific activities manifested in the classroom that were con- sistent with a method and therefore were in harmony with an approach as well. To this day, for better or worse, Anthony's terms are still in common usc among language teachers. A teacher may, for example, at the approach level, affirm the ulti- mate importance of learning in a relaxed state of mental awareness just above the threshold of consciousness. The method that follows might resemble, say, ‘Suggestopedia (a description follows in this chapter). Techniques could include playing baroque music while reading a passage in the foreign language, getting stu- dents to sit in the yoga position while listening to a list of words, or having learners adopt a new name in the classroom and role-play that new person. ‘A couple of decades later, Jack Richards and Theodore Rodgers (1982, 1986) proposed a reformulation of the concept of “method” Anthony's approach, method, and technique were renamed, respectively, approach, design, and proce- dure, with a superordinate term to describe this three-step process, now called “method” A method, according to Richards and Rodgers, was “an umbrella term for the specification and interrelation of theory and practice” (1982: 154). An approach defines assumptions, belicfs, and theories about the nature of language and language learning. Designs specify the relationship of those theories to classroom matcrials and activities. Procedures are the techniques and practices that are derived from one’s approach and design. ‘Through their reformulation, Richards and Rodgers made two principal contri- butions to our understanding of the concept of method: 1. They specified the necessary elements of language-teaching designs that had heretofore been left somewhat vague. Their schematic representation of method (sce Fig. 2.1) described six important features of designs: objectives,Ye Quinoa ‘cumrreR 2A “Methodical” History of Language Teaching 15 syllabus (criteria for selection and organization of linguistic and subject- matter content), activities, learner roles, teacher roles, and the role of instruc- tional materials. The latter three features have occupied a significant proportion of our collective attention in the profession for the last decade or 50. Already in this book you may have noted how, for example, learner roles (styles, individual preferences for group or individual learning, student input in determining curricular content, etc.) are important considerations in your teaching, Mo 2. Richards and Rodgers nudged us into at last relinquishing the notion that sep- arate, definable, discrete methods are the essential building blocks of method- ology. By helping us to think in terms of an approach that undergirds our language designs (curricula), which are realized by various procedures (tech- niques), we could see that methods, as we still use and understand the term, are too restrictive, too pre-programmed, and too “pre-packaged.” Virtually all language-teaching methods make the oversimplified assumption that what teachers “do” in the classroom can be conventionalized into a set of proce- dures that fit all contexts, We are now all too aware that such is clearly not the case. As we shall sce in the next chapter, the whole concept of separate methods is no longer a central issue in language-teaching practice. Instead, we currently make ample reference to“methodology”as our superordinate umbrella term, reserving the term “method” for somewhat specific, identifiable clusters of theoretically compat- ible classroom techniques. So, Richards and Rodgers's reformulation of the concept of method was soundly conceived; however, their attempt to give new meaning to an old term did not catch on in the pedagogical literature. What they wanted us to call"method’ is more com- fortably referred to,1 think, as “methodology” in order to avoid confusion with what we will no doubt always think of as those separate entities (like Audiolingual or Suggestopedia) that are no longer at the center of our teaching philosophy. Another terminological problem lies in the use of the term designs; instead, we more comfortably refer to curricula or syllabuses when we refer to design features of a language program. ‘What are we left with in this lexicographic confusion? It is interesting that the terminology of the pedagogical literature in the field appears to be more in line with Anthony's original terms, but with some important additions and refinements. Following is a sct of definitions that reflect the current usage and that will be used in this book. pero do wld aw Methodology: Pedagogical practices in general (including theoretical under- pinnings and related research). Whatever considerations are involved in “how to feactr*are methodological.16 uarreR 2A “Methodical” History of Language Teaching Approach: Theoretically well-informed positions and beliefs about the nature of language, the nature of language learning, and the applicability of both to peda- gogical settings. Method: A generalized set of classroom specifications for accomplishing guistic objectives. Methods tend to be concerned primarily with teacher and stu- dent roles and behaviors and secondarily with such features as linguistic and subject-matter objectives, sequencing, and materials. They are almost always thought of as being broadly applicable to a variety of audiences in a variety of contexts. Curriculum/syllabus: Designs for carrying out a particular language pro- gram, Features include a primary concern with the specification of linguistic and subject-matter objectives, sequencing, and materials to meet the needs of a desig- nated group of learners in a defined context. (The term “syllabus” is usually used more customarily in the United Kingdom to refer to what is called a“curriculum” in the United States.) Technique (also commonly referred to by other terms):* Any of a wide variety of exercises, activities, or tasks used in the language classroom for realizing lesson objectives. CHANGING WINDS AND SHIFTING SANDS Aglance through the past century or so of language teaching will give an interesting picture of how varied the interpretations have been of the best way to teach a for- eign language. As disciplinary schools of thought—psychology, linguistics, and education, for example—have come and gone, so have language-teaching methods waxed and waned in popularity. Teaching methods, as “approaches in action are of course the practical application of theoretical findings and positions. Ina field such as ours that is relatively young, it should come as no surprise to discover a wide variety of these applications over the last hundred years, some in total philosophical opposition to others. Albert Marckwardt (1972: 5) saw these “changing winds and shifting sands” as a cyclical pattern in which a new method emerged about every quarter of a century. Each new method broke from the old but took with it some of the positive aspects * There is currently quite an intermingling of such terms as “technique,“task/“proce- dure," activity” and “exercise,” often used in somewhat free variation across the profes- sion. Of these terms, task has received the most concerted attention, viewed by such scholars as Peter Skehan (1998a) as incorporating specific communicative and peda- gogical principles. Tasks, according to Skehan and others, should be thought of as a special kind of technique and, in fact, may actually include more than one technique. 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A good example of this cyclical nature of methods is found in the “revolutionary” Audiolingual Method (ALM) (a description follows) of the mid-twentieth century. The ALM borrowed tenets from its predecessor the Direct Method by almost half a century while breaking away entirely from the Grammar Translation Method. Within a short time, however, ALM critics were advocating more attention to thinking, to cognition, and to rule learning, which to some smacked of a return to Grammar Translation! What follows is a sketch of the changing winds and shifting sands of language teaching over the years. THE GRAMMAR TRANSLATION METHOD A historical sketch of the last hundred years of language-teaching must be set in the context of a prevailing, customary language-teaching “tradition” For centuries, there were few if any theoretical foundations of language learning upon which to base teaching methodology. In the Western world, “foreign” language learning in schools was synonymous with the learning of Latin or Greek. Latin, thought to promote intellectuality through “mental gymnastics,’ was until relatively recently held to be indispensable to an adequate higher education, Latin was taught by means of what has been called the Classical Method: focus on grammatical rules, memorization of vocabulary and of various declensions and conjugations, translations of texts, doing written exercises. As other languages began to be taught in educational institutions in the eigh- teenth and nineteenth centuries, the Classical Method was adopted as the chief means for teaching foreign languages. Little thought was given at the time to teaching someone how to speak the language; after all, languages were not being taught primarily to learn oral/aural communication, but to learn for the sake of being “scholarly” or, in some instances, for gaining a reading proficiency in a foreign language. Since there was little if any theoretical research on second language acquisition in general or on the acquisition of reading proficiency, foreign languages ‘were taught as any other skill was taught. In the nineteenth century the Classical Method came to be known as the Grammar Translation Method. There was litde to distinguish Grammar ‘Translation from what had gone on in foreign language classrooms for centuries beyond a focus on grammatical rules as the basis for translating from the second to the native language. Remarkably, the Grammar Translation Method withstood attempts at the turn of the twentieth century to “reform” language-teaching method- ology (see Gouin’s Series Method and the Direct Method, below), and to this day it is practiced in too many educational contexts. Prator and Celce-Murcia (1979: 3) listed the major characteristics of Grammar Translation: 1. Classes are taught in the mother tongue, with little active use of the target language.querer 2A “Methodical” History of Language Teaching 19 2. Much vocabulary is taught in the form of lists of isolated words. 3. Long, elaborate explanations of the intricacies of grammar are given. 4, Grammar provides the rules for putting words together, and instruction often focuses on the form and inflection of words. 5. Reading of difficult classical texts is begun early. 6. Little attention is paid to the content of texts, which are treated as exercises in grammatical analysis. 7. Often the only drills are exercises in translating disconnected sentences from the target language into the mother tongue. 8. Little or no attention is given to pronunciation. It is ironic that this method has until very recently been so stalwart among many competing models. It does virtually nothing to enhance a student's commu- nicative ability in the language. It is “remembered with distaste by thousands of school leamers, for whom foreign language learning meant a tedious experience of memorizing endless lists of unusable grammar rules and vocabulary and attempting to produce perfect translations of stilted or literary prose” (Richards & Rodgers 1986: 4), ~~ On the other hand, one can understand why Grammar ‘Transtation remains so popular. It requires few specialized skills on the part of teachers, Tests of grammar rules and of translations are easy to construct and can be objectively scored. Many standardized tests of foreign languages still do not attempt to tap into communica tive abilities, so students have little motivation to go beyond grammar analogies, translations, and rote exercises. And it is sometimes successful in leading a student toward a reading knowledge of 2 second language. But, as Richards and Rodgers (1986: 5) pointed out, “it has no advocates. It is a method for which there is no theory. There is no literature that offers a rationale or justification for it or that attempts to relate it to issues in linguistics, psychology, or educational theory” As you continue to examine language+eaching methodology in this book, I think you will understand more fully the “theory-lessness” of the Grammar Transiation Method. GOUIN AND THE SERIES METHOD ‘The history of “modern” foreign language teaching may be said to have begun in the late 1800s with Frangois Gouin, a French teacher of Latin with remarkable insights. History doesn’t normally credit Gouin as a founder of language-teaching method- ology because, at the time, his influence was overshadowed by that of Charles Berlitz, the popular German founder of the Direct Method, Nevertheless, some attention to Gouin’s unusually perceptive observations about language teaching helps us to set the stage for the development of language-eaching methods for the century following the publication of his book, The Art of Learning and Studying Foreign Languages, in 1880.