tailieunhanh - A Brief History of Language Teaching

Tham khảo tài liệu 'a brief history of language teaching', ngoại ngữ, anh văn giao tiếp phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | 3. Integration not eclecticism: a brief history of language teaching, 1853 – 2003 Abstract The purpose of this article is to give some context to the current discussions abounding in language teaching classrooms around the world. I think it is essential to judge the most recently marketed approaches in the light of what has gone before. And following Thomas Kuhn, who wrote the seminal The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, my suggestion is that we integrate and account for, rather than sweep away, past approaches. Introduction Below is a potted history of the most well-known approaches and attitudes to language in the second language classroom over the last hundred years or so. As you will notice, many of the themes get recycled in different forms, but each time a ‘new’ approach develops it adds a slightly different perspective and expands our understanding. All of these approaches were seen to work at some point, and so none can be discounted. It is my absolute conviction that every one still has its place in the grand pantheon of language-teaching approaches, and that aware experienced teachers will be able to utilise all of them in an intuitive, and yet consciously integrated way, in their classrooms. 1850s – 1950s: Grammar Translation How language was taught in most schools; grammar was taught as a set of rules (. verb conjugations) after the classical languages, Latin and Greek; practice was done through written exercises; the medium of instruction was the mother tongue; vocabulary was learnt via translated lists, often related to the comprehension of written texts; written text was seen as the ‘real’ language, superior to the spoken version; written texts were translated and composition in L2 was regarded as the apex of language ability; speaking and listening were seen as less important, and mediated via ‘conversation classes’ which were tagged on as extras to the main course. 1890s – now: Direct Method Specific to the Berlitz chain of schools, started