Many teachers of English as a Foreign Language have probably been in this situation: in a training course, a course to get a certificate, or even in a random book, they suddenly find the explanation of a different way to teach English. It may be familiar to them, with a few twists, or it may look as if a Martian suddenly arrived on Earth to teach languages. Sometimes it strikes them as a revolutionary breakthrough, and sometimes it seems
like a weird, novel way to teach that does not seem particularly effective.
When one goes over the history of ELT (English Language Teaching), it is tempting to see the development of methods and approaches from an evolutionary standpoint. Behold, for we have since abandoned our old ways of grammar translation and we have reached the pinnacle of communication. Many authors, however, dispute this notion of a natural progression in the methods and approaches we use. Thornbury (2017) explicitly sectionalizes his book on methods based on their core tenets rather than adopting a temporal division. Brown (2000) points out that “[t]he cyclical nature of theories underscores the fact that no single theory or paradigm is right or wrong” while showing how elements of different theories find their way in other theories as well.
I would argue, however, that there are certain approaches that find themselves a little separated from the rest in this cyclical way of viewing the development of methods. Although there are certainly elements from them that are very much in use nowadays, as I will defend in the following paragraphs, the theories themselves are sometimes seen as being remnants of the past. I have heard them being called “the hippie approaches” and “peace and love approaches”. It is my belief that we need to look at them objectively and analyze what can be incorporated into our practice, and what we do that can be traced back to them. Thus, I hope teachers will be able to identify those concepts and take them into account in their principled eclecticism. If we are, as Kumaravadivelu (1994) put it, in the post-method era, it pays to know what methods we can refer to.
To quote Thornbury (2017, p. viii), “For novice teachers (…), methods offer a lifeline. For more experienced teachers, they offer a toolkit”. Here are some flower-in-the-hair tools you might want to revisit.
The approaches from the 1970s
A little of contextualization may be in order. To circle back to the cyclical nature of theories that Brown mentions, this was the time when cutting edge research was pointing to an alternative to the audio-lingual method (i.e., the one involving behaviorist concepts). Although criticism of the latter can be found dating back to 1959 when Chomsky addressed Skinner’s ideas on verbal behavior, it went through most of the 1960s as the de facto main approach to English teaching, as evidenced by the number of papers that presented criticisms to it throughout the decade.
Therefore, much as audio-lingual theories drew from new discoveries in science allied to concepts from previous approaches (such as the emphasis on using exclusively the target language in classes), the new approaches incorporated concepts that were being developed in Linguistics and in the behavioral sciences. The Communicative Approach, for instance, owes a great deal to the revolution in Linguistics that Chomsky started, and as we will see, the 1970s approaches have their own distinct influences as well.
Before we examine them individually, it is worth mentioning that the distinction between what a method is and what an approach is, although useful in many situations, is not the scope of this article. I will use the term “approach” as an umbrella term, observing the definition that Edward Anthony (apud Richards and Rodgers, 2002) gives of it as “a set of correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of language teaching and learning”, i.e., the approaches as they deal with their interpretation of language learning and acquisition, regardless of whether there is a defined group of recommended or essential actions or not.
The four main approaches that are mentioned in this context are: The Natural Approach, Total Physical Response (TPR), The Silent Way, and Suggestopedia. All four of them influence our teaching in the present. It is worth it then to get a brief idea of what they are like and how they are still relevant.
The Natural Approach
The Natural Approach, as developed by Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrell, can be best summed up as a way to emulate language acquisition as it is done by children in their mother tongue (hence the natural aspect of it). A central aspect of this approach is allowing students to speak in the target language only when they decide to do so – the rationale behind it being, since children go through this silent period in their acquisition process, it can be anxiety-inducing to force learners to speak before they feel ready to do so. This psychological aspect, as will be seen, is something of an underlying theme of these 70s approaches, and, I would argue, th main takeaway we can have from them.
Making students comfortable in class is paramount to the Natural Approach because of the concept of Affective Filter. This concept attempts to explain how having strong emotions can influence the learning/acquisition process. Learners who have a higher affective filter would have a harder time acquiring the new language. Conversely, if one were to lower this filter in class, the learning process would be smoother. It is not difficult to see how this can be used in class, and in many approaches, this has become an integral part of teaching.
Another aspect of the Natural Approach that is worth mentioning is the concept of comprehensible input. In class, learners would be exposed to the target language the entire time; the role of the teacher, then, would be to present meaningful input, in the form of i+1, i.e., corresponding to language just a little above what the learner has already acquired. Although this is not applied the same way in most current approaches as Krashen and Terrell envisioned, graded language is an important concept in many different courses.
Of all the 70s approaches, the Natural Approach might be the one with broadest influence, in part due to the fact that, being based on Generative Linguistics as developed by Chomsky, it has a sort of academic pedigree that is not shared by all other approaches, in which the linguistics aspect is sometimes overshadowed by the psychological theories.
Total Physical Response (TPR)
Total Physical Response is an approach based on reacting to language by using the whole body instead of only verbal interactions. Developed by James Asher, a psychologist, it also attempts to emulate an aspect of childhood learning; in this case, the way one can follow instructions and react to them.
Although elements of TPR have been incorporated in different approaches – such as some strategies to use body language instead of L1 for instructions –, a concept that is worth mentioning is the inductive learning of all grammar. Emphasis is given on codebreaking, i.e., acquiring the language through exposure and decoding the meaning from the input.
The Silent Way
The Silent Way is an attempt at making language learning student centered, focusing on problem-solving. Created by mathematician Caleb Gattegno, it is perhaps better known for its emphasis on little to no teacher talk and the use of items such as Cuisenaire rods (which are probably more easily recognizable in Mathematics) and pronunciation charts that can be referenced by teacher and students.
The lower teacher talking time is probably one of the most influential aspects of it, but the use of visuals and auxiliary materials to foster learning is also a key contribution of the Silent Way.
Suggestopedia
Since it was developed by a psychotherapist, Georgi Lazanov, it makes sense that Suggestopedia would also have a strong aspect of making students more receptive to the language learning by having them become more relaxed. In order to achieve that, the environment of the classroom was extremely important. A characteristic that is usually associated with Suggestopedia is the use of music in class, in order to make learners more relaxed.
Wrapping up
Evidently, there is much to be discussed about each of these approaches, and it goes beyond the scope of this article to dissect their intricacies, let alone of other approaches that have fallen out of favor. My main goal is to provide an opening to start this discussion and revisit these theories with the eyes of a post-method world. We do not need to adopt approaches wholesale – but it seems to me wasteful not to consider relevant aspects of these that can be modified or even directly implemented in our classes, and it is definitely worth it to know the origin of concepts that we use daily.
References
ASHER, James. Learning Another Language Through Actions. Sky Oaks, 2012.
BROWN, H. Douglas. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Pearson Longman, 2000.
CHOMSKY, Noah. “A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior” in Language, 35, No. 1 (1959), 26-58.
GATTEGNO, Caleb. Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way. Educational Solutions, 2010.
KRASHEN, Stephen D.; TERRELL, Tracy D. The natural approach: Language acquisition in the classroom. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1983.
KUMARAVADIVELU. “The Postmethod Condition Emerging Strategies for Second Foreign Language Teaching.” In TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring, 1994), pp. 27-48.
LOZANOV, G. Suggestology and suggestopedia. UNESCO, 1968.
MEDDINGS, Luke; THORNBURY, Scott. Teaching Unplugged. Delta Publishing, 2009.
RICHARDS, Jack; RODGERS, Theodore. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
THORNBURY, Scott. Scott’s Thornbury’s 30 Language Teaching Methods, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
USCHI, Felix. “The effects of music, relaxation and other suggestopedic elements in a primary school German class”. In Per Linguam, vol.4, n.2, 1988.
