My English Pages

Ecological approach
The ecological approach in language learning highlights the comprehensive development of language skills within context.  Like organisms living in an environment, speakers interact in a context “to integrate into and to influence their discourse  community.”  In this perspective learners are not viewed only as brains to be filled with structures and vocabulary, but also as whole persons living and moving in a specific environment.
To learn more about this approach check out

this article about the Ecological Approach to Language Teaching
or this interesting post by Scott Thornbury: E is for Ecology

Since the publication of the “Lexical Approach” by Michael Lewis in 1993, Language teaching practices have been widely reviewed and discussed. So what are the features of the  Lexical Approach? Is it a revolution in the profession of language teaching or just an evolution? What are its claims?  How can it be implemented in the classroom?

The natural approach developed by Tracy Terrell and supported by Stephen Krashen,is a language teaching approach which claims that language learning is a reproduction of the way humans naturally acquire their native language. The approach adheres to a communicative approach to language teaching and rejects earlier methods such as the audiolingual method and the situational laguage teaching approach which Krashen and terrell (1983) believe are not based on “actual theories of language acquisition but theories of the structure of language “

As the language theories underlying the Audiolingual method and the Sitiuational Language Teaching method were questioned by prominent linguists like Chomsky (1957) during the 1960s, a new trend of language teaching paved its way into classrooms. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Which is an approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages, emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language. It is also referred to as “Communicative Approach”. Historically, CLT has been seen as a response to the Audio-Lingual Method (ALM), and as …

Content based instruction (CBI) is a teaching approach that focuses on learning languge through learning about something. Although CBI is not new, there has been an increased interest in it because  it has proven very effective in ESL and EFL  programs around the world.

The Oral Approach or Situational Language Teaching is  an approach developed by British applied linguists in the 1930s to the 1960s. It is little known by many language teachers although it had an impact on language courses and was still used in the design of many widely used EF/ESL  textbooks in the 1980s such as Streamline English (Hartley and Viney 1979).

Total Physical Response is a language teaching method which is based on the assumption that the coordination of speech and action will boost language learning. It was developed by  James Asher in the 70s He drew from a variety of areas,  including psychology, learning theory and humanistic pedagogy.

The origin of Suggestopedia
Suggestopedia is a language teaching method developed by the Bulgarian psychologist, Georgi Lozanov (see picture on the right.) Like Community Language Learning and the Silent Way Method, Suggestopedia is an innovative method that promises great effective language learning results. Lozanov claimed that by using this method one can teach languages approximately three to five times as quickly as conventional methods.

The Silent Way
The Chomskyan criticism of the theories upon which the audiolingual method was founded led to an interest in  not only the affective factors but also on the cognitive factors.  While Community Language Learning, drawing from Carl Roger’s philosophy, focused on the importance of the affect, new methods were developed in the 70s to highlight the cognitive domain in language learning. The Silent Way is one of these innovative methods. In Fact, Caleb Gattegno, the founder of the Silent Way,devoted his thinking to the importance of problem solving approach …

The following definitions are mainly based on works by H. Douglas Brown (1987) and Richards and Rodgers (1986)
Methodology
The word “methodology” is frequently used when “method” would be more accurate. Methodology refers to more than a simple set of methods. It is the rationale and the philosophical assumptions that underlie a particular study. In language teaching, methodology means the study of pedagogical practices in general, including theoretical implications and related research.  It includes what is involved in how to teach.