Book: So you’ve
decided to be a language teacher!”
Me: well, yes,
should I be scared?
Book: “you definitely
choose a profession that will guarantee you more that your fair share of
challenges, growth, joy, and fulfillment”.
The
little conversation I had when I opened the book. It was also interesting
because I have never seen a book with such opening.
I
was glad to finally learn about the history of language teaching and how it
came about. It was also interesting to learn the different types of methods that
were used in the past. Methods such as the grammar translation, the direct
method, the audio-lingual method, etc… Although for several of them I did not quite
understand how people could see it as beneficial, for example The Silent Way. Like
any other method, it has both pros and cons. But it was hard for me to wrap my
head around the idea of learning a language through the use of (cusiniere) rods.
The purpose of learning a language it to be able to communicate with others
therefore, in my opinion, the use of rods just about defeats the purpose because
there is no communication involved in the process. The quote by Marckwards
“changing winds and shifting sands” essentially summarized how and why over the
past decades there have been new methods. Even in present day, the same pattern is repeated.
A new theory or method is introduce, then the world ( educator, psychologist, etc.…)
evaluate it, selecting the parts that produce the most positive outcome, methods
starting with the classical method all the way down to the natural approach.
As
educator we tend to be on a search for what is best for our students, what
methods we can use to help them achieve.
So as new methods of learning language developed, they were used,
analyzed, and criticized. The parts deemed most successful were kept in hopes that
overtime a perfect method can be devised. But as Prabhu mentioned in her
article just because we blend “what is true of each method does not mean that
it has any more truth that any other methods” (167). Just because we blend certain aspect of a
method we see truth/ successful, it does mean we have created the perfect
method. Before this week’s reading, I always believed that if I retrieve
different components of different methods I deemed truth, then I would be
getting closer to achieving the unrealistic task of created the perfect method
for all learners. But that is not the case anymore. Combining different parts
of different methods only creates another method that “shares some concepts
with other methods” (168). We often
think that a good method is one that works and the bad one is one that does
not, but reading this article helped me realized that is not the case. It is not about good or bad, rather it is
about if the method is “active, alive and operational to create a sense of
involvement” for both parties (173). If we believe to have found the perfect
method, we tend to stop evolving, renovating or even update our methods, and
overtime we become robotic and the very perfect method we thought to have developed
deteriorates. With time, the perfect method starts failing.
Switching back to the beginning of the
article, I completely agree with Prabhu, too often we use the term “there is no
best method” to run away from a heated debate or to avoid confrontation. Often, expressions like these are often praise
because there are looked upon as going to the next level. But what is the
purpose of going to the next level to just quickly end the discussion? And for
too long and I agree with that. But on the other hand, it seems that if I was
to engage in a discussion about learning strategies and methods, the
conversation would be infinite because the learning strategies and methods are
endless. So how do you end such conversation? Is there such think as ending a conversation
that deals with language learning strategies?
To
end my post, I would like to add this quote that I found very inspirational “the
enemy of good teaching is not a bad method but overroutinisation”. As a
pre-service teacher my biggest fear is that I will always choose the worst
method for my students, but with this quote I get reassurances. The only way
for me to fail as a teacher is if I become frozen in a routine.
