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ELT Methodology
How busy we have been! After nearly a century of investigating and theorising about the nature of language and learning; of trying and testing an array of teaching methodologies, including some quite bizarre ones, we have finally called off the search for our Holy Grail - a be-all-and-end-all perfect language-teaching method. It is widely accepted that there is no one and only fail-safe ELT method and there will probably never be one. However, although no perfect method has ever been found the developmental history or 'evolution' of ELT methodology has not been in vain.
Eclecticism
We draw upon the rich tradition of language teaching methodologies to provide us with many useful and interesting technical and methodological resources which we can use in the classroom. Today, most would agree that this eclectic approach, though far from being a panacea for the shortcomings of the teaching methodologies of the past, is probably the soundest pedagogically.
Eclecticism is not simply "take the best from a hotch-potch of methodologies and dump the rest". Eclecticism must be principled. From the many EFL methodologies of the past we must choose to adhere to the most academically accepted theories of language and language learning and select from a mosaic of ideas, materials and activities what is most relevant to the particular needs of the learners. We can draw freely from the Direct Method - we use the target language wherever possible; from Structural/Audio-Lingual Method - we are systematic about the learning of language and give learners plenty of controlled practice; from the Communicative Approach - that reminds us that language is a tool for exchanging feelings and ideas and for getting people to do things; from the Humanistic Approaches, like the Silent Way and Suggestopaedia - that remind us that learners are individuals with their own feelings and needs that must be wholly involved in learning; from Krashen's Natural Approach - we understand the differences and similarities between language acquisition and learning; from Chomsky - we appreciate the cognitive nature of language learning; and from the Lexical Approach - we appreciate the importance of lexis and multi-word "chunking" in communication.
Grammar-Translation
But what about the old Grammar-Translation Method?
Although we recognise the role that mother tongue (L1) has on second language learning (L 2) and that mother tongue is a huge reservoir for learners to draw upon, we are reluctant to use text translation as a teaching technique. The Grammar-Translation Method has been so discredited that teachers may not have ever considered its potential.
The purpose of the Grammar-Translation Method was principally to help students read and appreciate foreign language literature. It was also hoped that through the study of the grammar of the target language students would become more familiar with their the grammar of their own language. Finally, it was thought that the study would help students grow intellectually. Often the target language had no practical use, like Latin, but its study was seen as a worthy intellectual pursuit.
It had the following principles,
- instruction was given in the students' native language
- there was little use of the target language
- grammar was taught from a text book
- grammar was taught deductively
- the principle skills practised were reading and writing
- there was early reading of difficult classical texts
- a typical exercise was to translate sentences from the target language into the mother tongue
- learning was facilitated through attention to the similarities between L1 and L2
I do not advocate the return of grammar translation per se to the classroom,
since there are a number of principles that are rather dubious in the light of current knowledge. There are, however, a number of principles that can be exploited in the modern eclectic classroom, particularly for writing practice with lower levels and/or children. I will speak of these shortly.
Product and Process
Writing considerations
In recent years there has been a move way from a product-focused approach to writing towards a process approach. The product-focused type concentrates on producing different kinds of written products and emphasises the imitation of different kinds of model texts. Errors in writing are avoided by providing learners with models to follow or by guiding and controlling what the learners write, in order to prevent them from making errors. For example, students are required to expand model texts or make minor changes and substitutions to them. Students do not have the freedom to create their own compositions.
A process approach emphasises the composing processes writers make use of in writing, such as planning, drafting and revising, and seeks to improve students' writing skills by developing their use of composing processes. The process approach concentrates more on the means rather than the end. Students are free to construct their own compositions and are encouraged to use all the cognitive processes that are naturally required in order to do so.
As with grammar translation, I do not advocate the wholesale return of product-focused writing, since it too relies on certain discredited principles. However, the synthesis of translation and guided writing can provide some beneficial and rewarding writing practice for lower levels and children's classes.
Reasons for Using Guided Writing and Translation
I am not advocating translation from L2 to L1, as in traditional grammar translation methodology - there is little to be gained from translating a text from English to Portuguese since it is English, after all, that we want to practice. Students read in Portuguese and have to translate to English. This should not be seen so much as a translation exercise but rather one in guided writing. Here are some of the reasons for adopting such an approach:
- Guided writing can be useful for lower levels and/or children's classes because it provides writing practice that concentrates only on the linguistic elements of writing. The students do not have to think about organisation or the reader, etc, or about using their imagination in order to write. This can be left to process writing practice.
- Learning can be facilitated through the comparison of the similarities between L1 and L2.
- It is cognitive. Students must bring all their language knowledge to achieve the task - grammatical, lexical and semantic .
- It lends itself to mono- and bilingual dictionary work - Let's face it, it is not realistic to deny access to bilingual dictionaries when all of us use them all the time when we are studying a new language!
- It lends itself to correction by the teacher. This is an important part of the technique: the teacher's role includes reading the students' work while they are producing it and using a familiar writing correction scheme to point out errors as they are made and allow the students to correct themselves.
- It is ideal for peer correction.
- It is ideal for pairwork
- It is satisfying to complete.
- It can be incorporated into a broader classroom task.
- Not only does it use authentic material but for many learners the task itself is authentic too, since they may be required to translate at university or in the workplace.
Conclusion
To summarise, the combination of guided writing and translation does not represent any radical departure from or addition to the generally accepted Eclectic Approach. It can simply be another technique in the teacher's repertoire, one that he/she can use from time to time like any other. Limited translation is not necessarily taboo.
There follows a typical example of a guided writing and translation task.
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Level:
Lower intermediate
Time: 30 minutes
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Aims:
To provide English writing practice
To provide dictionary work
To provide self-correction instigated by teacher and peers
To set up a follow-up reading task
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Preparation
Choose an interesting magazine article in Portuguese related to the topic you are currently working on.
Criteria for suitability include the complexity of the Portuguese language in the article, the amount of visual material included (photos) and the relevance of the article to the topic being dealt with in the class.
In this instance, in the context of working on the theme "Animals", I have taken extracts from the article "Atirar a matar" by John Davison, translated by Nuno Debonnaire, which appeared in the magazine Grande Reportagem, 2ª série, Nº. 83, February 1998, pp. 52-59. [The Editor acknowledges with thanks permission to reproduce these extracts, and reminds readers that magazine articles should not be photocopied without permission.]
Cut out and photocopy the paragraphs onto part of separate sheets of paper, so that your students can write their translation on the other part (see step 4). In this instance, there are five paragraphs in all, reproduced below.
Cut out any photographs you want to use and mount them onto card.
Make mono- and bilingual dictionaries available to the students.
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Procedure
- Introduce the activity by showing the students the photos you have selected. Elicit what they can see. Tell them that they are going to read an article related to the photos and try to get them to predict its content.
- Hand out the sheets of paper so that each student gets one paragraph.
- Tell them to read their paragraph and to check their prediction.
- Now they translate their respective paragraphs (preferably in pencil, for ease of rubbing out to make corrections, because their work will need to be legible for steps 8 and 9). They should write next to/below the paragraph on the same sheet of paper. (See below - the students' work here, though transcribed, has been left uncorrected.) Tell them not to translate word-for-word, rather sentence by sentence, according to the meaning. Also stress that it is not primarily a translation task but a writing one. It is more important to convey the content of their paragraphs in English than to translate strictly.
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Go from student to student reading the work and indicating errors using a correction scheme the students are familiar with. Encourage them to correct themselves. Concentrate on the correctness of the language rather than its accuracy as a translation.
- Once the students have finished writing, tell them to fold over the top of their sheets of paper to hide the original text.
- Put the students into groups seated around a table, organised so that each group has an example of each paragraph (in other words the whole article, or the whole of the extract you have chosen).
- Now ask them to pass their sheet to the person on their right, who should then read it. If the students fail to understand anything, tell them to clarify the matter with the author. Similarly if they notice a mistake they are to point it out. Tell them to continue to read and pass the translated paragraphs around until they have read them all.
- Put each group to work together in order to put the paragraphs into order.
- From this point on, you can further exploit the article as you would with any other text in a normal reading-skills lesson.
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| Variation
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Instead of making multiple copies of the same article or extract, each group can have a different text. As a follow up in step 10, the students can then construct questions about their article and swap the article and questions with another table. Each group then answers the questions about their new text.
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| Examples: |
| Na República Centro-Africana, a União Europeia gasta milhões de dólares num programa para preservar a vida selvagem
e no Parque Manovo-Gounda-St. Floris
a guerra é a sério e diária entre os guardas
e os caçadores furtivos. |
In Central-African Republic, the Unian
European spend millions of dolars in
a program to preserve wildlife and in
Manovo-Gounda-St. Floris Park the war
is daily and serious between the guards
and the poachers. |
| Na orla sul do parque nacional existem áreas para caça profissional destinadas ao usufruto de milionários, ávidos de troféus de caça,
na sua maioria originários dos Estados Unidos da América.
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In the south strip of the National Park
there are profissional hunting areas
for the millionaires enjoyment, (greedy
of hunting trophys) in his majority from
the United States of America. |
| Um dos objectivos deste programa foi
sempre direccionar parte das somas pagas pelos caçadores para projectos que beneficiassem directamente as comunidades locais, benefício que pode ser incalculável sobretudo nestas regiões que se encontram tão afastadas dos governos central e regional. Por enquanto, esta política já resultou na construção de uma escola e de um hospital
e no emprego e treino de gente local. |
One of the objectives of this programme
was always management part of the money
paid by hunters to projects that would benefit
directely the local comunities. Benefits
that can be incaluclable specially to regions
far from the governements central and
regional. ... |
| Com todas as outras, também estas zonas sofreram gravemente com a caça furtiva. Assim, em primeiro lugar, abriram-se trilhos para melhorar os acessos, depois organizou-se a patrulha das zonas por guardas. O programa passou a controlar, efectivamente, três dessas áreas de caça.
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Like all others, also these areas suffered
gravely with the poaching. Like this,
in first place, there were opened tracks
to improve the access. Than there were
organized a zone patrolled by guards.
The programme efectivily controls
three of that hunting areas. |
| Na linha da frente da luta pela defesa da fauna selvagem, na República Centro-Africana, morrem homens regularmente numa guerra pela sobrevivência dos animais. Contra os caçadores furtivos vindos dos países vizinhos, os guardas - financiados
pela União Europeia - aplicam uma política abertamente declarada de atirar a matar. "Sim, praticamos a política de atirar a matar contra cidadãos estrangeiros, apanhados
a matar ilegalmente os nossos animais,"
afirma Gavin Howard, um antigo major
dos Royal Irish Rangers. "Os nacionais
são julgados e metidos na cadeia."
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In the Central-African Republic, on the front
line for the defence of the wild fauna, many men
regularly die in a war for animals survival.
Financed by the Union European, against
the pachers that come from neighbour
countries, the guards aply a declared open politic
of shoot to kill. "Yes, we do the politic of shoot
to kill against the foreigns citizents, caught
hunting our animals out of law" say an old major
of Royal Irish Rangers, Gavin Howard. "The
nacionals are judged and put in the jail".
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