There are quite a few terms or shall I say buzz words that seem to be juggled again and again when discussing the topic. I’ll try to jot most of them down to help myself get the gist of the subject matter – in a way it is all about familiar phenomena being labelled/tagged with fussy names. Likewise, the list of collocations I am going to compile is likely to help me to learn to talk fluently about issues pertaining to the topic:
- the basis of destructive ethnocentricity
- to see dynamics of change
- a cultural market place where ideas and practices are traded between different groups according to their needs
- expatriate teachers
- curriculum developers
- observations of classroom events
- relating to their own (diverse) social contexts
- to embark upon thick description (ie not the whole picture, fragments only)
- the imperialist paradigm (commonly quoted limitations : patronising, seems to work on the West-against-the-developing-world principle only)
- the complex nature of the diverse social contexts surrounding English language education (ELE)
- the propensity (ie a natural tendency that you have to behave in a particular way) for breakdown in communication
- methodologies for designing curricula
- to prescribe syllabuses before considering the (linguistic) needs of students (ie to put the cart before the horse)
- to rectify the state of affairs
- to enable student (language) needs to drive syllabuses
- to make ELE more appropriate to the social requirements of students and educators alike in different environments throughout the world
According to A. Holliday, the author of Appropriate Methodology & Social Context, there are three basic types of appropriate methodology for classroom teaching (p.1)
Type |
Activities |
| the methodology for carrying out the work of teaching English or for doing ELE | what the T does in the classroom, ie methods and approaches; the work of training or educating Ts. |
| the methodology for carrying out the work of designing & managing ELE aka Curriculum Development | writing textbooks and examinations; designing, setting up and managing larger projects for developing anything from textbooks to teacher training curricula |
| the methodology for collecting the information* about the particular social context in question | *which Ts/curriculum developers need to make the other two methodologies described above appropriate NB This methodology in its turn also has to be appropriate to the social context (A Holliday argues for ethnographic action research & social investigation in a gradual, non-prescriptive way) |
CMI & EFL/ESL 