Through their reformulation, Richards and Rodgers made two principal contributions to our understanding of the concept of method:
1.They specified the necessary elements of language teaching "designs" that had heretofore been left somewhat vague. They named six important features of "designs": objectives, syllabus (criteria for selection and organization of linguistic and subject-matter content), activities, learner roles, teacher roles, and the role of instructional materials.
2.Richards and Rodgers nudged us into at last relinquishing the notion that separate, definable, discrete methods are the essential building blocks of methodology. By helping us think in terms of an approach that undergirds our language designs (or, we could say, curricula), which are realized by
various procedures (or techniques), we could see that methods, as we still use and understand the term, are too restrictive, too pre-programmed, and too "pre-packaged." Virtually all language teaching methods make the oversimplified assumption that what teachers "do" in the classroom can be conventionalized into a set of procedures that fits all contexts. We are now well aware that such is clearly not the case.
Richards and Rodgers's reformulation of the concept of method was soundly conceived; however, their attempt to give new meaning to an old term did not catch on in the pedagogical literature. What they would like us to call "method" is more comfortably referred to, I think, as "methodology," in order to avoid confusion with what we will no doubt always think of as those separate entities (like Audiolingual or Suggestopedia) that are no longer at the center of our teaching philosophy.
Another terminological problem lies in the use of the term "designs"; instead, we now more comfortably refer to "curricula" or "syllabuses" when we discuss design features of a language program.
What are we left with in this lexicographic confusion? It is interesting that the terminology of the pedagogical literature in the field appears to be more in line with Anthony's original terms, but with some important additions and refinements. Following is a set of definitions that reflect the current usage.
Methodology: The study of pedagogical practices in general (including theoretical underpinnings and related research). Whatever considerations are involved in "how to teach" are methodological.
Approach: Theoretical positions and beliefs about the nature of language, the nature of language learning, and the applicability of both to pedagogical settings.
Method: A generalized, prescribed set of classroom specifications for accomplishing linguistic objectives. Methods tend to be primarily concerned with teacher and student roles and behaviors, and secondarily with such features as linguistic and subject-matter objectives, sequencing, and materials. They are almost always thought of as being broadly applicable to a variety of audiences in a variety of contexts.
Curriculum/syllabus: Designs for carrying out a particular language program. Features include a primary concern with the specification of linguistic and subject-matter objectives, sequencing, and materials to meet the needs of a designated group of learners in a defined context. (The term "syllabus" is used more customarily in the United Kingdom to refer to what is referred to as a "curriculum" in the United States.)
Technique (also commonly referred to by other terms)1: Any of a wide variety of exercises, activities, or devices used in the language classroom for realizing lesson objectives.
And so, ironically, the methods that were such strong signposts of a century of language teaching are no longer of great consequence in marking our progress. How did that happen?
In the 1970s and early 1980s, there was a good deal of hoopla about the "designer" methods described in the earlier vignettes. Even though they weren't widely adopted as standard methods, they were symbolic of a profession at least partially caught up in a mad scramble to invent a new method when the very concept of "method" was eroding under our feet. We didn't need a new method. We needed, instead, to get on with the business of unifying our approach to language teaching and of designing effective tasks and techniques that are informed by that approach.
Today, those clearly identifiable and enterprising methods are an interesting, if not insightful, contribution to our professional repertoire, but few practitioners look to any one of them, or their predecessors, for a final answer on how to teach a foreign language. Method, as a unified, cohesive, finite set of design features, is now given only minor attention.2 The profession has at last reached the point of maturity where we recognize that the complexity of language learners in multiple worldwide contexts demands an eclectic blend of tasks, each tailored for a particular group of learners studying for particular purposes in a given amount of time. David Nunan (1991b: 228) summed it up nicely: "It has been realized that there never was and probably never will be a method for all, and the focus in recent years has been on the development of classroom tasks and activities which are consonant with what we know about second language acquisition, and which are also in keeping with the dynamics of the classroom itself."
1. There is currently quite an intermingling of such terms as technique, task, procedure, activity, and exercise, often used in somewhat careless free variation across the profession. Of these terms, task has received the most concerted attention recently, viewed by such scholars as Peter Skehan (1998) as incorporating specific communicative and pedagogical principles. Tasks, according to Skehan and others, should be thought of as a special kind of technique, and in fact, may actually include more than one technique
2 While we may have outgrown our need to search for such definable methods, the term "methodology" continues to be used, as it would in anyother behavioral science, to refer to the systematic application of validated principles to practical contexts. It follows that you need not subscribe to a particular Method (with a capital M) in order to engage in a "methodology”.
[Note: (I) individual work; (G) group or pair work; (C) whole-class discussion.]
1. (C) Look at Bloom's five levels of affectivity, described at the beginning of the chapter. Try to put language into each level and give examples of how language is inextricably bound up in our affective processes of receiving, responding, valuing, organizing values, and creating value systems. How do such examples help to highlight the fact that second language acquisition is more than just the acquisition of language forms (nouns, verbs, rules, etc.)?
2. (G) Divide into six different groups (or multiples of six) for the following discussion. Each group should take one of the following factors: self-esteem, inhibition, risk-taking, anxiety, empathy, and extroversion. In your group, (a) define each factor and (b) agree on a generalized conclusion about the relevance of each factor for successful second language acquisition. In your conclusion, be sure to consider how your generalization needs to be qualified by some sort of "it depends" statement. For example, one might be tempted to conclude that low anxiety is necessary for successful learning, but depending on certain contextual and personal factors, facilitative anxiety may be helpful. Each group should report back to the rest of the class.
3. (I) Review the personality characteristics listed in Table 6.1 on page 158. Make a checkmark by either the left-or right-column descriptor; total up your checks for each of the four categories and see if you can come up with a four-letter "type" that describes you. For example, you might be an "ENFJ" or an "INTJ" or any of sixteen possible types. If you have a tie in any of the categories, allow your own intuition to determine which side of the fence you are on most of the time.
4. (G) Make sure you do item 3 above, then, in groups, share your personality type. Is your own four-letter combination a good description of who you are? Share this with the group and give others in the group examples of how your type manifests itself in problem solving, inter personal relations, the workplace, etc. Offer examples of how your type explains how you might typically behave in a foreign language class.
5. (C) What are some examples of learning a foreign language in an integrative orientation and in an instrumental orientation? Offer further examples of how within both orientations one's motivation might be either high or low. Is one orientation necessarily better than another? Think of situations where either orientation could contain powerful motives.
6. (G) In pairs, make a quick list of activities or other things that happen in a foreign language class. Then decide whether each activity fosters extrinsic motivation or intrinsic motivation, or degrees of each type. Through class discussion, make a large composite list. Which activities seem to offer deeper, more long term success?
7. (I) One person in the class might want to consult Schumann's (1997, 1998) work on the neurobiology of affect and give a report to the rest of the class that spells out the theory in some detail. Of special interest is the importance of the amygdala in determining our affective response to a stimulus.
8. (I) Several students could be assigned to find tests of self-esteem, empathy, anxiety, extroversion, and the Myers-Briggs test, and bring copies of these self-rating tests to class for others to examine or take themselves. Follow-up discussion should include an intuitive evaluation of the validity of such tests.
Arnold, Jane (Ed.)- 1999. Affect in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Arnold's anthology gives some background on a variety of different perspectives on the affective domain. It includes chapters on anxiety (Oxford), ego boundaries (Ehrman), neurobiology (Schumann), self-esteem (Andres), plus many other reader-friendly essays.
Dornyei, Zoltan. 1998. Motivation in second and foreign language learning. Language Teaching 31.117-135.
Dornyei's excellent recent summary of research on motivation also provides over 150 references.
Gardner, Robert C. and Maclntyre, Peter D. 1993a. A student's contributions to second language learning: Part II: affective variables. Languid Teaching 26:1-11.
Gardner and Maclntyre's state-of-the-art article on affective variables focuses on attitudes, motivation, and anxiety, and contains иcomprehensive bibliography of work up to that time.
Keirsey, David and Bates, Marilyn. 1984. Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types. Del Mar, CA: Prometheus NemesisCompany.
Lawrence, Gordon. 1984. People Types and Tiger Stripes: A PracticalGuide to Learning Styles. Gainesville, FL: Center for Applications of Psychological Type.
These two little books written for the layperson, although about decades old, still offer practical primers on applications of the Myers-Briggs personality types.
Schumann, John H. 1997. The Neurobiology of Affect in Language. Boston: Blackwell.
Schumann, John H. 1998. "The Neurobiology of Affect in Language.”Language Learning 48, Supplement 1, Special Issue.
Either of the above references presents a comprehensive treatment of Schumann's work on the neurobiology of affect as it relates to language acquisition.
[Note: See pages 18 and 19 of Chapter 1 for general guidelines for writing a journal on a previous or concurrent language learning experience.]
•Consider each of the following six affective factors: self-esteem, inhibition, risk-taking, anxiety, empathy, and extroversion. Intuitively assess your own level (from high to low on the first five; either extroversion or intro version on the last) on each factor. Then, in your journal, write your conclusions in a chart, and follow up with comments about how each factor manifests itself in you in your foreign language class (past or present).
•Look at the section on "language ego" and write about the extent to which you have felt or might feel a sense of a second ego developing within you as you use a foreign language. What are the negative and positive effects of that new language ego?
•Should any of your tendencies change? That is, if you have low task self- esteem, for example, when doing certain kinds of exercises, how might you change your general affective style so that you could be more successful? Or do you see strengths in your tendencies that you should maintain? Explain.
•("heck your own Myers-Briggs type by doing item 3 on pages 172-173. In your journal, discuss the relevance of your personality type to typical language classroom activities. Evaluate the extent to which your characteristics are in your favor or not.
•Think about any present or past foreign language learning experiences. Pick one of them and assess the extent to which you feel (felt) intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated to learn. What specific factors make (made) you feel that way? Is there anything you could do (have done) to change that motivational intensity?
CHAPTER 7
The previous chapter, with its focus on the affective domain of second language acquisition, looked at how the personal variables within oneself and the reflection of that self to other people affect our communicative interaction. This chapter touches on another affective aspect of the communicative process: the intersection of culture and affect. How do learners overcome the personal and transactional barriers presented by two cultures in contact? What is the relationship of culture learning to second language learning?
Culture is a way of life. It is the context within which we exist, think, feel, and relate to others. It is the "glue" that binds a group of people together. Several centuries ago, John Donne (1624)had this to say about culture:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; ... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Culture is our continent, our collective identity. Larson and Smalley (1972: 39) described culture as a "blueprint" that
guides the behavior of people in a community and is incubated in family life. It governs our behavior in groups, makes us sensitive to matters of status, and helps us know what others expect of us and what will happen if we do not live up to their expectations. Culture helps us to know how far we can go as individuals and what our responsibility is to the group.
Culture might also be defined as the ideas, customs, skills, arts, and tools that characterize a given group of people in a given period of time. But culture is more than the sum of its parts. "It is a system of integrated patterns, most of which remain below the threshold of consciousness, yet all of which govern human behavior just as surely as the manipulated strings of a puppet control its motions" (Condon 1973-4). The fact that no society exists without a culture reflects the need for culture to fulfill certain biological and psychological needs in human beings. Consider the bewildering host of confusing and contradictory facts and propositions and ideas that present themselves every day to any human being; some organization of these facts is necessary to provide some order to potential chaos, and therefore conceptual networks of reality evolve within a group of people for such organization. The mental constructs that enable us thus to survive are a way of life that we call "culture."
Culture establishes for each person a context of cognitive and affective behavior, a template for personal and social existence. But we tend to perceive reality within the context of our own culture, a reality that we have "created," and therefore not necessarily a reality that is empirically defined. "The meaningful universe in which each human being exists is not a universal reality, but 'a category of reality' consisting of selectively organized features considered significant by the society in which he lives" (Condon 1973: 17). Although the opportunities for world travel in the last several decades have increased markedly, there is still a tendency for us to believe that our own reality is the "correct" perception.