- Email: [email protected]
Communicative methodology in language teaching
102
REVIEWS
In conclusion, Slips of the Ear presents a careful documentation and often insightful discussion of transcription errors. The work would have benefited, I feel, from a more thorough consideration of the precise nature of the task the transcribers were performing. John
Oakeshott-Taylor
Language Laboratory University of the Witwatersrand 1 Jan Smuts Avenue Johannesburg 2001 Republic of South Africa REFERENCES DIRVEN, R. and OAKESHOTT-TAYLOR, 17, (4) 326-343.
.I. (1984) Listening
comprehension
(Part
1). Language
Teaching.
DIRVEN, R. and OAKESHOTT-TAYLOR, J. (1985) Listening comprehension (Part 2). Language Teaching. 1% (1). FROMKIN, V. A. (ed.) (1980) S/ips of the Tongue, Ear, fen and Hand. New York: Academic Press. GARNES, 231-239.
S. and BOND, Z. S. (1980) A slip of the ear: a snip of the ear? A slip of the year? In Fromkin
HAGGARD, M. P. (1975) Understanding speech understanding. In Cohen, Structure and Process in Speech Perception. Berlin: Springer, 3-15.
A. and Nooteboom,
(1980)
S. G. (eds.)
HENDRICKX, J. (1977) Developing listening comprehension materials and tests. In Dirven, R. (ed.) Htirversfandnis im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Listening Comprehension in Foreign Language Teaching, Kronberg: Scriptor, 113-130. MARSLEN-WILSON, W.D. and WELSH, recognition in continuous speech. Cognitive VOSS, B. (1979) Hesitation Speech 18, 129-144.
phenomena
A. (1975) Processing interactions Psychology 10, 29-63.
as sources
of perceptual
errors
and lexical access during
for non-native
Brumfit, C. J., Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching. Teaching Library. Cambridge University Press, 1984, 166 pp.
speakers.
Cambridge
Language
word and
Language
This is an impressive book. However, I did not find it easy to read. Nor do I find it an easy book to review. Perhaps the fairest way to proceed is to sketch some salient aspects of the content, saying along the way where my difficulties lie. Brumfit is concerned to develop a principled framework of proposals which offers an answer to the practising foreign language teacher’s question “How shall I teach?“. The author views the issue of methodology from an educational perspective, but wishes further to take into account the best of research findings and theories from relevant disciplines. In this undertaking, the perspective of the practising teacher is paramount. We read in the Introduction (“What this book is about”) that the researcher has two choices available-
REVIEWS
103
that adopted in the book, or that of researching inside a linguistic, sociological or psychological paradigm. My worry here is that the notion of an applied science or of applied research is not mentioned at all. One might mention here the discipline Sprachlehrforschung established over the last 10 years or so in Germany (see e.g. Bausch 1979, Koordinierungsgremium Sprachlehrforschung 1983). Such mention may be appropriate and “interdisciplinary” (p. 3), and because Brumfit characterises his study as “integrative” precisely these two adjectives have been constantly used to characterise the goals of Sprachlehrforschung. Clearly, one cannot work within the framework of existing disciplines, if linguistics, psychology and sociology are the only ones offered-indeed it has become a cliche to say this, but it is perhaps still necessary to voice this cliche (as e.g. in Edmondson 1984). Equally clearly, it is of indubitable value to view the learning/teaching complex from the practising teacher’s perspective, as Brumfit seeks to do, but I find it a gross oversimplification to suggest that these are the only two alternatives available! The perspective Brumfit adopts leads one to ask for whom the book is intended. It is a scholarly work, and is at the same time informed by insights gained from rich teaching experience. Further, the specific problems of one engaged in teacher-training are referred to. Teachers, teacher-trainers, and language teaching/learning researchers may therefore all feel themselves to be addressed, as the blurb suggests. I think this broad scope leads to the danger that none of these three groups of addressees may be totally at home with the book, however. The first chapter (“Research methodology, teaching methodology and educational values”) is philosophical in tone, and examines the nature of knowledge based on intellectual perception and knowledge based on experiential perception, in the context of the nature of scientific undertakings in the social sciences. One central point that emerges is that no one is ever going to “prove” that a particular teaching method is “better”, but that if different methodological experiments are carried out publicly, with appropriate mechanisms for inspection and discussion, then the conditions for “scientific” progress are met, in classic Popperian terms. Now, this is all very well, but somebody as experienced as Brumfit knows as well as I do that, for example any teacher is capable of convincing the parents of any class of the validity of his or her methodology, and-to take another example-that many newer, so-called “fringe” methodologies of dubious validity are successfully marketed by practising teachers convinced of their efficacy, and moreover impervious to soundly-based criticisms. One wonders therefore what Brumfit has in mind. Surely, the notion of “public verification” in science is most commonly taken to mean reproducibility of results. That this does not obtain in language teaching is well-known, and indeed stressed by Brumfit himself. In Chapter 2 (“Language and Language Acquisition: a contemporary view”) the negotiability of meaning in language use is stressed, and this view of language is directly compared with the philosophy of science developed in the preceding chapter. The distinction between sentence and utterance is seen as parallel to different distinctions which have been made in second language acquisition research-for example Use v. Usage (Widdowson), Learning v. Acquisition (Krashen), and Brumfit’s own Accuracy v. Fluency distinction. These distinctions are developed in Chapters 3 and 4, focusing on the last-mentioned in the latter chapter. The sound historical perspective taken in these discussions is refreshing and insightful, as is for example the careful but decisive analysis of Krashen’s theories.
104
REVIEWS
The distinction between accuracy and fluency is “essentially a methodological distinction, rather than one in linguistics or psychology” (p. 52), and is, it is claimed, not absolute, but rather one of relative strength of focus on the part of the learner. Despite these careful reservations, Brumfit argues (and similar arguments crop up in several contexts in the book) that the accessibility of the distinction to practising teachers is itself a justification for making the distinction clearly, especially as teachers “may not have either the time or the inclination to participate in careful theoretical analysis” (p. 52). There is the danger here of course of suggesting that difficulties surrounding the use of a product should be ignored in trying to sell it-Brumfit is aware of this danger, but I am not sure he can be totally exonerated from this criticism. It is my own belief that as we learn more and more about the conventions surrounding language in use (the “socially constructed significance of language systems” in Brumfit’s terms-p. 39), and if we strive to make learners more and more responsible for and therefore conscious of their own learning, then a distinction between “fluency” and “accuracy” activities becomes more and more blurred in processing terms. Brumfit’s argument up to this point in the book is encapsulated in an “interim model of the language-teaching process” (pp. 66-68), whose diagrammatic presentation I did not find totally comprehensible. Two points are stressed: (1) “Accuracy work” inputs to learners’ consciousness and will receive more teaching time at the beginning of instruction than later in a course, when “fluency work” should dominate quantitatively; (2) via fluency activities conscious knowledge will be converted to unconscious knowledge (the author has already rejected the stronger version of Monitor theory). The following chapters both enrich this model (for example a linguistically-based syllabus is seen as relevant, but only for accuracy work), aad argue for three methodolgical procedures-small-group activities, project-work, and a focus on “problem-solving activities” in determining meaningful teaching content. The last point is illustrated in some detail by reference to an interesting teaching project being carried out in Bangalore (pp. 101-108). Again the discussion is rooted in historical and philosophical reference, is clearly informed by practical teaching experience, and further contains many pertinent and striking formulations. A potential reaction of the kind “What’s new in all this?” has been anticipated by the author via the indisputable claim that treating methodology from the practising teacher’s perspective and in terms of existing educational systems will inevitably-and rightly-set constraints on wildly innovative methodological proposals. At times one needs to invest a considerable amount of thought to the discovery of coherence in Brumfit’s writing. Cohesive links such as “in this view then . . .“, “but” or “therefore” caused this reader at least to backtrack regularly in order to reinterpret previously-read text. This textual density may, in part, be a result of editing a PhD thesis in order to produce a book, but one consequence may, I fear, be that not many practising teachers, whose viewpoint the book seeks to take, will be willing to work their way through it. The “theory-practice gulf” is one of the central problems in language teaching/learning research. Brumfit has approached the broad issue of language-teaching methodology as a problem of communication between practitioners and researchers, and in taking as it were
105
REVIEWS
both sides, presented related.
an honest
and stimulating
appraisal
of how they can and should
Willis
be
J. Edmondson
Hamburg University ZFl Von-Melle-Park 5 D-2000 Hamburg Federal Republic of Germany REFERENCES BAUSCH, K.-R. (1979) Die Erstellung van Didaktischen Grammatiken Angewandter Linguistik, Fremdsprachendidaktik und Sprachlehrforschung, Didakbchen Grammatik, Konigstein: Scriptor, pp. 2-24.
als Exampel fur das Verhaltnis van In K.-R. Bausch (ed) Beitriige zur
EDMONDSON, W. J. (1984) Methods, approaches, principles and practices, In W. Knibbeler (eds.) New Approaches in Foreign Language Methodology, AIMAV: Brussels, pp. 53-62 Koordinierungsgremium Sprachlehrforschung einer Disziplin, Tiibingen: Narr
Smith, Mass.:
and M. Bernards
(eds) (1983) Sprachlehr- und Sprachlernforschung:
Begriindung
Stephen M., The Theatre Arts and the Teaching of Second Languages. Reading, Addison-Wesley, 1984, VII + 166~~.
For a number of years I was involved in professional theatre in New York. After each opening night the cast, producers, and backers gathered to wait for the reviews by the critics. Depending on the outcome, it meant whether one worked a year or was looking for a job the next Monday. The wait at times seemed endless. I feel quite certain that Stephen M. Smith has not been waiting anxiously for this review, but if he has, or if you have, let me suggest that if you are in language teaching, rush out and get this book. I had thought of writing, “if you are interested in drama for language teaching, or if you think you may ever use drama for language teaching, or if you think you may ever use drama or drama techniques for language teaching, etc.“, but this book should be read by everyone in the field. Smith quotes Viola Spolin at the beginning of Chapter 3: “ . . . the techniques of the theatre are the techniques of communicating.” Communication is what we are about. Smith then opens his chapter with this, “The uses of the theatre arts in language teaching are potentially as varied as the collective imaginations of language teachers.” In his preface the author seemed to be writing for me, knowing that someday I would discover his book and say “Right!” What prompted this was his statement, “This book is intended to provide ideas that will expand your repertoire and language teaching techniques, ideas that you will be able to adapt to your own very personal teaching style.”
REVIEWS
In conclusion, Slips of the Ear presents a careful documentation and often insightful discussion of transcription errors. The work would have benefited, I feel, from a more thorough consideration of the precise nature of the task the transcribers were performing. John
Oakeshott-Taylor
Language Laboratory University of the Witwatersrand 1 Jan Smuts Avenue Johannesburg 2001 Republic of South Africa REFERENCES DIRVEN, R. and OAKESHOTT-TAYLOR, 17, (4) 326-343.
.I. (1984) Listening
comprehension
(Part
1). Language
Teaching.
DIRVEN, R. and OAKESHOTT-TAYLOR, J. (1985) Listening comprehension (Part 2). Language Teaching. 1% (1). FROMKIN, V. A. (ed.) (1980) S/ips of the Tongue, Ear, fen and Hand. New York: Academic Press. GARNES, 231-239.
S. and BOND, Z. S. (1980) A slip of the ear: a snip of the ear? A slip of the year? In Fromkin
HAGGARD, M. P. (1975) Understanding speech understanding. In Cohen, Structure and Process in Speech Perception. Berlin: Springer, 3-15.
A. and Nooteboom,
(1980)
S. G. (eds.)
HENDRICKX, J. (1977) Developing listening comprehension materials and tests. In Dirven, R. (ed.) Htirversfandnis im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Listening Comprehension in Foreign Language Teaching, Kronberg: Scriptor, 113-130. MARSLEN-WILSON, W.D. and WELSH, recognition in continuous speech. Cognitive VOSS, B. (1979) Hesitation Speech 18, 129-144.
phenomena
A. (1975) Processing interactions Psychology 10, 29-63.
as sources
of perceptual
errors
and lexical access during
for non-native
Brumfit, C. J., Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching. Teaching Library. Cambridge University Press, 1984, 166 pp.
speakers.
Cambridge
Language
word and
Language
This is an impressive book. However, I did not find it easy to read. Nor do I find it an easy book to review. Perhaps the fairest way to proceed is to sketch some salient aspects of the content, saying along the way where my difficulties lie. Brumfit is concerned to develop a principled framework of proposals which offers an answer to the practising foreign language teacher’s question “How shall I teach?“. The author views the issue of methodology from an educational perspective, but wishes further to take into account the best of research findings and theories from relevant disciplines. In this undertaking, the perspective of the practising teacher is paramount. We read in the Introduction (“What this book is about”) that the researcher has two choices available-
REVIEWS
103
that adopted in the book, or that of researching inside a linguistic, sociological or psychological paradigm. My worry here is that the notion of an applied science or of applied research is not mentioned at all. One might mention here the discipline Sprachlehrforschung established over the last 10 years or so in Germany (see e.g. Bausch 1979, Koordinierungsgremium Sprachlehrforschung 1983). Such mention may be appropriate and “interdisciplinary” (p. 3), and because Brumfit characterises his study as “integrative” precisely these two adjectives have been constantly used to characterise the goals of Sprachlehrforschung. Clearly, one cannot work within the framework of existing disciplines, if linguistics, psychology and sociology are the only ones offered-indeed it has become a cliche to say this, but it is perhaps still necessary to voice this cliche (as e.g. in Edmondson 1984). Equally clearly, it is of indubitable value to view the learning/teaching complex from the practising teacher’s perspective, as Brumfit seeks to do, but I find it a gross oversimplification to suggest that these are the only two alternatives available! The perspective Brumfit adopts leads one to ask for whom the book is intended. It is a scholarly work, and is at the same time informed by insights gained from rich teaching experience. Further, the specific problems of one engaged in teacher-training are referred to. Teachers, teacher-trainers, and language teaching/learning researchers may therefore all feel themselves to be addressed, as the blurb suggests. I think this broad scope leads to the danger that none of these three groups of addressees may be totally at home with the book, however. The first chapter (“Research methodology, teaching methodology and educational values”) is philosophical in tone, and examines the nature of knowledge based on intellectual perception and knowledge based on experiential perception, in the context of the nature of scientific undertakings in the social sciences. One central point that emerges is that no one is ever going to “prove” that a particular teaching method is “better”, but that if different methodological experiments are carried out publicly, with appropriate mechanisms for inspection and discussion, then the conditions for “scientific” progress are met, in classic Popperian terms. Now, this is all very well, but somebody as experienced as Brumfit knows as well as I do that, for example any teacher is capable of convincing the parents of any class of the validity of his or her methodology, and-to take another example-that many newer, so-called “fringe” methodologies of dubious validity are successfully marketed by practising teachers convinced of their efficacy, and moreover impervious to soundly-based criticisms. One wonders therefore what Brumfit has in mind. Surely, the notion of “public verification” in science is most commonly taken to mean reproducibility of results. That this does not obtain in language teaching is well-known, and indeed stressed by Brumfit himself. In Chapter 2 (“Language and Language Acquisition: a contemporary view”) the negotiability of meaning in language use is stressed, and this view of language is directly compared with the philosophy of science developed in the preceding chapter. The distinction between sentence and utterance is seen as parallel to different distinctions which have been made in second language acquisition research-for example Use v. Usage (Widdowson), Learning v. Acquisition (Krashen), and Brumfit’s own Accuracy v. Fluency distinction. These distinctions are developed in Chapters 3 and 4, focusing on the last-mentioned in the latter chapter. The sound historical perspective taken in these discussions is refreshing and insightful, as is for example the careful but decisive analysis of Krashen’s theories.
104
REVIEWS
The distinction between accuracy and fluency is “essentially a methodological distinction, rather than one in linguistics or psychology” (p. 52), and is, it is claimed, not absolute, but rather one of relative strength of focus on the part of the learner. Despite these careful reservations, Brumfit argues (and similar arguments crop up in several contexts in the book) that the accessibility of the distinction to practising teachers is itself a justification for making the distinction clearly, especially as teachers “may not have either the time or the inclination to participate in careful theoretical analysis” (p. 52). There is the danger here of course of suggesting that difficulties surrounding the use of a product should be ignored in trying to sell it-Brumfit is aware of this danger, but I am not sure he can be totally exonerated from this criticism. It is my own belief that as we learn more and more about the conventions surrounding language in use (the “socially constructed significance of language systems” in Brumfit’s terms-p. 39), and if we strive to make learners more and more responsible for and therefore conscious of their own learning, then a distinction between “fluency” and “accuracy” activities becomes more and more blurred in processing terms. Brumfit’s argument up to this point in the book is encapsulated in an “interim model of the language-teaching process” (pp. 66-68), whose diagrammatic presentation I did not find totally comprehensible. Two points are stressed: (1) “Accuracy work” inputs to learners’ consciousness and will receive more teaching time at the beginning of instruction than later in a course, when “fluency work” should dominate quantitatively; (2) via fluency activities conscious knowledge will be converted to unconscious knowledge (the author has already rejected the stronger version of Monitor theory). The following chapters both enrich this model (for example a linguistically-based syllabus is seen as relevant, but only for accuracy work), aad argue for three methodolgical procedures-small-group activities, project-work, and a focus on “problem-solving activities” in determining meaningful teaching content. The last point is illustrated in some detail by reference to an interesting teaching project being carried out in Bangalore (pp. 101-108). Again the discussion is rooted in historical and philosophical reference, is clearly informed by practical teaching experience, and further contains many pertinent and striking formulations. A potential reaction of the kind “What’s new in all this?” has been anticipated by the author via the indisputable claim that treating methodology from the practising teacher’s perspective and in terms of existing educational systems will inevitably-and rightly-set constraints on wildly innovative methodological proposals. At times one needs to invest a considerable amount of thought to the discovery of coherence in Brumfit’s writing. Cohesive links such as “in this view then . . .“, “but” or “therefore” caused this reader at least to backtrack regularly in order to reinterpret previously-read text. This textual density may, in part, be a result of editing a PhD thesis in order to produce a book, but one consequence may, I fear, be that not many practising teachers, whose viewpoint the book seeks to take, will be willing to work their way through it. The “theory-practice gulf” is one of the central problems in language teaching/learning research. Brumfit has approached the broad issue of language-teaching methodology as a problem of communication between practitioners and researchers, and in taking as it were
105
REVIEWS
both sides, presented related.
an honest
and stimulating
appraisal
of how they can and should
Willis
be
J. Edmondson
Hamburg University ZFl Von-Melle-Park 5 D-2000 Hamburg Federal Republic of Germany REFERENCES BAUSCH, K.-R. (1979) Die Erstellung van Didaktischen Grammatiken Angewandter Linguistik, Fremdsprachendidaktik und Sprachlehrforschung, Didakbchen Grammatik, Konigstein: Scriptor, pp. 2-24.
als Exampel fur das Verhaltnis van In K.-R. Bausch (ed) Beitriige zur
EDMONDSON, W. J. (1984) Methods, approaches, principles and practices, In W. Knibbeler (eds.) New Approaches in Foreign Language Methodology, AIMAV: Brussels, pp. 53-62 Koordinierungsgremium Sprachlehrforschung einer Disziplin, Tiibingen: Narr
Smith, Mass.:
and M. Bernards
(eds) (1983) Sprachlehr- und Sprachlernforschung:
Begriindung
Stephen M., The Theatre Arts and the Teaching of Second Languages. Reading, Addison-Wesley, 1984, VII + 166~~.
For a number of years I was involved in professional theatre in New York. After each opening night the cast, producers, and backers gathered to wait for the reviews by the critics. Depending on the outcome, it meant whether one worked a year or was looking for a job the next Monday. The wait at times seemed endless. I feel quite certain that Stephen M. Smith has not been waiting anxiously for this review, but if he has, or if you have, let me suggest that if you are in language teaching, rush out and get this book. I had thought of writing, “if you are interested in drama for language teaching, or if you think you may ever use drama for language teaching, or if you think you may ever use drama or drama techniques for language teaching, etc.“, but this book should be read by everyone in the field. Smith quotes Viola Spolin at the beginning of Chapter 3: “ . . . the techniques of the theatre are the techniques of communicating.” Communication is what we are about. Smith then opens his chapter with this, “The uses of the theatre arts in language teaching are potentially as varied as the collective imaginations of language teachers.” In his preface the author seemed to be writing for me, knowing that someday I would discover his book and say “Right!” What prompted this was his statement, “This book is intended to provide ideas that will expand your repertoire and language teaching techniques, ideas that you will be able to adapt to your own very personal teaching style.”