UNIVERSIDADE ESTADUAL DA PARABA UEPB

CENTRO DE EDUCAO CEDUC II

DEPARTAMENTO DE LETRAS E ARTES
COMPONENTE CURRICULAR: SOCIOLINGUSTICA
PROFESSORA: MARIA DAS NEVES
ALUNO : ANDR APARECIDO DE MEDEIROS
101236131

MAT:

Teaching methods and English as an international language

This chapter discusses how cultural aspects of a society may influence on English
Language Teaching. The starting point is the discussion of what is a culture of learning. It can
be defined as the way we believe things should happen in the classroom environment, as the
right moment to ask question, how to ask, or even if we are supposed to ask them. This
features, among many others, will differ from a country to another. While students
volunteering are a good thing in many western cultures, in China the students would not be
well seen for doing so. These cultures of learning are represented in two extremes: on one side
with the student centered class (western cultures), and in the other, the teacher centered class
(Chinese and Japanese cultures), basically. This view usually shows the Asian cultures as
inferior or surpassed, the idea of otherness or foreignness in relation to the western ones.
More than that, these definitions mask the variety that exists inside the cultures, as they
were monolithic. The comparison between these cultures also lead us to understand that the
western ones are the models of teaching that are to be followed. The next part of the text
deals with the Communicative Language teaching (CLT). The CLT is, for Brown, the
approach which took the place of all methods that existed before. For Hymes, the goal of CLT
is to promote meaningful and appropriate use of the language. Many educators also
consider that CLT should be the dominant approach in English Language Teaching (ELT). The
author argues that, for better understanding the various definitions that CLT may have, we
need to consider it as a method, composed by three interrelated levels: Approach (Beliefs,
theories about the nature of language), Design (relation between the nature of language and
the theories, and form and functions of instructional material), and procedure (techniques and
practices resulted from the previous characteristics). Holliday believes that there are two
versions of CLT. The first one, the weak version which he calls BANA, considered the most
productive one, places a high premium on oral work and maximum student participation,
while the strong one, TESP, focus on how language work in discourse. In this last version,
students communicate with the text. CLT, in general, reflects the characteristics attributed to
western cultures and its spread is due to the relation that is made between CLT and
modernization, accepted by many specialists and adopted by many countries. Many countries
decided to change their methods, like grammar-translation or audiolingual, and adopt CLT, as

Korea and Japan did. Many countries of the inner countries also published material
encouraging CLT approach, contributing to its spread. But, its spread was also challenged.
One of its points which were questioned was its theoretical basis. Swan criticizes it to the
point it over-generalizes valid insights and also the fact it does not consider students
previous learnt skills. CLT is also criticized for not being culturally sensitive, as it has aspects
which would not fit Asian cultures, for example. CLT could be really hard to be implemented
in different contexts of class too, considering the resources to be used, limited access to
authentic material (by the teachers) or even students needs. Implementing this approach to
culture like the Chinese one, is a problem because of both the resistance in volunteering in
class by the students and the lack of adequate training for the teachers.At the end, we see that,
although much adopted, CLT was not successful in many different countries of the outer
circle. So, the author concludes that there is no method capable of meeting all learning
contexts of nowadays, as well as there is no best method even for specific contexts, because
every classroom is unique in the particular dynamics that exist among the participants of the
lesson. Every method has to be organized by the teachers sense of plausibility. This
plausibility is defined by the teachers past experience as learner, teacher, and exposure to
different methods, as long as the knowledge he/she has about his/her teaching reality.