August 3

On the verge of extinction?

In the final week of the course, one of the input sessions for trainees talks through some of the main ELT methodologies.  My colleague was doing this session for the first time and as he was looking through the notes on the session, he highlighted the fact that they were rather out-of-date.  While he was expected to tell trainees about the Silent Way, Audiolingualism and the Grammar-Translation method, there was no mention of Dogme or CLIL or Blended Learning.

“These are the main ones nowadays, aren’t they?” he said and whilst it’s true that other methodologies are still very much prominent in today’s classrooms, with the progressive move towards bilingualism CLIL is very much a talking point in the EFL world and Dogme has been on everyone’s lips for at least the last five years.  Are any of the “old-fashioned” methodologies on the verge of extinction?  Will we one day look back and laugh at our ancestors who thought they could teach a foreign language without actually speaking in the classroom, or those who thought that the best way to teach was by reams of sentences and a dedication to translation?

*As I spell-check my post for publishing, neither Audiolingualism nor Dogme appear in my dictionary!

Tags:

Posted August 3, 2012 by Teresa Bestwick in category My thoughts

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*