Beyond communicative language teaching: What's ahead?

The emergence of English as a global language, technological innovation and a growing need for learner autonomy are changing the contexts of language learning rapidly and profoundly. Recognition of the current complexity and diversity of these contexts has led some to suggest that we have moved ‘beyond methods’ to a postmethod condition (Kumaravadivelu, 2002), that the quest for a better method has been or should be abandoned in favor of the identification of practices or strategies of teaching designed to reflect local needs and experiences. This paper considers the professional consequences of the challenges facing the language teaching profession in the years ahead. How will the needs and goals of the next generation of learners be met? Will applied linguists continue to assert an expert or authority status in the determination of practice? Or will a postmethod era lead to the recognition of teachers as the professional decision-makers and theory builders that they in fact could be? # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. A glance at history Concerned with the exploration of the functions of language as a primary means of human social interaction, linguistic pragmatics offers many promising, practice oriented linguistic fields of inquiry to engage contemporary scholars. Among them, none currently enjoys more lively debate than the field of language pedagogy. Language teachers have been with us for as long as there have been languages. And their engagement with language learners constitutes a fascinating arena for the study of social interaction. This paper takes a brief historical look at the classroom teaching of second or ‘foreign’ language teaching as a backdrop to a consideration of the current phenomenon of what has come to be known as communicative language teaching (CLT). Just what is CLT? Is it a method of teaching? Does it have characteristics that are universally understood and implemented? If so, what are they? Most important, does CLT signal a meaningful and lasting reorientation of

[1]  B. Burke.  Theory meets practice: a case study of preservice world language teachers in U.S. secondary schools , 2006 .

[2]  Claire J. Kramsch,et al.  Context and Culture in Language Teaching , 1993 .

[3]  Samuel Messick.  Validity and washback in language testing , 1996 .

[4]  Sandra J. Savignon,et al.  Teaching English as Communication: a global perspective , 2003 .

[5]  A. Pennycook.  Critical Applied Linguistics , 2001 .

[6]  A. Howatt.  英语教学史 = A history of English language teaching , 1984 .

[7]  M. Byram.  Cultural studies in foreign language education , 1988 .

[8]  J. Hall.  Teaching and Researching: Language and Culture , 2002 .

[9]  Marianne Celce-Murcia,et al.  Teaching English as a second or foreign language , 1991 .

[10]  S. Savignon,et al.  Culture Learning: The Fifth Dimension in the Language Classroom , 1987 .

[11]  Sandra J. Savignon,et al.  Sociocultural Strategies for a Dialogue of Cultures , 2002 .

[12]  S. Savignon,et al.  Cultures and Comparisons: Strategies for Learners , 2005 .

[13]  George A. Miller,et al.  Language and Communication , 1951 .

[14]  S. Savignon.  Communicative Language Teaching , 2006 .

[15]  Joyce Merrill Valdes,et al.  Culture bound : bridging the cultural gap in language teaching , 1988 .

[16]  M. Swain,et al.  THEORETICAL BASES OF COMMUNICATIVE APPROACHES TO SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHING AND TESTING , 1980 .

[17]  M. Byram.  Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence , 1997 .

[18]  Christopher Candlin.  The Communicative Teaching of English Principles and an Exercise Typology , 1981 .

[19]  S. Savignon.  Communicative Competence: Theory and Classroom Practice , 1997 .

[20]  Braj B. Kachru.  The Other tongue : English across cultures , 1984 .

[21]  van Ek,et al.  Systems Development in Adult Language Learning: The Threshold Level in a European Unit/Credit System for Modern Language Learning by Adults. , 1975 .

[22]  S. Savignon,et al.  Communicative Competence: An Experiment in Foreign Language Teaching , 1975 .

[23]  Martin Bygate,et al.  Applied Linguistics: A Pragmatic Discipline, a Generic Discipline? , 2005 .

[24]  Braj B. Kachru.  World Englishes: approaches, issues and resources , 1992, Language Teaching.

[25]  G. L. Trager,et al.  Linguistics across cultures , 1957 .

[26]  N. Fairclough.  Discourse and social change , 1992 .

[27]  Dwight Atkinson.  Toward a sociocognitive approach to second Llanguage acquisition , 2002 .

[28]  Michael H. Long.  The Least a Second Language Acquisition Theory Needs to Explain , 1990 .

[29]  P.A.E. Gardner.  Tongues of men , 1977 .

[30]  Vijay K. Bhatia,et al.  The Power and Politics of Genre , 1997 .

[31]  B. Kumaravadivelu,et al.  Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for Language Teaching , 2002 .

[32]  Barbara Benham Tye.  Hard Truths: Uncovering the Deep Structure of Schooling , 2000 .

[33]  Diane Musumeci,et al.  Breaking Tradition: An Exploration of the Historical Relationship Between Theory and Practice in Second Language Teaching , 1997 .

[34]  M. Bakhtin,et al.  Speech genres and other late essays , 1986 .

[35]  M. Halliday.  Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning , 1976 .

[36]  S. Savignon.  Interpreting communicative language teaching : contexts and concerns in teacher education , 2002 .