Hu: Cultural Resistance
Hu's article discussed the Chinese culture and how it tends to resist the use of communicative teaching language. Since the 1980s, they have claimed that more of these Chinese teachers have claimed to be using CLT practices, however, they say it is a lip-service. Some argue that they have not received adequate resources or necessities in order to develop a thorough development of communicative competence.
However, from a cultural standpoint, I can definitely understand why the Chinese are apprehensive to the idea of CLT. CLT bases the learning process without teacher dominance. China is considered a traditional culture that still holds on to customs like honorific titles and the teachings of Confucius. The Chinese model of teaching views students as "empty-vessels" that need to be filled, using techniques of mimicking and repetition for language learning. I am not going to say that I agree with this way of thinking, but I can respect it. As future teachers of foreign language, we have to understand where our students come from. We must be respectful of their backgrounds and realize that they aren't "empty-vessels," they have been "filled" with some knowledge, and it is our job to use their learning abilities in their vessels to help and guide them in language learning.
One last quotation that caught my attention (Hu, pg. 10), "It is dangerous for educational policymakers to take an 'autonomous' attitude, as opposed to an 'ideological' one.." This is fitting for this article in that we can't assume that a pedagogy that works for one group is going to work in any cultural or social context. Taking the ideological approach helps to differentiate our instruction and does not let us become ignorant in believing that their is a universally-appropriate approach to language teaching and learning.
Bax: End of CLT
Bax argues that language instructors are "riding the bandwagon" of communicative language learning (CLT) to much, in believing that without it that countries that don't use it are somehow "backwards." Bax brings us the idea of The Context Approach. The Context Approach considers the whole context, the validity of other methods other than just methodology (CLT). I can agree with Bax in his views that CLT is observable throughout the profession in that methodology is held higher than the actual context. However, I am a strong proponent of CLT. I believe that we can't always take in the whole context of the unit, that we have to find practicality of the context. I don't think that CLT completely overlooks context, it assists and helps bring understanding and usefulness of the context. If I am teaching high-school students of 16-18 year-old students, how likely am I going to keep their attention if I just lecture to the nitty-gritty about grammar but don't offer any way of connection to real-life application. Students all learn differently, true, but I think CLT offers students a reason to learn and listen. CLT engages students to participate, where I feel a context approach doesn't capture the attention of students.
I may not be on the wrong-track of my thinking about contextual approaching language teaching, but at the moment I feel that it is as effective as something like CLT or a lexical approaches of grammatical structures.
#ayudame
Blogz you all later! Can't wait to discuss.
Scholarly yours,
The TESOL Bro Tommy T.
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