Method: Approach, Design, and Procedure

This paper presents a framework for the systematic description and comparison of methods. The proliferation of new methods in recent years suggests the need for such a model. A method is defined in terms of three levels: approach, design, and procedure. Approach is a theory of language and of language learning. Design is a definition of linguistic content, a specification for the selection and organization of content, and a description of the role of teacher, learner, and teaching materials. Procedure is concerned with techniques and practices in a method. The model is discussed with reference to recent proposals in methodology, and the application of the model is demonstrated. A comparison of the state of the art in language teaching today with the field as it was some twenty years ago reveals some interesting differances. In the fifties and sixties language teaching represented a reasonably unified body of theory and practice. It was clearly linked in its theoretical foundations to linguistics and psychology, particularly as these disciplines were represented in North America. The methodology of language teaching was identified with the orthodoxy of audiolingualism. Language teachers in the eighties, however, have a considerable array of theories and methods to choose from. Contemporary language teaching draws on a number of areas which were unknown or unconsulted by the linguists and psychologists of the fifties and sixties. These include (following Candlin 1976) studies in textual cohesion, language functions, speech act theory, sociolinguistic variation, presuppositional semantics, interaction analysis, ethnomethodology and face to face analysis, ethnography of speaking, process analysis, and discourse analysis. Methodologies unheard of in the sixties are now familiar, at least by name: Silent Way, Total Physical Response, Communicative Language Teaching, Counseling Learning, Suggestopedia. The practitioner is thus confronted with a somewhat bewildering set of options at the levels of both theory and practice. One conclusion might be that the field of language teaching has moved away from a generally