Unpackaging the past: ‘CLT’ through ELTJ keywords

ELT history is often viewed as a succession of methods, but such a view tends to rest on a ‘packaging up’ and labelling of complex and often contested past developments. This process ignores both continuity with earlier developments and diversity of contemporary opinion and often seems to serve as a way to clear the ground for self-proclaimed ‘progress’. This article describes a study that was undertaken to promote an alternative view of the past. Taking as a starting point the way communicative language teaching (CLT) seems to be currently in the process of being packaged up in readiness for the ‘dustbin of history’, the study combined corpus-based and qualitative procedures to explore keywords in ELTJ articles during the early communicative period. By identifying themes discussed by contemporary writers themselves, we highlight areas of continuity with ‘pre-communicative’ methodology, and diversity within the communicative discussion itself, thus subverting the assumption that there was ever a wholly distinct, unitary, or ‘classical’ CLT to be lightly superseded.