Exploring English Language Teaching: Language in Action

I was voyaging through the blogosphere recently when I dropped anchor, briefly, at a site hosted by Luke Meddings (http://lukemeddings.posterous.com/a-conversation-conversation#comment) and read the following comment in reply to a post about Teaching Unplugged, the name given to their book on ‘Dogme’ by Meddings and Thornbury (2009). In case you have no idea what I am talking about Dogme is the name they have given to a style of teaching which is conversation-driven, materials light, and focused on emergent language. Anyway, the comment read: It is patently THE only way to focus a language lesson on the language of the students and allow them to direct their learning. We will just have to keep tellin' 'em. And my instant thought, because I was preparing to write this book review, was that the writer of that comment really should read Exploring English Language Teaching. True she would be pleased that Dogme gets a mention on page 4. Hall writes that ‘The Dogme metaphor offers a shortcut … a particular perspective on classroom interaction, learner opportunities and the social character of the language classroom’, but, if I read her comment correctly, she would be less happy on page 141 when the author, quoting Lightbown and Spada, suggests that teachers should be ‘sceptical of claims that a single teaching method or textbook will suit the needs of all learners’ (Lightbown and Spada 2006: 59). This is not, of course, the place to talk about whether Meddings and Thornbury are or are not advocating a method, but it IS the place to question, as Graham Hall does constantly and consistently, whether there is ever one (THE only) way to do anything in English language teaching. For this book is an attempt to say not how we should teach English, but rather what questions we (teachers and others) need to ask when we try to make pedagogic decisions. In that sense, perhaps, Lightbown and Spada (op.cit.) is its closest (though more research-based) companion since both books attempt to survey the theoretical questions and issues that inform our profession.