Methods Synergistics

CURRENT TRENDS
IN TEACHING
ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

Total
Physical
Response
Media Multi-
Literacy intelligencia
Task Based
Instruction

Silent Way Natural
Approach
Frerian
Approach

Author Unit
Activities

The
Methodology
of
the
new
Millennium

• Changes in the Name • How is it done?

• What is MS? • Who are the target
students?
• Who are the proponents
of MS? • What are the roles of the
teacher?
• Why was such method
made? • What are the roles of the
students?
• Why is it a need to use
such method? • Advantages of this method

• What are the underlying • Disadvantages of this
principles of MS? method

e o
M th ds
g s
Syner istic

Changes in the Name
Harold Palmer, 1922
The Father of Eclectic Way
Complete Method
The ‘Complete Method’ is not a compromise between `two
antagonistic schools;
It boldly incorporates what is valuable in any system or
method of teaching and refuses to recognise any conflict,
except the conflict between the good and the inherently
bad.
The ‘Complete method’ embodies every type of teaching
except bad teaching, and every process of learning except
defective learning.

Changes in the Name
• The Complex Methods of the Arts of Eclectic, Including
Deliberation (Eisner, 1984; Schwab, 1969; 1971)
• New Eclecticism (Boswell, 1972)
• Planned eclecticism (Dorn, 1978)
• Effective or Successful Eclecticism (i.e., based on
specific outcomes) (Olagoke, 1982),
• Enlightened Eclecticism
(H. D. Brown, 1994; Hammerly, 1985),
• Technical Eclecticism (Lazarus & Beutler, 1993)
• Integrative Eclecticism (Gilliland, James & Bowman,
1994)

Changes in the Name
• Systematic Eclecticism (Gilliland, James & Bowman,
1994)
• Informed or Well-informed Eclecticism (J. D. Brown,
1995; Hubbard, Jones, Thornton, & Wheeler, 1983;
Yonglin, 1995)
• Principled Eclecticism (Larsen-Freeman 2000)
• Mellow (2000; 2002) has used the term “Principled
Eclecticism” or “Unconstrained Pluralism” to describe
the “desirable, coherent, and pluralistic” approach
• Methods Synergistics or Disciplined Eclecticism
(Theodore “Ted” Rodgers, 2001)

Who
are
the
proponents
of
Methods
Synergistics?

1. Harold Palmer, The Father of 9. Lazarus & Beutler, 1993
Eclectic Way, 1922 10. 7. H. D. Brown, 1994
2. Schwab, 1969; 1971 11. Gilliland, James & Bowman,
3. Boswell, 1972 1994
4. Dorn, 1978 12. J. D. Brown, 1995
5. Olagoke, 1982
6. Hubbard, Jones, Thornton, & 13. Yonglin, 1995
Wheeler, 1983 14. Larsen-Freeman, 2000
7. Eisner, 1984 15. Mellow, 2000, 2002
8. Hammerly, 1985 16. Theodore “Ted” Rodgers,
2001

What
is
Method
Synergistics?

How is it defined?
• Crossbreeding elements from
various methods into a common
program of instruction seems an
appropriate way to find those
practices which best support
effective learning. (Rodgers)

How is it defined?
• Methods and approaches have
usually been proposed as
idiosyncratic and unique, yet it
appears reasonable to combine
practices from different approaches
where the philosophical foundations
are similar. (Rodgers)

How is it defined?
• Larsen-Freeman (2000) and
Mellow (2000) both have used
the term principled eclecticism
to describe a desirable,
coherent, pluralistic approach to
language teaching.

How is it defined?
• Eclecticism involves the use of a
variety of language learning
activities, each of which may have
very different characteristics and
may be motivated by different
underlying assumptions.

So, ‘disciplined eclecticism’, then, is the approach of
begging, borrowing and stealing ideas from as many
sources as possible – other educational theorists,
sure, but also artists and scientists and novelists and
engineers – and combining them into makeshift but
workable new tools to inquire into educational
situations in ways that are well adapted to both the
features of the situation and our educational
purposes.

The FAS of MS

Adaptability

Sensitivity

Flexibility

Methods Synergistics

Why
was
such
method
made?

• Mixed – ability classes
• Every learner has his own attitude towards the foreign
language
• Every learner needs a certain
type of motivation
• Every learner has his own
way of learning, forgetting,
unlearning…

• There has not been one best method any time [that
what is best depends on whom the method is for, in
what circumstances, for what purpose]
• To adopt any single method is to settle for much less
than one can get by adopting all or several of them.
• Incorporates what is valuable in any system or
method of teaching and refuses to recognize bad
teaching or defective learning.

• There are strengths as well as weaknesses of single
theory based methods.
• Reliance upon a single theory of teaching has been
criticized because the use of a limited number of
techniques can become mechanic.

What
are
the
underlying
principles
of
MS?

Eclectic Blend
• Brown (1994) states the TESOL profession will
finally become mature when we realize and
admit the complexity of language learners
requires an “eclectic blend of tasks each
tailored for a particular group of learners”

Enlightened Eclectic
• Brown (1994) insists that an “enlightened
eclectic” teacher should take an approach that
includes most [if not all] of the principles. That
is, teachers ought to take all the principles in
the respects of cognition, affection and
linguistics in to consideration at the same time.

Students with Learning Styles
• Rao (2001) suggests, from a broad perspective, perceiving
the Chinese learners or even East Asian learners as a
whole, that teaching and learning styles be matched to
reduce teacher-student style conflicts, especially in foreign
language instruction. She advises that an effective way is
for teachers to provide a variety of activities to meet the
needs of different learning styles, so that all students will
have at least some activities that appeal to them based on
their learning styles, and they are more likely to be
successful in these activities.

Principled eclecticism enlightens teachers to
adapt themselves to the dynamics of their
classes on the basis of their collective
knowledge of language learning and teaching,
rather than to adopt a specific method or
approach at hand.

Principled eclecticism can hardly offer
specific directions for teachers to
follow, so they have to find out for
themselves by practical trials.
Trial and Re-trial.

Language learning as a combined
process of structural and
communicative activities.

• Only teachers with enough theory
and practice can become eclectic

• No training [or
a teacher who is given teaching
recipes]

A teacher with no theoretical
thinking about the advantages and
drawbacks of any approach so they
follow their books slavishly.

• The use of eclecticism does not
mean to mix up different
approaches randomly.
• There must have some
philosophical backgrounds and
some systematic relation among
different activities. Usually it is
recommended to mix structural
approaches with communicative
use of language.

Two-Dimensional Model – J. Dean Mellow

Form
• Some activities largely focus on language as a
structural system composed of forms such as
phonemes (sounds), intonation patterns,
morphemes (including inflectional suffixes),
words, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and
turns (within a conversation).

Function
Other activities largely focus on language as a system
for expressing meanings, including past time,
plurality, definiteness, reference (e.g., to entities
such as books and teachers, and to actions such as
speaking and eating), requests, commands,
apologies, questions, politeness, respect,
argumentation, and narration, among many others.

Construction
• Some activities primarily assume that language learning is
a process of active construction by the learner.
• In other words, language learning is thought to result from
the cognitive processing involved in attending to and
comprehending extensive amounts of input (both written
and spoken) and in attending to and producing extensive
amounts of output (both in writing and speech), in the form
of practice, drills, exercises, and other guided, negotiated,
or corrected activities.

• These exercises may be either deductive or inductive, and
may involve the metalinguistic discussion of pre-selected
language forms, elements, and patterns.
• In particular, the construction view assumes that new
elements can be added to a learner's internal language
system as a result of extensive attention and processing:
Input and output practice will result, over time, in the
automatization or internalization of sounds, words, and
form-meaning patterns.

• The construction assumption, with the emphasis on
attention, practice, and automatization, is informed by
theoretical positions such as those discussed in N. Ellis
(1999), McLaughlin (1990), and Schmidt (1990).
• The term construction is used to evoke the idea of a house
being constructed through a variety of deliberate building
processes.

Growth
• The growth assumption maintains that the natural
processing of meaningful language facilitates acquisition:
“Language is thought to emerge best in response to the
normal language use that occurs in contexts in which
interlocutors are exchanging meaning.”
• Within these activities, essential aspects of language
learning are thought to result from innate cognitive abilities
that only rely upon a subset of the input that a learner
receives.

Hypotheses
• First, language is hypothesized to emerge in a learner according to the
learner's own internal syllabus, largely as a result of innate, biological,
language-specific predispositions. Following the influential work of Noam
Chomsky, in the 1960s and 1970s these innate abilities were often
referred to as the Language Acquisition Device (or LAD). Since about
1980, Chomsky and his colleagues have used the term Universal
Grammar (or UG) to refer to the hypothesized innate abilities. Although
originally proposed to account for first language acquisition, many
researchers have explored or argued for the role of these innate abilities
in SLA (e.g., Krashen, 1982, 1985; Pienemann & Johnston, 1987; cf.
Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991).

Hypotheses
• Second, language development is hypothesized to
result only partially from the learner's general
cognitive operations. For example, it is claimed that
syntactic patterns are not learned with processes
such as generalization, deduction, and
automatization. Consequently, deliberate, deductive
practice and exercises are thought to contribute only
minimally to development.

• In sum, the growth assumption de-emphasizes practice and
automatization. Instead, it emphasizes innate abilities and
learning as a consequence of exchanging meanings in
communicative contexts. The growth assumption is
informed by theoretical positions such as those discussed
in Chomsky (1986), Goodman et al. (1987), Krashen (1982,
1985), and Prabhu (1990).
• The term growth is used to evoke the idea of a plant
growing as a result of natural processes.

Hypotheses
• Third, language development is hypothesized to rely
only partially on the linguistic environment (e.g., the
environment does not provide sufficient information
for a learner to construct a knowledge of language)
or responds only to certain types of linguistic
environments (e.g., deductive instruction and
correction of forms do not contribute to
development).

WHAT
ARE
THE
ROLES
OF
THE
TEACHER?

• The teacher decides what
methodology or approach
to use depending on the
aims of the lesson and the
learners in the group.

• We consider teacher as a director
[or facilitator]: who facilitates the
learner,
• as a guide: who guides the
students,
• as a slightly higher rank official:
who uses his authority to conduct
the class and make the process of
teaching and learning systematic.

WHAT
ARE
THE
ROLES
OF
THE
STUDENTS?

• Learner is seen by us as the center
of teaching learning activities.
• His participation is very important.
• So teacher will always try to
involve the learners.

• As well as the learner's role in class
should be cooperative and they will be
allowed to communicate, self correct
each other and ask questions about the
substance provided for teaching
learning activities.

Criticisms:
Disadvantages
of
this
method

Stern (1983) doubted about eclecticism
for “there is no agreement as to what
the different methods precisely stand
for, nor how they could be satisfactorily
combined” ; and for it does not “provide
any principles by which to include or
exclude features which form part of Cannot Be
existing theories or practices” (1992) Combined

Marton (1988) argued that “practical
eclecticism does not meet the criterion
of efficiency, while theoretical
eclecticism is suspicious on logical and
theoretical grounds”
Inefficient

A Chinese opponent (Dai, 2002) argues
that the fault of eclecticism in language
teaching lies in that it attempts to make
a kind of all-purpose language teaching
out of the existing methods and
approaches and to persuade that
eclecticism is the only right idea in
foreign language teaching The only
methodology. method?

Widdowson (1990) argues:
“It is quite common to hear teachers say that they
do not subscribe to any particular approach or
method in their teaching but are ‘eclectic’. They
thereby avoid commitment to any current fad
that comes up on the whirligig of fashion. This
might be regarded as prudent common sense.
But if by eclecticism is meant the random and
expedient use of whatever technique comes
most readily to hand, then it has no merit
whatever. It is indeed professionally
Expedience
irresponsible if it is claimed as a pedagogic
principle.”

Johnson (1998, 1999) noted that
“eclecticism’s strength is recognition of
diversity, its weakness a tendency to
vagueness and lack of principle”.

Vagueness

…has often been criticized because it
may be arbitrary, atheoretical,
incoherent, naïve, uncritical,
unsystematic, and lacking in
philosophical direction (e.g., Glascott &
Crews, 1998; Lazarus & Beutler, 1993;
Schwab, 1971).
The NOTs

In a relevant critique of communicative
language teaching, Allen (1983) has
argued that “in the absence of a well-
defined theory, there is a danger that
the development of communicative
language teaching materials will be
guided not so much by principle but by
expedience, rule-of-thumb, and the
uncoordinated efforts of individual Danger
writers."

Advantages
of
this
method

It has the potential of keeping
the language teacher open
to alternatives. In this
way, it can even be seen
as an antidote to becoming
complacent about one’s
language teaching
practices. Alternatives

• The complex circumstances of teaching and learning
languages - with different kinds of pupils, teachers, aims
and objectives, approaches, methods and materials,
classroom techniques, and standards of
achievement - make it inconceivable that
any single method could achieve optimum
success in all circumstances.
• Peter Strevens, 1977.

• We need to offer a variety in teaching which
wil give equal opportunities to people with
dif erent styles.
• Alan Maley (1983)

•Rather than fish in one linguistic stream,
we should cast our pedagogical net in all
waters that might bring us in a profitable
catch.
•Girard, 1972

Methods Synergistics

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