Information collection & exchange

Backgrou
as an intellectual activity. Until twenty years 
ago, t
nly used in Europe to teach Latin in schools. Those countries which were 
still bear the traces of this association in the use of 
nguage classrooms. 
comes the section on backgr
id
d
the impact on
h
Volunteers, having faced initial hesitations about which method to use, have suggested the positive and 
practical ways in which you can judge the benefits and impact different methods will have on your English 
lessons. 
 Traditional language teac
The Grammar Translation Method, the Direct Method, and the Audiolingual Method have been included not 
to give you a history of language teaching, but because they still strongly influence English instruction in 
many parts of the world. You will doubtless come across educationalists, now in decision-making positions, 
who have successfully learned English using one of these approaches. And their thinking on language 
learning is likely to be influenced by their experience. Belittling these approaches as counter-communicative 
or out of date may arouse their suspicion of your abilities as a teacher and may diminish your ability to 
eventually bring about change. 
T
approach they knew at school. Dismissing this attachment will not help you develop the productive 
relationship you want to establish with your
fr
experience and using some of the activities from methodologies they feel comfortable with, at least in 
in
Many countrie
s for buying textbooks. Consequently you m
worki
ay find yourself
syllabus based on a twenty-fi
one. On the one
textbook which
is a delicate
do not want to 
r
your criticisms, but on the other, y
your technic
d your inno
not want to lose si
ansfer to your c
al skills an
ideas. A good strategy to
using some of the act
the opening stages of your s
m the prescribed methodolo
s to be seen as covering the s
nce you have established w
colleagues and students
s
n
ce and in bringing abou
pect the traditions a
of the system, you m
hich lead to the use of 
successful in winni
effective teaching methods.