Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

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Box 13.9 Other styles of language teaching
Typical teaching techniques
●
CLL, Suggestopedia, Confluent Language Teaching, self-directed learning
Goals
●
individual, development of potential, self-selected
Type of student
●
those with personal motivations
Learning assumptions
●
diverse, mostly learning by doing, or a processing model
Classroom assumptions
●
learner’s freedom of choice
Weaknesses from an SLA research perspective
●
either no view of learning or idiosyncratic views
●
little attention to learner variation
Classroom assumptions
●
usually small groups with cofigurative or prefigurative aims
Suggestions for teachers
●
a reminder of the importance of the students’ feelings
●
open discussions with students over their needs and preferences
13.7 Conclusions
The diversity of L2 teaching styles seen in this chapter may seem confusing: how
can students really be learning language in so many ways? However, such diversity
reflects the complexity of language and the range of student needs. Why should
one expect that a system as complex as language could be mastered in a single way?
Even adding these teaching styles together gives an inadequate account of the
totality of L2 learning. Second language learning means learning in all these ways,
and in many more. This chapter has continually been drawing attention to the gaps
in the coverage of each teaching style, particularly in terms of breadth of coverage

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of all the areas necessary to an L2 user – not just grammar or interaction, but also
pronunciation, vocabulary and all the rest. As teachers and methodologists become
more aware of SLA research, so teaching methods can alter to take them into
account and cover a wider range of learning. Much L2 learning is concealed behind
such global terms as ‘communication’, or such two-way oppositions as ‘experien-
tial/analytic’, or indeed simplistic divisions into six teaching styles. To improve
teaching, we need to appreciate language learning in all its complexity.
But teachers live in the present. They have to teach now, rather than wait for a
whole new L2 learning framework to emerge. They must get on with meeting the
needs of the students, even if they still do not know enough about L2 learning.
David Reibel once presented a paper at a conference entitled ‘What to do until the
linguist gets here’. A psychoanalyst treating an individual patient has to set aside
theories in order to respond to the uniqueness of that particular person. Teachers
too have the duty to respond to their students. To serve the unique needs of actual
students, the teacher needs to do whatever is necessary, not just that which is sci-
entifically proven and based on abstract theory.
And the teacher needs to take into account far more than the area of SLA
research; in the present state of knowledge, SLA research has no warrant to suggest
that any current teaching is more than partially justified. This book has therefore
made suggestions and comments rather than asserted dogmatic axioms.
Practising teachers should weigh them against all the other factors in their unique
teaching situation before deciding how seriously to take them. Considering teach-
ing from an L2 learning perspective in such a way will, it is hoped, lead in the
future to a more comprehensive, scientifically based view of language teaching.