<![CDATA[Inspired by the #ELTchat of November 10, 1020, here is a blog challenge to collect and learn how you use traditional practices in your modern innovative class

The topic we discussed was:

When you think of traditional ELT approaches, are they all totally bad? What are good things you can draw from each of them?

You can read the transcript of the #ELTchat here but I would like to highlight some tweets which I thought were turning points in the conversation:

The first one was one of many similar tweets – but I felt this one really expressed well the way I think about sound teaching practice:

Later, Chuck Sandy came out with this great statement:

Then Luke Meddings stepped into the conversation and signed a death warrant for PPP….

…to which Jeremy Harmer replied with this comment:

Later, I interviewed Jeremy Harmer on the topic of this #ELTchat and you can listen to his comments expanding on this particular statement in the podcast of the interview here .

So here is the blog challenge:

What traditional techniques do you still use in your classes and how have you changed them or adapted them to suit your own style of teaching and the particular needs of your learners?

• What are the good things you can draw from each of the approaches labelled traditional?
• How have you adapted them or changed them/renovated them and how do you integrate them into your teaching practice?

In some contexts, grammar translation may be the only approach teachers consider traditional, but don’t forget to include other approaches and methods, such as the Audio-Lingual Method, the Presentation Practice Production model of early Communicative Language Teaching and more.

If you decide to take up this challenge, please link back to this post where all the posts collected will be listed.

I look forward to reading and sharing your blog posts. I look forward to learning from you.

Some useful reading about approaches & methods if you need to brush up:

• A brief History of Language Teaching from 1853 – 2003  from the IH World journal has a great review of the various approaches and is well updated
• Communicative Language Teaching today by Jack Richards (co-author of ) examines CLT in the light of previous approaches and sets the 60’s as the end of Phase 1 (what this blog challenge is about), what we now call traditional approaches.
• Materials and Methods: Need they be in conflict? (1997) conference paper by George Vassilakis in which he looks at the connection between the different approaches and coursebook materials.

Do suggest other texts which you have found to be useful.

Blog Posts in Response to this Challenge:

Old techniques die hard | A Journey in TEFL

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