Medgyes satirizes about the lack of difficulty to apply a Communicative Approach in the classroom. He claims that teachers must be "super heroes" as they must fullfil an indefinite amount of roles in order for the students to feel comfortable, not anxious and motivated enough in order to learn and acquire a language. Some of these roles are: erudite, versatile, instruments, inquiring, down-to-earth, multidimensional, far-sighted, high-tech, confident, judicious, ingenious, technically-skilled, psychologists, controller, assessor, organizer, prompter, participant and resource.
So, it is not an easy task to be a communicative teacher....according to Medgyes there is a dichotomy, a paradox between what is really taught and how teachers really are with the fact that this is not helping teachers to become communicative teachers, and worse for students to become communicative learners.
" By putting an especially heavy linguistic strain on the teacher, the communicative Approach further reduces the time non-native teachers have available for their students" (p.112)
I agree with you. Being a communicative teacher and doing all the things we are supposed to do, sounds very easy and beautiful in words. But applying all of those principles and fulfilling all of those roles is much more difficult than it sounds. And also it demands much more time and effort than everyone thinks.
ResponderEliminarWe have to be available for our students and not worried about trying to be a super teacher.
Yes I agree, it's a matter of time. We need more time to plan our classes, study new strategies and take care of our students but it looks impossible that happens.
ResponderEliminarI agree with Angela when she says that the paper can hold a lot but the reality does not always stick to that. The teacher should be at least be provided with more time and opportunities to professionally develop himself or herself, and there I agree with Carmen, otherwise, as it is now, it's impossible.
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