I completely agree with the author in all the aspects he mentions. Of course it is easy to theorize about something if you are not in the classroom and you are not dealing with the current affairs or struggling with the numerouseos situations teachers struggle with everyday. I believe that if you do a survey, all -or most- of the teachers will answe rthat they have as an ultimate goal to be Communicative teachers. But, concretely, I can assure that only a few actually teach following a Communicative Methodology. This is, in my consideration, the eternal dichotomy between theory and practice.
As the author mentions, being a Communicative teacher requires to have "super- powers"; they must focus in a plethora of aspects, and also with their own defficiency as a non-native language teacher.
The Communicative Approach is the one every teacher and school aspires to. Currently, if you how to communicate menas you "know" a language. Now, does somebody dare to mention the "drawbacks" or struggling situations teachers will go through with this Approach? Well, Peter Medgyes did.
Great comment:) What can we do to make things better?
ResponderEliminarI agree with you! It is much easier to talk about a theory and believe that everyone has to follow it, instead of applying it every day.
ResponderEliminarThe same happens when people, who are not involved in the education system, start to criticise it and give solutions which they believe would work.
I totally agree with you! It is much easier to believe in the theory than to apply it in real teaching situations. I think that we all aim to be fully communicative teachers and to achieve all the objectives that this approach proposes. But it is really time consuming and many times very difficult to apply with a group of 20 or more students.
ResponderEliminarI agree with you Bernadita, there is a big difference between the theory and the practice. The theory can sound great and as you said every teacher and school should aspire to be a communicative teacher but to apply this theory there has to be changes in every aspects; in the school, students, syllabus...
ResponderEliminarYes, it's true! But I think that we can start applying a few things related to the theory, in our teaching practice. If we want to apply everuthing, of course we are not going to be successful. But maybe, if we apply 2 aspects each year, it's better than doing nothing.
ResponderEliminar