ENG 345: Week 4

            In the Skehan article it talks about task-based instruction. Skehan defines a task as “an activity which requires learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective”. He then talks about the four different approaches to task-based instruction: a psycholinguistic approach to interaction, a social interactive approach, a cognitive perspective and a concern for structure-focused tasks. In the psycholinguistic approach, he talks about the feature of recast. According to Long et al. (1998) recasts were really effective in short-term language learning, and according to Lyster (1997) recasts are not frequent, not noticed by learners, and it does not get incorporated into the learner’s speech. Recasts are a controversial topic in the approaches of task-based learning. Are they effective for teaching pragmatically appropriate and grammatically correct responses, or just one over the other? Do they boost learners’ confidence or make them afraid to speak out again in fear of being wrong? Recasts can be used for many different purposes and I think it is important for teachers to know that if they use recasts why they are using them and for what purpose. I think it is also important for teachers to analyze the growth caused by recasts each year and make a decision based on that year whether to include recasts or not.

            In the Hu article, it talks about the CLT approach and China. Hu talks about what China had before CLT and how CLT has fit in with China. The article mainly talks about how the CLT goes against a lot of the culture of China. I think that the CLT overall is not really the best approach for China, but that does not mean it could never work in China. I think you could take some of the characteristics of CLT and combine them with another method, perhaps audiolingual, and that could be beneficial for certain students in China. I definitely think the ideology viewpoint is the way to go because there is no one universal method that works for everyone. “An ‘autonomous’ attitude assumes that a pedagogy which is effective and appropriate in one social and cultural context also works in a different one, whereas an ‘ideological’ attitude recognizes culturally embedded diversity and rejects the notion of universally appropriate ways of teaching and learning” (Coleman, 1996; Hinkel, 1999).

            In the Bax article, it talks about how the CLT approach needs to end and that a Context approach needs to take over. Bax talks about how context is a part of a lot of different approaches, but it always takes second place to methodology. He advocates that context should be first and then methodology should follow. I think context is really important and should definitely be apart of a teacher’s philosophy. I think that the context approach might be hard for novice teachers to have a grasp on a bunch of different methodologies based on the student’s context. I also think that it would be hard if the students needed multiple different methods especially if you taught English to students that are not from the same cultural background. Overall, the context approach would be hard to have a plan and it would definitely differ from year to year, but it would be beneficial to the students and it would meet their needs.