Communicative language teaching and language teacher education

• Main Author: Murray, Neil Langdon
• Published: University College London (University of London) 1996
• Subjects: 370; Education & training
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.338881

This study explores a basic paradox. On the one hand, innovations thatappear in the field of language teaching - or indeed any other field ofendeavour - in order to be maximally effective, need in some way to beincorporated into the contexts of their application. However, such contextsare often unfavourable to the reception of new ideas which consequentlyneed to undergo some measure of adjustment prior to theirimplementation in the classroom. As such those ideas are seldomrealisable in their 'true colours'. Furthermore, they are at timesthemselves not very clear even within their own terms, and may suffer tovarying degrees from vagueness, diffusion and instances of contradiction. What I seek to do in the chapters that follow is investigate Communicative Language Teaching in order to (i) establish what the basictenets of the approach are, and (ii) identify those factors that affect the wayin which communicative principles could be made acceptable andeffective with particular reference to the language teaching /learningsituation in japan. As a necessary corollary of this investigation, consideration is givento the implications for language teacher education where, it is argued,teachers-to-be need to be provided with the means via which to mosteffectively evaluate innovative ideas and come to terms with thosedifficulties that arise from attempts to apply general principles toparticular circumstances.