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Reviews

Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching


J. C. Richards and T. S. Rodgers
Cambridge University Press 2001, 270pp., 15.25
isbn: 0 521 00843 3
The rst edition of this book, published in 1986,
rapidly became a staple of teacher training courses
and postgraduate courses worldwide. By providing
a uniform framework for analysing methods and
approaches, it oered an invaluable means of
evaluating and comparing them in a relatively
objective and dispassionate way. In the 15 years
from 1986 it attained near classic status. This new
edition is therefore both welcome and timely.
How dierent is the new edition from the original?
Apart from the fact that it is 100 pages longer, there
are a number of signicant changes. First, and
most important, there has been a complete
restructuring of the book. It now comprises three
major sections: Part I Major language trends in
twentieth century language teaching, Part II
Alternative approaches and methods, and Part III
Current communicative approaches.
Part I
Part I consists of the rst four chapters of the
original edition. Chapter 1, A brief history of
language teaching, is virtually unchanged apart
from the addition of sections on The methods era,
and Approaches and methods in teacher
preparation programs. The same goes for Chapter
2, The nature of approaches and methods in
language teaching. Chapter 3, The Oral Approach
and Situational Language Teaching, is unchanged
except for the updated bibliography. (The
bibliographies of all the chapters retained from the
original have been carefully updated.) Chapter 4,
The Audiolingual Method, is largely unchanged
with the exception of an additional section on The
decline of audiolingualism by way of introduction
to the many alternative approaches to be discussed
later in the book. So overall, Part I is the least
modied.

Part II
Part II, Alternative Approaches and Methods, by
contrast, represents a radical departure from the
structure of the original edition. The authors have
retained the chapters on Total Physical Response,
The Silent Way, Community Language Learning,
and Suggestopedia (Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8
respectively) in the new edition. But they have
added ve new chapters (Chapters 9 to 13), on
Whole Language, Multiple Intelligences,
Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP ), The Lexical
Approach, and Competency-based Language
Teaching.
In terms of the organization of each chapter, the
main change is that Theory of Language and
Theory of Learning have been conated into a
single section, as have the items under Design:
objectives, syllabus, learning activities, and the
roles of learners, teachers, and materials. In Parts I
and III, the original, separate treatment of these
items has been retained. This is no doubt
indicative of the authors sense that the
approaches/methods in Part II may prove (or
have already proven to be) more ephemeral than
those based on mainstream communicative ideas
in Part III. This would also account for the more
cursory treatment accorded them compared with
those in Part III.
They have thus grouped together in Part II the socalled designer methods, adding NL P and
Multiple Intelligences. The basis for doing so is
that: Rather than starting from a theory of
language and drawing on research and theory in
applied linguistics, these methods are developed
around particular theories of learners and learning,
sometimes the theories of a single theorizer or
educator. These methods are consequently
relatively underdeveloped in the domain of
language theory, and the learning principles they
reect are generally dierent from theories found in
second language acquisition textbooks. (p. 71)
(Note that theory, or one of its derivatives, is used
seven times in this short quote!)

ELT Journal Volume 57/3 July 2003 reviews


Oxford University Press
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305

Also included here are Whole Language and


Competency-based Language Teaching. These are
described as, movements that emerged within
mainstream education and have later been applied
to and extended to second and foreign language
teaching. (p. 71)
Finally, The Lexical Approach is also included in
Part II. This seems mildly curious, given that it is
not a designer method, and does not arise from a
movement in general education. Indeed, The
Lexical Approach might have more appropriately
been included in Part III as a current
Communicative Approach. It has a language as
communication focus, and can surely be
considered one of the branches of communicative
language teaching. The authors reasons for
relegating it to the world of alternative
methodology are that lexis still only refers to one
component of communicative competence and
that, It remains to be convincingly demonstrated
how a lexically-based theory of language and
language learning can be applied at the level of
design and procedure in language teaching,
suggesting that it is still an idea in search of an
approach and a methodology. (p. 138.)
This reviewer was left with the uneasy feeling that
Part II is something of a rattlebag, and that an
alternative 4-part organizational principle might
have yielded a more coherent design (see below.)
Part III
Part III starts with Chapter 14, Communicative
Language Teaching. This is almost identical to
Chapter 5 of the same name in the original edition.
Apart from some minor rewriting, the main change
is in the expanded and revised Conclusion.
Chapter 15, The Natural Approach, has migrated
from Chapter 9 of the original edition. It is
unchanged except for the bibliography.
Chapters 16 to 19 are all completely new, dealing
with Co-operative Language Learning, ContentBased Instruction, Task-Based Language Teaching,
and the post-methods era, respectively. One
could again quibble with the inclusion of
Co-operative Language Learning here rather than in
Part II, since, like Whole Language and
Competency-Based Language Teaching, it derives
from a more general instructional approach
(Collaborative learning).
However, the chapters here do have a family
resemblance as siblings or ospring of
Communicative Language Learning. What is
striking is the overlap between them. So many of
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the basic principles, procedures, and even


classroom activities are similar. The categorization
into dierent approaches often seems to rest on a
imsy foundation, and is perhaps reective of our
love of labels rather than of substantive dierences.
As the authors point out in their nal chapter, The
post-method condition, it is very dicult for
teachers to use approaches and methods in ways
that precisely reect the underlying principles of the
method. (p. 249). And, quoting Swaar et al.
(1982), Methodological labels assigned to teaching
activities are, in themselves, not informative,
because they refer to a pool of classroom practices
which are used uniformly. (p. 249)
The nal chapter oers a clear critique of the
concept of method as well as pointing the way to
possible new developments, inuences, and
trends.
The winds of change
The updating of this comprehensive guide to
approaches and methods is an invitation to review
the changes which have taken place in our eld
since the appearance of the rst edition in 1986,
and to gauge to what extent the new edition has
captured these changes.
I perceive three main dimensions of change in this
period:
1 A general decline in the attention given to the socalled designer methods which were so much a
focus of attention in the 1970s and 80s. This is
reected in the book through the less prominent
place given them in Part II.
2 A search for an escape from the tentacular reach
of Communicative Language Teaching. This
approach is now so widely accepted (though
much less widely practised) that it constitutes a
virtual hegemony, elbowing aside other
methodologies.
This casting about for alternatives is reected to
some extent in the book.
The search has concentrated on three main
areas:
i) Work within our eld, through attempts to netune or modify CLT in various ways. This is well
reected in the chapters on Content-based
Instruction, Task-based learning, the Lexical
Approach, etc. What is not included, and for
very good reasons (see below), is the growth of
interest in extensive reading, in the use of
literature as a resource for language learning,
and in Learner Independence.
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ii) Work based on movements and trends in


general education, as reected in the chapters
on Whole language, Competency-based
Learning, and Cooperative Learning.
iii) Work based on feeder elds, such as NLP ,
Multiple Intelligences, etc., which is again
given due prominence in the book. Perhaps the
one missing element here is the movement
towards aective (and eective) learning
exemplied in the work of SEAL (Society for
Eective and Aective Learning).
3 Technical and commerce-driven developments.
These would include the Internet (and
computerization in general), the exponential
growth worldwide of English for Young Learners,
the growth of interest in English for Business
(which has largely taken over what remains
of ESP ), standardized testing and the
aggressive marketing of tests such as TOEFL ,
TOIEC , IELTS , BAC , etc., and the cut-throat
competition in global coursebook publishing.
These are not approaches nor methods, yet
they are an important inuence on the
day-to-day practice of teachers and
administrators.
Why then are they (along with the movements
within the eld, such as extensive reading,
mentioned above) not included? The reason is
clear: it is precisely because they are not
approaches or methods. In other words, they do
not t into the template which the authors of the
book are working to. They lack the full dimensions
of an approach or method. There is no language or
learning theory underpinning the Internet, for
example. Extensive Reading is not a whole method,
though it may contribute to one. Learner
Independence may have a basis in learning theory,
but it is too diuse a collection of practices to be
labelled a method.
The book cannot be criticized for these
omissions, since they do not fall within its terms
of reference. However, they are worth noting,
since they underline the fact that there are many
signicant new developments which have
inuenced our thoughtscapes, yet which
cannot easily be categorized within a single, neat
scheme.
General remarks
The new edition is written in a clear and
accessible style, and legibility has been greatly
improved by the new font.
This remains the single most authoritative and
comprehensive guide to methods, and will
Reviews

surely continue to serve as a prime source for


teacher education programmes for some years
to come.
It has largely succeeded in including most of the
major new developments since 1986, with the
exception of those changes noted above (and of
course The Sensory-Deprivation Approach,
Swan and Walter 1982).
In keeping with the original, the authors have
largely succeeded in providing the reader with a
succinct, accurate, and objective description and
evaluation of the range of methodologies
currently available. However, they do appear to
have a barely concealed and touching faith in the
value of SLA research as the main dynamo for
methodological progress. This is a little
surprising, given the reservations expressed by
Ellis (1994: 689) ( SLA is characterized by
facts, explanations, positions, and perspectives
that frequently exist in an uneasy state of
complementarity and opposition.), LarsenFreeman (1997) (. it is not clear that we have
come any closer to the mysteries of SLA than
before), Cook (2000: 177) ( the issue arises as
to whether the methods of prediction based on
observation and experimentation are suitable to
so complex an area ) and others, and the
authors own critique of methods in the nal
chapter.
The new structure of the book is a denite
improvement. However, an alternative,
four-part structure might have made for even
more clarity. Part II might include TPR , The
Silent Way, CLL , Suggestopoedia, Multiple
Intelligences, and NLP , on the grounds that
they are based on psychological insights into
the nature of learning, and are to a degree
packaged and marketed. Part III might
comprise Whole Language, Competency-Based
Learning and Cooperative Learning, since all are
derived from general education or L1 contexts.
Part IV would then include Communicative
Language Learning, Content-based Learning,
Task-Based Learning, and The Lexical Approach,
on the grounds that these are all L2 based
approaches with an aliation to a broadly
Communicative Approach. But, as Joe E. Brown
remarks at the close of Some Like it Hot
Nobodys perfect!
References
Cook, G. 2000. Language Play, Language Learning.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ellis, R. 1994. The Study of Second Language
Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Larsen-Freeman, D. 1997. Chaos/complexity


science and second language acquisition. Applied
Linguistics 18/2. 14165.
Swaar, J. et al. 1982.Teacher classroom practices:
Re-dening method as task hierarchy. Modern
Language Journal 66/1: 2433.
Swan, M. and C. Walter. 1982. The Use of Sensory
Deprivation in Foreign Language Teaching. ELT
Journal 36/3: 1838.
The reviewer
Alan Maley divides his time between the Institute
for English Language Education at Assumption
University, Bangkok, where he directs the
postgraduate programme, and undertakes
freelance writing and consultancy work. From
196388 he worked for the British Council in
Yugoslavia, Ghana, Italy, France, PR China, and
India. From 198893 he was Director-General of the
Bell Educational Trust, Cambridge, and from
19938, Senior Fellow at the National University of
Singapore. He has published over 30 books on ELT ,
and is Series Editor of the Oxford Resource Books for
Teachers.
Email: mteaml@au.ac.th

Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom


Z. Drnyei
Cambridge University Press 2001. (Cambridge
Language Teaching Library) 155 pp., 12.95
isbn: 0 521 79377 7
Teaching and Researching Motivation
Z. Drnyei
Longman 2001. (Applied Linguistics in Action
Series) 295 pp., 16.00
isbn: 0 582 38238 6
There has to be something special about an author
who can produce two dierent books about the
same topic with two rival publishers in the same
year, and an edited collection (with Richard
Schmidt) as well. Now at Nottingham University,
Zoltan Drnyei has already established himself as
one of the leading researchers on motivation in
language learning through his prolic output of
papers and books on this and related topics in
applied linguistics, while based in Hungary, the US ,
and the UK. But do we need two books on
motivation? Each book is designed to t into a
dierent kind of list. Motivational Strategies in the
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Reviews

Language Classroom is primarily addressed to


language teachers, and also to teacher trainers
and course-book writers, and thereby follows
the lead of Cambridge University Presss
well-established series in oering an approach to a
central problem in language teaching which is
grounded in theory and research. Teaching and
Researching Motivation, on the other hand, was
only the third title in a new series venture by
Longman, and its title is, well, minimalist. This,
nearly twice the length of the rst, gives an erudite
and clear exposition of modern theoretical
approaches to motivation in psychology, social
psychology, and education in the rst two chapters,
and discusses second language learning from a
variety of points of view in 7 of its 12 chapters.
It is addressed to those who teach and research in
the eld of motivation: applied linguists,
psychologists, and those who educate teachers,
rather than those who might see their task as
motivating language learners. The two books are
therefore very dierent in intended readership and
concept, which, if they are successful in their aims,
makes Drnyeis achievement even more
remarkable.
That clear dierence in intended readership implies
that the shorter of the two would be easier to
recommend to the readers of this journal, and not
just because it is shorter. Motivational Strategies in
the Language Classroom opens with a succinct
chapter summarizing the major motivational
theories of the last couple of decades, and
underlining the importance of the temporal
aspect: dierent motivational forces operating on
choice, perseverance, and reection (pre-action,
action, and post-actional inuences). The rest of
the book is organized around 35 fairly general
strategies (in imperative mood) for the teacher,
each of which is broken down into more specic
operational instructions. These arise in the
development of the book through four chapters
(Chapter 1 Creating the basic motivational
conditions; Chapter 2 Generating initial
motivation; Chapter 3 Maintaining and
protecting motivation; and Chapter 4 Rounding
o the learning experience: encouraging positive
self-evaluation). The rst of the strategies gives the
format:
Strategy 1
Demonstrate and talk about your own enthusiasm
for the course material, and how it aects you
personally.
More specically:
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