ELT methodology in the setting

ELT methodology needs to be appropriate for the setting.

As discussed earlier, I first came to the setting because of my involvement in a small- scale project aimed at helping English language teachers to teach in more

o u i ati e ways. However, one incident in particular led me both to question my role as someone who was supposedly there to develop teachers in the local area, and more generally to question the extent to which it was useful to export methodology and ethodologi al e pe tise from one setting to a othe , spe ifi all f o a Western TE“OL to a non-Western TESOL setting. I describe this incident below:

The DVD: At a conference held in Chennai in southern India, I watched a talk given by a well-known ELT methodology textbook writer from the U.K. During this talk, the speaker shown a clip from the DVD that accompanied his latest publication. The clip showed a small class of about 15 mixed nationality young adult students, sitting in a ho seshoe set up a ou d the tea he i a ell- furnished well-lit well-equipped classroom. The students all seemed able and willing to interact with one another in English and to actively participate in the

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class without much prompting. The class was in my view lively, with plenty of humour, and the teacher and students seemed to get along well, perhaps helped by the fact that she, the teacher, was of a similar age to several of the students. She managed and facilitated rather than controlled the learning process. The topic of the lesson was about relationships and finding a partner, and did not appear to be a part of any curriculum. It might be des i ed as a t pi al Weste TE“OL o u i ati e lass i a t pi al Weste TE“OL private language school setting.

As I watched the clip, my initial reaction was that it provided useful models of different aspects of a broadly o u i ati e methodology. However, the reaction from local conference participants, as observed in questions to the speaker after the talk and in conversation during the rest of the day, was for the most part questioning the relevance of the clip to their own situations. This seems understandable when a more typical scenario for the conference participants, based on my own classroom observations, would be classes of around 40 students in school classes, more in college classes, with students seated in rows, in classrooms which are often poorly lit and somewhat run down. The students would generally be from the same state (Kerala), though in some cases multilingual, and would typically participate only when directly nominated to do so by the teacher. Most of the interaction within the classroom would be teacher to student, with the teacher controlling the class and classroom activities from the front. The learning environment might typically appear serious and the classroom atmosphere subdued. The topics would be more subject-based, focusing on, for example, historical figures or literature, and teachers would be expected to adhere to a curriculum. (Adapted from field notes, August 2010)

Given the differences between the situation in the clip and the situation in the setting in which I was researching, it became clear to me that, on personal level, I needed to think very carefully before suggesting that ideas and approaches from my own setting might be applicable in the research setting. Further, in a broader sense, I needed to consider TESOL in the setting in its own right as opposed to considering it as a form of

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TESOL that was deficient in some way and that should unquestioningly aspire to follow a more Weste TE“OL type approach to classroom teaching.

In later observations, I began to focus more on what particular approach, if any, was being taken in classes within the setting, noting in [Obs. 18] that:

The teache i ediatel asks uestio s a out a poe i the stude ts ooks. I assume they read this either in the last class or for homework. She asks mainly comprehension questions, though also asks students for their favourite lines, pairs of rhyming words and si iles. … “tude ts i di iduall ite fou -line poems in a similar style to the one in the book, the four students who finish first read out thei o pleted poe s to the lass. … Wo ki g i g oups, stude ts ite dialogues between characters in the poem, to be finished for homework and acted out in the next class.

Following this class, I made the following notes:

This class reminded me of literature classes when I was at school, but looking at the textbook, as well as literature-based comprehension questions, there were several pages of grammar and vocabulary exercises. … The pa t he e the had to create and perform a dialogue seemed quite task- ased, o pe haps the eak e sio of the o u i ati e app oa h, ut a e just o i ing bits of different methods and approaches, so eclectic? [Field notes, August 2010]

Again, considering the methodological approach, in [Obs. 20] I noted:

The teacher starts by asking students about a text about obesity that they read in their last class. The students prepare a dialogue in groups, giving advice to a friend about obesity. This activity seems to work quite well, students seem e gaged, the tea he o ito s. … Th ee g oups ead out thei dialogues to the

lass, though the est of the lass do t see to liste . Following this class, I commented that:

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Overall, there seemed to be a reasonably communicative/task-based approach adopted throughout the class, or is this just a follo the ook app oa h? [Field notes, August 2010]

The data above from [Obs. 18] and [Obs. 20] indicates that elements of what could be called a o u i ati e approach, such as actively involving students and using group work, have been incorporated into some ELT classrooms in Kerala, perhaps in line with what Littlewood (2004, 2013, 2014) calls o u i atio -o ie ted la guage tea hi g .

However, it might equally be argued that a localised approach is being applied, for example using literature in classes as a basis for teaching language, and that this app oa h had o u i ati e ele e ts i o porated within it. “u h a o te t app oa h , putti g the eeds of the o te t fi st, ahead of ethodologi al app oa h, is advocated by Bax (2003).

A further way of looking [Obs. 18] and [Obs. 20] would be that the teachers were focused on making an effort to involve students in the class, without seeking to align themselves with any particular method or approach , perhaps - albeit for the most part subconsciously - ope ati g i a o e post ethod se se, as des i ed Kumaravadivelu (1994, 2001, 2006b).

These thoughts led me to think more deeply about what was happening in classrooms in the setting in terms of approach. At the start of the study, I was trying to explain methods and approaches in concrete terms, and wanting to label classes both as following a particular method or approach and in terms of binary opposites such as

t aditio al o ode a d tea he - e t ed o stude t- e t ed . However, as the study progressed, and through greater awareness of my own positioning, I began to see the classroom in more complex ways, as discussed in, for example, Breen (1985), Allwright (1988), and Senior (2012) among others, and to realise that ELT methodology used in the setting needed to be appropriate for the setting.

I discuss these issues further, with specific reference to the limited app op ia of the o u i ati e app oa h i the e t se tio , with specific reference to complexity in

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Section 6.4, and with specific reference to a localised approach to ELT in Chapter 7, particularly in Section 7.4.