Preference for Western teaching methodologies

A second professional issue caused by native-speakerism is the preference for, and adoption of, Western teaching methodologies over local knowledge and techniques in foreign educational settings. This belief in the superiority of Western professional knowledge again has a long history, and is an issue which is difficult to clearly shine a light on. This is because, I believe, of the way in which the problematic nature of the practice is often obscured behind a mask of 'professionalism' - and this is a statement which requires unpacking. I should start by stating that I am in favour of research into second language acquisition and believe that a stronger understanding of how people learn languages on the basis of empirically collected data should inform the ways in which languages are taught. However, I also believe that it is important to recognise that teaching methods, educational technology, and assumptions about the goals and values of education have not only scientific, but also ideological and political dimensions. This argument was strongly articulated by Pennycook (1989) who argued that the concept of 'method' as applied to

47 prescriptivist classroom teaching was a way in which inequalities were created and maintained by powerful centres of ELT through the production of interested knowledge. In other words, educational technology, even when based on scientifically collected data, contains within it a particular ideological perspective, and the packaging of this technology in the form of “methods” allows other cultural values to be smuggled in as a part of the whole. The use of methods also turns teaching into a saleable product, which certainly benefits those who are trying to sell it. These criticisms may seem less powerful in modern times, as we are supposed to have moved into a 'post-method' era (Kumaravadivelu, 1994, 2001, 2012), however authors such as Widin (2010) have found evidence of explicit political influence on the exporting of teachers and methods to other countries. While data on processes of SLA can and should inform the teaching of languages, I believe that treating the creation of educational approaches as if it were a simple matter of mapping data onto techniques allows us to ignore the cultural and ideological biases that also drive the creation of educational technology.

This problem has been recognized in critical applied linguistics for a number of years. As Pennycook (1994) noted, “the export of applied linguistic theory and of western-trained language teachers constantly promotes inappropriate teaching approaches to diverse settings” (p.159). The clearest examples of specific methods which are exported from the West with little care for local context are Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT). CLT has long been promoted by organisations such as the British Council, but has been criticised as “a classic case of a center-based pedagogy that is out of sync with local linguistic, educational, social, cultural, and political exigencies” (Kumaravadivelu, 2006, p. 6), and resistance to the use of CLT approaches by both students and teachers has been documented in Pakistan (Shamim, 1996), South Korea (Li, 1998), China (Hu, 2002; Yu, 2001), and Japan (Sato, 2002), with the most famous example being the 'Madras Snowball' project; a project in which situational

48 approaches were exported to Indian teachers, and which was a failure due to the fact the methodology used was not felt to be suited to the local setting (Widdowson, 1968). These issues have long been recognised, however attempts to work around the problem of 'local context' have been rife with their own sets of problematic assumptions. Holliday (1994a) in an attempt to reconcile these concerns, proposed methods for facilitating appropriate "technology transfer" between foreign project managers and aid organisations, and local teachers and groups so that Western teaching approaches could be more effectively imported into foreign educational settings. Canagarajah (1996) criticised this approach, stating that on reading the book he felt that "I (as a periphery professional) begin to feel as if I am listening to a conversation in which I am not a participant; a conversation between centre-based project managers and scholars on how to trade in the periphery in a gentlemanly but profitable way" (p.82). Holliday (interviewed in Lowe, et al. 2015) acknowledges this criticism, and characterizes his earlier approach as attempting to 'solve the problems' of another part of the world, which by necessity involves researchers making assumptions about what problems may or may not be present in these other parts of the world in the first place.

This problem has been noted by others. Susser (1998) conducted a study of two types of EFL literature - materials offering advice to foreign teachers entering Japan, and research into cross-cultural learning styles - and identified aspects of "Orientalism”. Said (1979) described Orientalism as “the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient - dealing with it by making statements about it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient" (p.3). Susser (1998) argues that rather than being based on solid evidence, the texts he examined were "grounded in assumptions, stereotypes, platitudes, and errors" (p.63), which seemed intended to legitimize the authority of Western teachers over local teachers, students, and educational

49 institutions by 'Othering' them and attempting to solve problems that were only clearly apparent in the texts themselves. The same tendency to Orientalise foreign educational methods is mentioned by Canagarajah (1999b), who notes (citing Bowers, 1980; Dudley-Evans & Swales, 1980; Holliday, 1994a) that "the preference for didactic instruction in many periphery ELT programs has been attributed to ancient ethno-religious practices" (p.108), and then provides evidence of why such an understanding of local educational techniques is oversimplified, unnuanced, and serves to create 'problems' which the West can step in to 'solve'. One of the consequences of this is that ELT professionals from periphery settings seek to gain cultural capital by studying in Western institutions in order to gain the ‘authentic’ and ‘authoritative’ knowledge that can be found there (Lowe & Pinner, 2016) as exemplified by the quote from Canagarajah (2012) given earlier. A study by Lowe (2015) in Japan showed the consequences of this, with the majority of staff on three large ELT programs at Japanese universities - both 'native-' and 'non-native' speaker teachers - having earned their teaching credentials from centre institutions (chiefly British, American, and Australian). In other words, Western methods are part of a larger mindset in ELT that Others local educational settings and then 'corrects' them with Western educational technology.

Taking this into account, it is easy to recognise that the promotion of particular methodologies and teaching approaches is problematic not simply because of clashes with 'local settings', but because "methods are not value-free instruments validated by empirical research for purely practical teaching functions. Methods are cultural and ideological constructs with politico-economic consequences" (Canagarajah, 2002, p. 135). Holliday (2005) makes this case in his discussion of CLT, arguing that it is a simple evolution of audiolingualism, and that it carries with it baggage related to the control and training of students in how to learn the language properly. He terms this the 'legacy of lockstep' (p.39) and demonstrates how major elements of CLT are in fact traceable back to the more authoritarian aspects of audiolingualism. Block (2002) provides an

50 example of some of the cultural and ideological content that underlies SLA theory, making strong connections between notions in TBLT such as 'negotiation for meaning', and Western ideologies of free enterprise. Block (2002) accuses SLA research of reducing a psychological and social phenomenon to "principles of efficiency, calculability, predictability, controllability, and standardisation" (p.132), which turns language into "McCommunication" that can be measured and taught in prescriptive ways. An even more explicit example of the political and economic influences on the promotion of ELT methods is provided by Widin (2010), who examined Australian government ELT projects in Japan and Laos, finding them to be commodified and corporatized. Widin (2010) quotes one official who admits, rather unsettlingly:

"The purpose of this particular project is not to deliver great, you know, English language teaching methodology into this country's teaching system. Actually, by doing that we put many Australians out of a job...I mean...in fifteen years time if great English is being taught here then we're, you know, Australians out of business.

So I couldn't care less whether this country wants it, or needs it, or likes it, at the end of the day it's not the judgement of teachers, it is a decision we've made against the background of what would enhance Australia's interest" (p.2)

Widin goes so far as to claim that the projects "exerted symbolic violence" (p.191) on local systems by, in the words of Kumaravadivelu (2012), "ignoring the importance of learners' first language, and, above all, by marginalising the commendable expertise and experience that host-country teachers bring to the projects" (p.23).

51 The foregoing discussion serves to show how the exportation and adoption of Western teaching methodologies and approaches is based on the creation of orientalising narratives about foreign educational settings which seek to reconstruct these settings through the eyes of the West. Through this process, 'problems' are discovered, and Western educational technology is prescribed as the solution for these problems. Further, these methods often carry with them unsavoury political and economic implications, either implicitly through a 'west is best' mindset, or through more explicit poolitical and economic incentives as in the case described above. This is a process which is disempowering for local educational professionals, and beneficial to both individuals and organisations from the West. In other words, this is another clear symptom of native-speakerism.