There is a lot of wisdom in older books about language teaching. One book I have been dipping into again is the classic, and hefty, Teaching Foreign-Language Skills by Wilga M. Rivers. Rivers was both a teacher and elegant scholarly writer. I have the second edition, published in 1981. The first edition was published in 1968, at a time when the audio-lingual method was in wide use, but was coming under fire. 1968 is also when I began secondary school. In the first term at my grammar school, we learned French using an audio-visual course, complete with slide shows, beeps and choral repetition. We quickly moved on to a different approach, based on using the target language in a structured way, using classroom objects, pictures and texts to generate question-answer practice - a sort of adapted direct method. So I had a direct experience of a method change.
So Rivers was writing at a period of evolution in language learning theories and language teaching methods. By 1981, the communicative movement was underway and Krashen and others were exerting an influence by advocating natural approaches. As always there was a debate about methods and which ones might be best.
Chapter 2 of her book is about methods, therefore. It's well worth a read if you can get a used copy of the book. (As I wrote this there were cheap copies on Ebay and elsewhere.) She summarises and critiques a number of methods, starting with grammar-translation, then moving on through the direct method, the reading method, the audio-lingual method, cognitive code-learning, 'natural' language learning and, finally, what she calls the eclectic approach.
It's her section on the eclectic approach that I'd like to summarise and comment on for you.
Having earlier stated that a classroom cannot replicate an immersive language learning environment, she here suggests that teachers can't afford the luxury of complete dedication to each new method which comes along. She writes that teachers need techniques that work in their particular situation, with specific goals which are meaningful to the students in their classes.
On the other hand, she argues, teachers need to be stimulated from time to time to encourage them to read and have discussions about language teaching with colleagues and to experiment with new ideas. This can be exciting and offer a fresh challenge. (I see this happening a good deal via social media and meeting teachers.) So she claims that many experienced teachers are actually eclectic, retaining what they have learned and believed in in the past, while combining that experience with novel techniques which might produce even better teaching.
If you are experienced, does that resonate with you?
Rivers goes on to explain that this eclectic approach has an honourable history, citing Henry Sweet and H.E. Palmer, two influential teachers and writers from the turn of the twentieth century and following decades. She quotes from Palmer who wrote:
"We use each and every method, process, exercises, drill, or device which may further us in our immediate purpose and bring us nearer to our ultimate goal; we adopt every good idea and leave the door open for all future developments; we reject nothing except useless and harmful forms of work. The multiple line of approach embodies the eclectic principle..., for it enjoins us to select judiciously and without prejudice all that is likely to help us in our work" (Palmer, 1921).
Rivers goes on to distinguish true eclecticists, who absorb the best of all the ideas available, from what she calls drifters who adopt new techniques purposelessly. Interestingly, because Rivers is still strongly influenced by tenets of the audio-lingual method (you should see her detailed categorisation of drill types later in the book!), she still favours an early emphasis on oral-aural skills.
In sum she writes:
"To be successful, an eclectic teacher needs to be imaginative, energetic and willing to experiment. With so much to draw from, no eclecticist need lack for ideas for keeping lessons varied and interesting" (p.55).
Let's remember that she was writing in 1981, when the new field of second language acquisition was in its infancy, so she had not anticipated coming hypotheses such as the Noticing Hypothesis, the Learnability Hypothesis, Processing Instruction, arguments about how language becomes automatised, many findings from cognitive science and much more.
I keep Rivers' writing in mind when I see teachers getting enthused about newer methods, whether it be task-based language teaching, 'strong communicative', the lexical approach, TPR, TPRS, AIM, EPI, CLIL, PBL and more. I'm sure this enthusiasm is great and teachers do well, as Rivers suggested, to take on board new ideas.
What Rivers does not mention in this section of the book is what the underlying principles might be for choosing what's useful and what is, as Palmer put it, "useless and harmful". That's another matter.
Do you consider yourself an eclecticist? If so, what would your underlying principles be?
References
Palmer, H.E. (1921). The Principles of Language Study. London: Harrap.
Rivers, W.M. (1981). Teaching Foreign-Language Skills. Chicago: UCP
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