The context of method; therefore, is the mechanism for teaching, and techniques the approaches used to implement methods. Historically, the eclectic approach developed as a response to profusion of teaching dogmas found in the s and s. Research at the time proceeded to investigate developing educational methods to address the development of the social and economic status of individuals who possess less than a secondary education.
One of the early educational approaches was of Frank Laubach. The Laubach Method, as it became known, was successful for over thirty years through the implementation of the use of the key word method. This method was recognized across 96 countries in languages, to stimulate the eradication of illiteracy. The Laubach Method was popular and recognized around the world. The premise of the Laubach Method was based on the learner hearing and seeing the same fact several times, and therefore, having learned that fact.
This early approach to mechanical rote learning is still a popular method used today in various classrooms around the world, and foreign-born residences of English speaking countries. The concept here is the Laubach Method does not rely on creating an interesting learning environment, Laubach argued illiterate adults are excited to be able to read and care not for intellectual stimulation.
However, other experts dispute Laubach Methods, as it depends on memorization and failed to recognize adult do not want to be treated like adolescents. Another method popular in the history of pedagogical reforms was the Gouin Theme Method. The Gouin Theme examines the whole, not parts as does the Laubach Method. It links sentences in thought and content, read for meaning, and unify to make a complete story. The objective of this method is to enhance reading and comprehension in adult learners.
The failure in this method is the fact adults having been conditioned earlier in the rote method, now tend to memorize the words, have difficulties when confronted with unfamiliar words because they have not learned how to identify the phonemes of the word.
This method creates an environment where teachers and students structure lessons around everyday occurrences in the community and world. The method became popular as teachers recognized that adults cannot be separated from the world. However, the weakness of this method required a creative and skilled educator, and a highly interactive classroom atmosphere. The belief was that CAM required adult learners to have established skills and were confident in their verbal responses.
There is the immediate use of the conversation, employing demonstrations, speech patterns, and interaction between teacher and students. This method, although useful in an ESL or EFL classroom was found to be weak with native-speaker illiterates requiring an emphasize on enhancing the basic English skills.
A more successful and widely used method at the time was the Direct Method. The Direct Method was popular during World War II in response to the demand for servicemen to be able to read operation manuals. Adult learners were instructed through a four-step process with the use of filmstrips as significant in the Direct Method. The Direct Method technique involved adult learners using flash cards, workbooks, and simple books where paragraphs, sentences and vocabulary mirrored the filmstrip.
The process included phonetics, students were encouraged to understand a word through pronunciation and, in the final step, were exposed to more complex phrases, sentences, and paragraphs.
The latter was then more specific towards the needs of the servicemen as they prepared to take on their roles for World War II.
In , Nell Peerson experimented with using television as a teaching tool, but found it was not very effective when teaching reading skills. Although she believed the face-to-face instruction was better, many of her illiterate students did manage to show improvements in reading equivalent to second graders. Another study on television as a teaching method in reading with illiterate adult learners was conducted by Howard Hulst.
The conclusion of his research was that illiterate adults, after television instruction, were able to read at the level of a grade three student.
Today, it is still a popular teaching tool in English as a Second Language ESL classroom, traditional classrooms, and with adult learners. Television has been become an effective tool in developing listening skills, where students are exposed to vocabulary which they can then use in reading activities. The internet also provides students the opportunity to develop reading, listening, and speaking skills, as well as several interactive grammar activities.
These early pioneers of using technology in the classroom were radical in their approach to education and were beginning to recognize the importance of television and technology as a teaching tool, and design lessons to meet the objectives of the student.
The significance of the LARK program emphasized the need for empathy in the classroom and the necessity to promote a non-directive, open approach to teaching. Using the synthetic approach by teaching the entire list of letters in the alphabet in five days, the letters are then formed into words familiar in the vocabulary of the students.
The LARK school encouraged students to listen to oral reading, whereby a student develops meaning from context and word recognition. The strength of the technique lies in allowing students to express themselves and respect the social roles of fellow students. At the time, the weakness identified with the LARK technique was the difficulty in recruiting teachers with the experiences to apply the non-directive method successfully in the classroom.
In comparison, the success of what was the termed the moonlight school used a more directive mode to promote literacy among adults. On a moonlight night more than illiterates from the surrounding Kentucky hills came together at a log cabin and through drills and a Socratical instruction, illiterate adult learners were schooled in a more alternative education in agriculture, horticulture, English, and history. Although wholly directive in pedagogy, it was successfully in its approach to an alternative approach to teaching.
Methodologies and Techniques Changes in language teaching and in method developed through various causes inherent with political, philosophical and social expectations of a community towards education frequently overwhelmed teachers with the expectations and constant shifts of teaching methodologies.
They recognized that it is better to combine several elements from all teaching methods to provide a more student-centered classroom and enhancing the learning experience for the students. It is difficult to determine which method is universally beneficial for teaching. Educators will generally adapt several methods into their lessons depending on circumstances.
However, a successfully methodology also requires an equally successful accompanying technique. As a result of early educational reform, four major techniques began to emerge: the synthetic technique, analytic or global technique, the analytic-synthetic technique, and the eclectic technique.
The advantage of the synthetic technique is that it can be used to develop reading skills quickly using the Laubach Method; however, its flaw was in the presentation of rote learning and repetition as in the Laubach Method often creating boredom along adult learners. In contrast, the analytic-global technique used stories and sentences where as a group students learn to student sentences independently before developing vocabulary skills. Many teachers use this technique with adult learners where its strength lies in recognizing adults as mature, independent and social thinkers.
The analytic-synthetic technique utilities the advantages of both previously mentioned techniques of identifying letters, words, and sentences as the learner improves their language skills.
The negative aspect of this is the teacher may use a more aggressive approach in this technique and force the student to progress too quickly, therefore, forgetting or leaving out significant components of language learning. Finally, the fourth and perhaps the most widely used technique, the eclectic technique, utilizes all three techniques and aforementioned methods.
The strength of the eclectic technique lies in its flexibility to be adaptable in any classroom; however, the challenge is to be able to develop a lesson which reflects its strengths and not be focus on one method or technique whereby learners could become confused in the lesson. The other weakness of this technique is to find qualified and experienced educators who understand how to incorporate the multiple layers of the eclectic technique in the classroom.
In order to successfully achieve this goal, teachers need to develop a coherent, pluralistic approach to teaching, or principled eclecticism Kumar, where eclecticism incorporates a variety of language learning activities through selection, categorizing, and ordering of teaching objectives. The eclectic technique has been widely termed in a number of educational related areas such as art education, curriculum theory, but most of all language education.
As eclectic pedagogy in the classroom became fashionable in language teaching; this innovative approach was viewed critically, especially by those wary of progressive notions towards language teaching. These notions reflect the early theories of teaching and the scientific approach to which one method was the best. Eclecticism began to take on many personas: effective and successful eclecticism, integrative eclecticism, new eclecticism and enlighten eclecticism Hussein Wali, Of the many personas, principled eclecticism has become the most widely used in language teaching.
The argument for principled eclecticism is it requires educators to determine what works within their own context as well as support language teachers in a three-stage process: diagnosis, treatment, and assessment of learners Gao, Each of the well-known methods: grammar- translation, audio-lingual, communicative, and reading has its own unique style regarding language learning and teaching. Teachers initially followed one teaching style in their classroom with the ALM being the most popular.
However, when teachers recognized the lack of student progress using ALM, they became disillusioned and chose to select other materials and start varying their teaching styles, or try to make the classes more interesting by putting them in a realistic context. Take for example the Direct Method used to expose language learners directly to the target language and the Total Physical Response TPR technique through actions.
Another example would be between traditional and current trends in ALM and CLT, while teaching all four language skills reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Audio-lingual Method ALM as an example is a method which combines a strong behavior approach and relevant techniques.
It is a combination of the main points addressed in two traditional methods where ALM emphasizes on all four language skills, unlike the Grammar- Translation and Direct Method. Therefore, making ALM not only as a language teaching method, but also eclectic. In a similar role, the Natural Approach could be viewed as an extension of the Direct Method and also eclectic.
Where there is continuity everywhere, it is easy to assume that all teaching methods are eclectic. Teachers are encouraged to take advantage of all other methods. Language teaching in China is set on five main aspects of successful eclectic teaching.
In the first stage, teachers needed to understand the purpose of each individual method. Teachers also needed to be flexible in selection and application of each method, making it effective in the classroom.
Educators needed to be aware of the appropriateness of the method and to create continuity throughout the whole teaching process broken into three stages with the teacher at the center of the input stage and the learner as the focus in the practice and production stage.
The eclectic approach, or principled eclectic approach, has also become popular throughout Taiwan. Educators in Taiwan recognized the effectiveness of using principled eclecticism in writing and adapted local practices to imported instructional approaches; therefore, creating a principled eclecticism approach to English as a Foreign Language EFL. Min refers to research conducted by Rodgers on eclecticism, where Rodgers predicted eclecticism as a synergistic approach will shape the way language is taught.
In Taiwan, there was the concern that writing instruction only touched upon only certain components of teaching writing. Further studies conducted by Reid in Min, , pp 66 eclecticism argue that a variety of approaches allows teachers opportunity to expand their horizon and go outside of the box. However, according to Min, recent publications revealed scholars are divided in the interpretation of this post-process approach in teaching writing. Although Reid argued principle eclecticism is essential to teaching writing to speakers of other languages, Min does not believe the recent literature reflects uniform arguments among the researchers in teaching writing using the eclectic approach Regardless of this, numerous debates over the interpretation of the post-process approach, many non-native EFL writing instructors in Asian countries are supporting the eclectic approach, combining aspects from other approaches to form a synergetic approach to teaching in Taiwan.
Teaching Reading in the United States In a similar realization, educators in the United States recognized that many students graduating from secondary school could not read. The alarming implications of this discovery forced teachers to examine their teaching methods and techniques, as well as the entire American education. According to research conducted by Maria Luisa Alvarez Harvey, students who scored the lowest in reading readiness in the first grade should little improvement in the seventh grade Unfortunately, further studies showed that the inability to read was one of the causes of high school dropout rates.
Researchers also learned the reading level of first year college students was extremely poor and the adult illiterates were measured in thousands. The argument of this mass inability to read creates numerous questions and concerns. Who was to blame? Educators understood it was impossible to put blame solely on the teachers, methods, the system, or even the students themselves. Although it would be easy to blame any one of these factors, researchers believe all four may have an influence in not preparing students to be able to read.
Teachers in American schools tried unsuccessfully to implement several methods with attention on phonics, while the linguistic approach, the kinesthetic approach, and other traditional approaches had been tried and tested, failing even being the most effective method.
The most effective method many educators were leaning towards was the eclectic approach. However, teachers needed to overcome their biases towards pedagogy and treat all students equally. Even though the eclectic approach may use all methods and techniques in the classroom, the ownership of the class still rests with the teacher. It lies on the success of instruction from the teacher and how it is implemented in the classroom. American educators have; therefore, found the eclectic approach successfully incorporates and adapts easily to the variations in students' emotional, physiology, and psychological needs.
Arguments For and Against Eclecticism The random choice of using the eclectic approach highlights the popularity of it as an effective teaching method. Although it was being used widely to define numerous theories, varying arguments began to emerge, both for and against the use of eclecticism in language teaching.
Arguments for the eclectic approach are based on eight principles of pedagogy. Second language learners bring a great deal of experience and knowledge to their language learning situation. Language Learners should be able to use translation methods to establish a basis for communication; but that language learning should take place in the targeted language. Emphasize on developing language learning needs to be interesting and meaningful, with a subject-content enrichment and a cognitive base to the language classroom.
The teacher may at their discretion, encourage mimicry, pattern proactive, and memorization, but at the core of language learning vocabulary acquisition needs to be used in meaningful contexts, as continuous use will aid in vocabulary retention; reading and writing should not be delayed, but also incorporated in almost every language lesson. Arguments against eclecticism suggest teachers rely heavily on safety strategies to follow societal ideologies in language teaching methods.
Critics of eclecticism argue at the classroom level, eclecticism invariably degenerates into a uncontrolled and disorganized pedagogy due to teachers lack of professional preparation; therefore, randomly packaging techniques from various methods and labelling it eclectic Weideman, , pg 7. This observation only created a third argument against eclecticism.
Teachers viewing a variety of methods and approaches into their teaching style could create confusion and conflicts.
Untrained teachers attempting to utilize conflicting approaches in their instructional techniques may realize contradictory results in what they initially attempted to achieve. The argument against eclecticism further illustrates how certain teaching techniques can be confusing to an eclectic teacher. Take as an example when using the grammar-translation method a teacher wanting to teach partially through the Direct approach will need to adopt an eclectic method that incorporate both approaches.
How is an eclectic teacher to accomplish this? The fourth argument against eclecticism follows when teachers are introduced to new methods and techniques and quickly adapted them into their traditional teaching styles, they may forget the rationale for the methods. In the end, the final argument is related to the previously mentioned technique where if the new technique is only followed occasionally and combined with several conflicting processes, the innovative technique loses its potential as an effective teaching method.
The basic premise against eclecticism; however, concerns professional integrity. Should educators begin borrowing from all over for fear of losing their own professionally learned techniques to language teaching in the classroom? The discussions suggesting against eclecticism also argue that teachers may also adopt an eclectic approach. However, many of the arguments against eclecticism appear to focus on unprincipled eclecticism.
On the positive side, arguments for eclecticism suggest if teacher are able to adopt new methods, maintain the original rational, and remain aware of their own teaching styles, they could easily utilize the eclectic approach in their classrooms. Ofcourse, the best argument for eclecticism is that it allows the teacher alternatives in teaching methods. The eclectic approach would provide the teacher to embrace new techniques in presenting language and create a more dynamic learning environment.
Traditional and Current Methods in Eclecticism However, there are several analyses of successful language teaching methods indicating continuity among both traditional and current teaching methods. There are already similarities and relationships across all methods. Which approach a teacher decides to utilize in their classroom, they also need to identify what works with their students in their particular situation or objectives.
The eclectic method allows teachers from time to time to encourage students to participate in class activities. The value of eclecticism gives experienced teachers, who are already associated with traditional methods to reject the weak points of each approach and highlight those aspects applicable to a particular learning situation. It is an effective way for teachers to create a variety of lessons and activities to meet the varied learning styles of students in order for students to find the classes appealing and stimulating to them.
The challenge facing language teachers when using eclectic pedagogy is identifying an approach that includes most of the principles inherent in the traditional methods Brown, It is necessary for teacher to recognize and use other concepts and procedures from various theories and methods.
However, for eclectic pedagogy to be effective in the classroom, they need to be well organized and prepared in order for the lesson to flow smoothly with the predicated outcomes. One of the most influential supporters of eclecticism in the 18th century was the head of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, Sir Joshua Reynolds , who is one of his famous academical Discourses , argued that the painter could use the work of the ancients as a.
The Esplanade is a wide walkway and seafront street in Weymouth, Dorset on the south coast of England. La Salle, IL. Hegeler Carus Mansion , c. It often includes dormers on the upper level, providing light behind the mansard roof. The floor plan includes pavilions, which are outward projections of the center or sides of a building. You must be logged in to post a comment.
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