New Tendencies in the ELT World

1. New Tendencies in the ELT World Modern State of the Art Review R. Millrood. Modern Tendencies in the ELT World

2. Cognitive code learning prompted the idea of grammar awareness – conscious approach to language acquisition. • Psycholinguistic research increased interest in the natural mechanisms of language acquisition. • Chomsky’s theory of Universal, Generative and Transformation Grammar boosted belief in structure-based exercises. Pre-communicative era R. Millrood. Modern Tendencies in the ELT World

3. Student-centered approach focused attention on active learning in the lesson. • Intensification ideas prioritized brain resources and the ways to exploit them fully (suggestopedia, TPR, NLP). • Humanistic approach stemmed from humanistic psychology and sought the ways to provide for learner personality growth. Communicative era R. Millrood. Modern Tendencies in the ELT World

4. Teaching communication has been the goal of ELT at all times. • At the pre-scientific stage of ELT methodology phase-books existed (France, 16th century) • Grammar-translation method (19th century) was the “known” way of teaching practical English. • The idea of practical English culminated in the 70s due to communicative-oriented teaching • By the 90s communicative ideals were getting lost • Post-communicative era started to be. Post-communicative era R. Millrood. Modern Tendencies in the ELT World

5. A method had been considered a universal way to successful teaching. • Anthropological centeredness of ELT has attracted attention (teachers and learners). • The role of teaching aptitude (talent) has become the subject of research. • The role of the learner has been enhanced and responsibility put on them. • Teaching and learning styles/strategies have been exposed. Post-method era R. Millrood. Modern Tendencies in the ELT World

6. Return of the interest in the language: from communicative linguistics and discourse analysis to the corpus analysis. • British National Corpus (BNC) contains 100 million samples of oral and written language use – a real-world perspective on the discourse as a chaotic system. • New technologies are being used for browsing corpus linguistics (concordancers) • The corpora data are being used for teaching and text-book development. Return to Linguistic orientation of ELT R. Millrood. Modern Tendencies in the ELT World

7. Learner competencies – communicative (linguistics, discourse, strategic, cultural), learning (self-instruction, self-control, self-organization), para-communicative (project, research, product). • Teacher competences – key (inter-disciplinary), subject (ELT methods and techniques), special (unsuccessful learners, authoring manuals) • Successful demonstration of practical skills and activities. • Competences and competencies. Competence oriendation of ELT R. Millrood. Modern Tendencies in the ELT World

8. Technology in ELT has made progress from cassette-recorders to learning environment called e-learning. • E-learning is a medium of instruction that creates vast learning opportunities provided by multi-media resources. • The foci of research are: computer-assisted teaching, learning and testing, multimedia resources in ELT, the use of corpus linguistics in language teaching and learning • New products appear (interactive • white board) Technological orientation of ELT R. Millrood. Modern Tendencies in the ELT World

9. Intensive development of language testing methodology is the result of focus on quality control in education. • Self-assessing testing is getting common due to computer-assisted procedures. • Computer-generated testing increases the objectivity of measurements in education. • The instructional role of testing is being studied (wash-back effect). • The concepts of testing competence and test wiseness are being developed. Testing perspective in ELT R. Millrood. Modern Tendencies in the ELT World

10. Interest in the cultural component of communicative competence has increased. • The notions of socio-cultural, cross-cultural and inter-cultural competencies have been differentiated. • Project work is being increasingly used for co-teaching language and cultures. • ICT is being employed for co-teaching language and cultures. Co-teaching/learning of language and cultures R. Millrood. Modern Tendencies in the ELT World

11. English language is largely taken as the means of global communication. • Regional “Englishes” are being recognized as rightful language varieties. • The standards of correctness are being lost in the language classrooms. • Standard English is still present in course-books and international testing exams. • English language is no longer associated with BANA cultures. Global English advent R. Millrood. Modern Tendencies in the ELT World

12. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. • ELT Journal. • The Modern Language Journal. • Language Testing • Applied Linguistics. Further reading R. Millrood. Modern Tendencies in the ELT World