On a language teachers’ list, the comment recently appeared: Maybe we need to distinguish between input-based strategies and TPRS techniques, as well as “approaches” vs. “methodologies.” This is something I’ve been trying to do on some of the “other lists” when engaging non-CI-based folks in dialogue about what we do. This is how I cut […]
Posts Tagged ‘Legacy Methods’
Method? Strategy? Philosophy?
Posted by Terry Waltz on November 22nd, 2014
Posted in Methods 
Tags: Acquisition vs Learning, Legacy Methods, Philosophy, TPRS 
Comments Off on Method? Strategy? Philosophy?Comprehensible Input goes traveling
Posted by Terry Waltz on May 5th, 2012
The newest buzz in the communicative language teaching community is — guess what — “Comprehensible Input”. Unfortunately, there seems to be some confusion about what “comprehensible” means. Sitting in workshops given by respected presenters in the communicative teaching world, one hears repeated references to “Comprehensible Input”, but what is really being said is usually one […]
Posted in General, Methods Tags: ACTFL, Comprehensible Input, Legacy Methods, Standards, TPRS Comments Off on Comprehensible Input goes travelingNegotiation of Meaning: Is it Different in CI Instruction?
Posted by Terry Waltz on March 14th, 2011
From our friends (really…they used to be a good interpreting client of mine when I lived in Taipei!) at the British Council, a definition and some examples of “negotiation of meaning”, a popular language teaching buzzword. Does it apply to CI-based instruction? (British Council information in italics below.) Negotiation of meaning is a process that […]
Posted in General, Methods, Speaking/Listening Tags: Legacy Methods, Output, Pairwork Comments Off on Negotiation of Meaning: Is it Different in CI Instruction?“There must be output…”
Posted by Terry Waltz on March 13th, 2011
A comment recently appeared — generally in support of TPRS, too — on a language teachers’ discussion list: To make TPRS effective, the instructor needs to go beyond just telling stories in the classroom. There needs to be instances where students are engaged into negotiation of meaning, purposeful uses of the target language, and opportunities […]
There’s time for a variety of “techniques”, right?
Posted by Terry Waltz on March 8th, 2011
Um, no. There really isn’t. Or, more precisely, it depends on what you mean by “techniques”. The thing that I think a lot of people do not understand is that while it is very accommodating to say “there is time for everything” in the foreign language classroom, the cold hard fact is that there is […]
Posted in Methods Tags: Legacy Methods, Proficiency, TPRS Comments Off on There’s time for a variety of “techniques”, right?Making student groups: a souflée that didn’t rise
Posted by Terry Waltz on March 7th, 2011
Or, “how many posts on an e-mail list are ‘too many’ for a given topic?” I note with some amusement a loooong ongoing thread on a foreign language teachers’ e-mail list concerning how to get kids to work in the groups you assign them to work in. This would be the same list that recently […]
Posted in Methods Tags: Legacy Methods, Output, Pairwork Comments Off on Making student groups: a souflée that didn’t rise