Say what the term “Method” may mean in Foreign Languages Teaching and Learning

What is a method? Method is an overall plan for sys­tematic presentation of language based upon a selected approach. Techniques are the specific activities manifested in the classroom, which are consistent with a method and therefore in harmony with an approach as well.

A couple of decades later, Jack Richards and Theodore Rodgers (1982, 1986) proposed a reformulation of the concept of method. Anthony's approach, method, and technique were renamed, respec­tively, approach, design, and procedure, with a superordinate term to describe this three-step process now called method. A method, according to Richards and Rodgers, "is an umbrella term for the specification and interrelation of theory and practice" (1982: 154).

Through their reformulation, Richards and Rodgers made two prin­cipal contributions to our understanding of the concept of method:

-They specified the necessary elements of language teaching "designs" that had heretofore been left somewhat vague. They named six important features of "designs": objectives, syllabus (criteria for selection and organization of linguistic and subject-matter content), activities, learner roles, teacher roles, and the role of instructional materials.

Richards and Rodgers's reformulation of the concept of method was soundly conceived; however, their attempt to give new meaning to an old term did not catch on in the pedagogical literature. What they would like us to call "method" is more comfortably referred to, I think, as "methodology," in order to avoid confusion with what we will no doubt always think of as those separate entities (like Audiolingual or Suggestopedia) that are no longer at the center of our teaching philosophy.

Methodology: The study of pedagogical practices in general (including theoretical underpinnings and related research). Whatever considerations are involved in "how to teach" are methodological.

Approach: Theoretical positions and beliefs about the nature of language, the nature of language learning, and the applicability of both to pedagogical settings.

Method: A generalized, prescribed set of classroom specifica­tions for accomplishing linguistic objectives. Methods tend to be primarily concerned with teacher and student roles and behav­iors, and secondarily with such features as linguistic and sub­ject-matter objectives, sequencing, and materials. They are almost always thought of as being broadly applicable to a variety of audiences in a variety of contexts.

Technique (also commonly referred to by other terms)¹: Any of a wide variety of exercises, activities, or devices used in the lan­guage classroom for realizing lesson objectives.

1. There is currently quite an intermingling of such terms as technique, task, procedure, activity, and exercise, often used in somewhat careless free vari­ation across the profession. Of these terms, task has received the most con­certed attention recently, viewed by such scholars as Peter Skehan (1998) as incorporating specific communicative and pedagogical principles. Tasks, according to Skehan and others, should be thought of as a special kind of technique, and in fact, may actually include more than one technique

While we may have outgrown our need to search for such definable methods, the term "methodology" continues to be used, as it would in any other behavioral science, to refer to the systematic application of validated principles to practical contexts. It follows that you need not subscribe to a particular Method (with a capital M) in order to engage in a "methodology”