Scott Thornbury: The secret history of methods

Scott, a passionate collector of old course books (which he sees as encapsulating the history of teaching methods), shared with us examples of English in use to illustrate some course book language, often entirely empty of communicative meaning, such as “I put my finger on your nose.”

Some funny titles of course books from around the world followed: “English Made Funny”, “Laugh and Be Merry”, “Interesting English”, “Toil and Chat”.

The role of the teacher, too, seems to have undergone metamorphosis over the centuries: from the chalk-and-talk to the tech-equipped teacher figure.

Scott made a quick overview of a selection of beliefs about learning a language as expressed in course books. The audience cheered for good ideas like:

“Life must be brought to the classroom or the classroom should be taken to life.”

and booed some more traditional and increasingly teacher-centered views.

Pennycook (1989) claimed that methods are reconfiguration of the same basic principles, suggesting some kind of (Darwinian-like) evolution of teaching methods.

Starting with the premise that a method is established when it has been exemplified in course books or instituted on a training course, Scott concluded that dogme is not a method as it doesn’t fit into the method paradigm he shared with us (cf. Scott’s PPT presentation on our Harrogate Online Site). It may have existed for 10 years and people may talk about it, but few dare to define it. To him, it is more of a collection of good presets that predate dogme, such as:

"We teach grammar through communication, and not communication through grammar", "Language must not be imprisoned between the pages of a book"

- all good sense but not a specific method in itself.

This was an extremely enjoyable and inspiring talk (as Scott’s usually are), so if you want to read more about his original ideas on seemingly straightforward, but in fact really complex and multifaceted ELT topics, please go to www.thornburyscott.com