Introduction
Learning a foreign language not only involves students’ interaction and enables them to communicate proficiently but also provides them with an opportunity to communicate while learning and utilising grammatical knowledge. While learning a foreign language, two types of approaches are used:
- A deductive approach
- An inductive approach
A deductive approach is used under the influence of any suggested rule by the teacher. That clearly indicates it is a teacher-centred approach while an inductive approach is devoid of rules and grammatical concerns; therefore, it is student or learner-centred. Both the approaches are followed with many merits and demerits (ELT, 2007). However, let us discuss the merits in the light of PPP (Presentation, practice and production) teaching.
PPP (Presentation, practice and production teaching)
PPP being a deductive approach enables the learners to practise the language through controlled activities set by the teacher. While going through the stages of presentation, practice and production, the learner learns grammar as a product (not as a process). That means the learner is abode by grammatical concerns, and as a product, the learner is bound to represent his lessons in numerous ways, e.g. as learning, teaching, reference or linguistic grammar, there is the underlying assumption of grammar as being static, i.e. as analysable and describable. (Pachler, 1999, p. 95)
In teaching methods reliant on a structural syllabus (e.g., grammar-translation, audio bilingualism and situational language teaching), grammar held pride of place. However, being a deductive approach, PPP finds the opportunity to help the learners learn with real freedom, freedom of expression without any concern for grammar as teaching grammar does not correlate with acquiring grammar. (Hinkel & Fotos, 2002, p. 17)
Theoretical Merits
Practical problems often arise in such circumstances where learning is not teacher-centred. However, this provides and equips the student with confidence and courage to make mistakes and learn from them. Often students fail to take on this responsibility in some attempts, while later on, with the passage of time, they tend towards responsibility. Yet underlying these practical matters is the hidden fundamental moral paradoxes of the teaching profession.
In this context, teachers find themselves as a supporter who helps learners to discover and learn. This helps the teachers towards betterment because they personally involve themselves in the successes and failures of learners. Therefore it is difficult to figure out where the responsibility of the teacher ends, and that of the learner begins.
Clearly, it is inevitable that learners do make errors. But is this a good or bad thing? At first sight, it appears self-evident that errors are a very bad thing and signal a breakdown in the teaching and learning situation. (Broughton et al., 1980, p. 134)
TBLT (Task-based language teaching)
TBLT (Task-based language teaching) is a way of teaching a foreign/second language to students in such a manner that the content is divided into interdependent pedagogical tasks. TBLT follows a learner-centred approach and therefore is inductive. Its methodology is used to design a syllabus for second language learners. TBLT focuses on learning not only as a product but also as a process. Unlike PPP, TBLT does not differentiate between process and product; rather, it considers process and product as the characteristics of learning.
Theoretical Merits
Tasks based instruction improves all four language skills; listening, speaking, reading and writing by integrating one or more skills. It does not only provide the students with an opportunity to be familiar with new linguistics, but it also enhances their existing knowledge. Many courses take care to build in the regular repetition of lexical and structural material, thereby reinforcing the original learning and increasing the students’ exposure to it in new contexts. A teacher’s controlled strategy is a very important means of preventing a serious remedial situation in which a learner keeps on repeating the same mistakes. Under proper teacher’s guidance of learning through tasks, the learner does not repeat mistakes.
Several course books provide periodic revision tests to make sure that the material thus far presented has been assimilated. The ‘spiral syllabus’ is another means of ensuring that good teaching and effective learning achieve the right results. The pedagogical tasks, when practised before moving on to another topic, help the learner to learn to the point.
Why ELT Coursebooks still follow the PPP Paradigm?
ELT coursebooks main concern is not only to enhance learner’s skills and speaking, listening, reading and writing capabilities but also professional and personal growth of the teacher concerned. The PPP paradigm is designed keeping in view ‘teacher development, which is not about improvement but ‘becoming a better teacher. These things obviously play an important part in what it means to grow as a teacher, but the fact that today learners learn through both deductive and inductive approaches has constituted a sufficient value to drive teacher development.
The professional discourse of ELT is designed keeping in view to make language learning a matter of psycholinguistic acquisition, in which teaching is a matter of techniques, activities, and methods. Therefore teacher development is a form of teacher learning, and we cannot expect students to go on learning in class if their teachers are not also able to go on learning. According to Johnston (2002), “Nevertheless, all my years of experience as both a teacher and a teacher educator have shown me that this link is one of the most powerful driving forces behind effective education and that no school, program, or educational institution can function effectively without taking into consideration the development needs of its teachers” (Johnston, 2002, p. 121).
Last, the very nature of the language teaching profession is often significantly different from that of general education. Many teachers do not hold a teaching qualification recognised by the state, and for all teachers, including those in public K-12 education, the knowledge base of English language teaching is fundamentally different from that of content subjects such as history or chemistry. This sets the teachers apart from their colleagues; therefore in order to fill that void, the PPP paradigm is still followed in ELT coursebooks so that teachers may not feel difficulty while educating the learners. Rather they themselves grow further to learn and teach.
References
ELT, 2007.
Broughton Geoffrey, Brumfit Christopher, Flavell Roger & Hill Peter, (1980) Teaching English as a Foreign Language: Routledge: New York.
Hinkel Eli & Fotos Sandra, (2002) New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ.
Johnston Bill, (2002) Values in English Language Teaching: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ.
Pachler Norbert, (1999) Teaching Modern Foreign Languages at Advanced Level: Routledge.London.