Publication: A diachronic-comparative analysis of three foreign language teaching manuals from the perspective of Skill Acquisition Theory
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Date
2018
Authors
Criado, Raquel
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Publisher
Legenda : Modern Humanities Research Association
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DOI
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv16km1gp.21
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info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPart
Description
Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the need to add a cognitive perspective to pedagogical and historical angles when assessing language teaching methods so as to obtain a deeper understanding of their potential contribution to language learning. This new perspective is based on Skill Acquisition Theory (SAT) from Cognitive psychology. It distinguishes between declarative knowledge (knowledge about the linguistic system), procedural knowledge (instrumental knowledge) and automatized knowledge (the refinement of procedural knowledge or fluent and automatic deployment of communicative competence). The activities of the three middle lessons from three elementary textbooks were cognitively analysed. The three methods to which they adhered were the Grammar-Translation Method (G-T), Audio-Lingual Method (ALM) and the weak version of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). The materials were dated 1973 (the first edition having been published in 1925), 1966 and 1984 respectively. All of them allegedly shared the same overarching goal: catering for students’ communicative needs. The pedagogical tools of G-T and ALM were found to not be adequate to foster solid proceduralization, since meaningful and mechanical drills do not enable meaning–form relationships in the students’ long-term memory. The early CLT materials were potentially more effective as proceduralization seems to be activated with communicative drills. The application of a cognitive perspective to the analysis of authentic textbooks contributes to enriching our knowledge of the History of Language Learning and Teaching and supports the call for interdisciplinary studies
in this field.
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Citation
Criado, R. (2018). A diachronic-comparative analysis of three foreign language teaching manuals from the perspective of Skill Acquisition Theory. In N. McLelland & R. Smith (Eds.), The History of Language Learning and Teaching II: 19th-20th Century Europe (pp. 260–275). Legenda/Modern Humanities Research Association.
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