Abdication and Responsibility in Language Teaching

Abstract

It is easy for learner-centred approaches to classroom method to fall into the trap of appearing to advocate the virtual abdication of the teacher. The purpose of this paper is to try to redress the balance by setting out an approach (in Section II), initially quite neutral with respect to the ‘teacher-centred or learner-centred’ issue, that instead simply specifies the ‘things that have to happen’ in a classroom if the experience is to have any chance of being a profitable one for the learners. These things are necessary but not sufficient, because attempting to ensure that they happen entails running a number of major risks (to be specified in Section II) that threaten to destroy the value of the classroom experience.