V. Not Looking Before You Leap

Enthusiasts among oral approach teachers — like all fashions — change rapidly, because there's always someone coining a tasty new phrase, which is seized and used for a few weeks until the new one arrives. One day it's: "Examples should be striking, unusual, and memorable: none of this boring old cleaning-the-car stuff." The next it's: "Examples should be normal, familiar and everyday: none of this bizarre desert-island stuff."

We should be willing to say that there's a place for both sugges­tions and leave it at that.

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VI. And So…

My general points, out of everything above, are that in advocat­ing an "oral approach" style of teaching, especially on teacher-train- ing courses, we should:

avoid presenting particular techniques as dogma, set techniques as simply possible means to an end, see oral approach techniques in the perspective of other methods, not take any oral approach elements on trust, respect the demands of different students and different circum­stances,

and decide whether we really know what we mean by "oral ap­proach" before telling people how marvellous it is.

(Abridgedfrom: ELT Journal. 1976. No. 2)

Answer the following questions:

I. Judging by the article, what are the critisisms of the oral ap proach? Do you think the close adherence приверженность to its principles has brought the desired results in English schools? List the points used by the author as counter-arguments against the oral approach. 2. Were the elements of an oral approach used in foreign-language teaching in the Soviet Union? What did the experience show? (Speak on school level.)

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