I have been re-reading the rather excellent Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (Richards & Rodgers)and I was struck again by Howatt's (1984) distinction between strong and weak CLT.
I had to cover teach an IELTS class today and in this class, as it progressed, I was consciously trying to notice when I was closer to the weak or the strong version. For me I see the weak and the strong versions of CLT, not as on a scale from one extreme to another, but more like a spiral where as the lessons ticks along it is closer to each aspect. I am not always happy with this approach. It seems that may students arrive in Brighton in good faith wanting the best English lessons in the best English style.
This translates as I am going to naturally learn English quicker as I am in the UK. The school I work at promotes this as part of its marketing and this is not an isolated incident. Ben Goldstein and Julian Edge
are two people who have wrote extensively on this, and I suppose that this post is a natural continuation of my quest to find myself in this profession. I feel privileged that people are willing to spend a lot of money and spend a lot of time to learn the language I speak. The problem is, well, I do not feel proud about this, though.
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