Ideology and Language Education: Transnational Histories of Communicative Language Teaching
(AHRC and DFG grant proposal, submitted)
Tim Giesler & Sabine Doff (in collaboration with Richard Smith & Tony Liddicoat, University of Warwick)
Since the 1970s, on the basis of work in the field of applied linguistics/ELT, the UK has generally been very successful in exporting English language teaching expertise worldwide in the form of teaching methods, teacher training, textbooks and tests. Nevertheless, criticisms of the lack of local contextual appropriateness of many of these, especially in school systems, have mounted since the 1990s. On the other hand, in Germany, which has the largest population of school-age English language learners in Europe, a relatively independent strand of expertise has developed, with a focus on school pupils, within the discipline of Fremdsprachendidaktik, or ‘Foreign Language Education’. Work here has been published mainly in German and has remained largely unread outside the German-speaking world. The two fields appear to have much to offer to one another – for example in the area of developing appropriate language teaching methods – but there has been little cross-fertilization between them and they seem to have followed largely separate paths.
In this research, the project team (Giesler, Smith, Doff, Liddicoat, a post-doctoral research assistant and a doctoral student) trace the parallel development of two notions which have played and continue to play a central role in both fields, namely ‘communicative competence’ and ‘Communicative Language Teaching’ (CLT), investigating how these have been interpreted differently in British applied linguistics/ELT and German Fremdsprachendidaktik. To ensure comparabiity across contexts, we adopt a framework of analysis that keeps in play different ‘layers’ of education. Thus, we ensure a balanced coverage of both British and German English language teaching policies, syllabuses, methodological treatises, teaching materials, classroom practices and tests during the period c. 1970 to c. 2000. In both countries, apart from utilising existing archival and library resources, we engage in a series of oral history interviews with leading protagonists in the communicative ‘movement’. In this manner, and by analysing previously neglected audio-visual sources produced during the period for training and teaching purposes, we innovate methodologically in the emerging field of History of Language Learning and Teaching (HoLLT). At the same time, we further strengthen this field by adopting applied linguistic conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis procedures which serve both to uncover ideological preconceptions and to guard against the potential biases of oral history data.
Aside from responding to recent calls within HoLLT for histories of language learning and teaching which transcend national and linguistic boundaries, this exploration of ideological differences as well as potential interconnections across disciplines internationally will enable further, mutually respectful transnational collaborations to be imagined in the field of language teacher education, beyond Brexit.