---
title: 'Assumption of progress in language teaching'
url: 'https://rethunk.englishup.me/progress'
markdown: 'https://rethunk.englishup.me/progress.md'
date: '2020-07-05'
description: 'Assumption of progress in language teaching The first of what is billed as a two parter on the question of coursebooks from the SLB Coop is worth tuning in to. One of the participants touches critically on the idea of "progress" in language teaching methodology: "They [Diane Freeman Larson, Richar…'
---

# Assumption of progress in language teaching

The first of what is billed as a two parter on the question of coursebooks from the SLB Coop is worth tuning in to.

One of the participants touches critically on the idea of "progress" in language teaching methodology:

> "They \[Diane Freeman Larson, Richards & Rogers\] present a kind of view of the development of method in English language teaching as a progress from .. first you have grammar-translation, then it goes into audilingualism, then it goes into the situational approach, then it goes into communicative language teaching..."

Nick White, "We need to talk about coursebooks", https://www.slb.coop/the-slb-podcast/ 33m27s

Later in the podcast another participant comments:

> "I think we broadly agree"

Matthew Ellman, "We need to talk about coursebooks", https://www.slb.coop/the-slb-podcast/ 54m52

I would like to comment on what both sides could seem to agree on. The idea of a wider progress (beyond methodology) in language teaching. This was not explicitly stated but could one reasonably assume they both agree that language teaching now is better than language teaching in the past? That students now are able to achieve success more efficaciously (whether via coursebooks or not) than their equivalents in the days before second language acquisition research and further back before the advent of linguistics as a science.

Michael Toolan (2009) and the followers of integrational linguistics point out how the reflexive nature of language behaviour means that we use language (especially written language) when studying language, by contrast, a geologist does not use rocks to study rocks. This idea is also a source of the slogan "Learning a language is not like learning other subjects" that is often attributed to workers like Bill VanPatten and Stephen Krashen (https://twitter.com/PacLearnAcad/status/885585033075056641 - via Russ Mayne @ebefl)

Are we justified in accepting that the work of instructed second language acquisition is a science as measured by clear progress (progress of the sort seen in the natural sciences)? Does the so called gap between research and practice derive partially from acceptance by teachers that such progress is illusory?

**References**

Toolan, M. (2009). Introduction: Language teaching and integrational linguistics. In Toolan, M. (Ed). Language Teaching: Integrational Linguistic Approaches (pp. 9-31). Routledge.

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