History and our Place in the Story

For class this week I read about the history of Language learning theory.

The reading brought us from the Monks memorizing Latin in 1500, to authentic communicative language learning for anyone today. It was a brief brush through the past and it gave a good overview of how we have come to the place we are today. Each generation came through history with a desire to learn language, for different purposes and to do their best. When major events happened in history, language learners and teachers used those events to their advantage and they influenced the way language was learned or why it was learned. I found it interesting that after WW1 people were motivated to learn foreign languages so they could promote better communication between countries. Through this I can see clearly how learning language makes the world a better place. This is one of the reasons I enjoy teaching EAL so much, because I know it will improve life for newcomers to Canada. As the years went by many methods, approaches and techniques were used, new ways to teach were developed and old ideas were scrapped only later to have them brought back with yet newer integrations. I picture it as a spiral. The science behind learning a language and research also became more and more important for language learning. All the great language thinkers, inventors, scientists, researchers and forerunners in the field of language learning brought us to today, where we have the communicative approach. With the communicative approach culture, context and authentic language learning are critical. I like culture, context and authentic. I feel that my preferred learning style fits well with the communicative approach. The art of teaching language is always going to be developing, so this is not the end but rather our place in the story. We get the benefit of the work put into the field before us and now get to help shape the future.