Current Cultural and Linguistic Crisis in the Post-Communicative Era in EFL

Consuela Popa, Romania

Consuela Popa is an English teacher. In the past she used to teach English and French. She has taught in state schools, high schools and secondary schools, at all levels, all profiles, from bilingual/special languages intensive classes to technological/specialty, or elementary (primary), and even as an English teacher for a private school/kindergarten.
E-mail: konskris2001@yahoo.com

From a sociological point of view, as well as cultural, I believe that we, as humans, are going through a period of general crisis at the moment. I would say this is a paradox because on one hand, we now have huge information gathering opportunities due to highly skilled technology, and due to the whole channeling through media, world web, and so on, and on the other hand, despite all this technological advance, we are faced with a financial and economic as well as social crisis which reflects upon the individual’s connection to the world, turning us all more or less into what we might call “modern sociopaths”. In the article below I wish to draw attention towards some aspects of this new sociopath disease, as well as towards general aspects of nowadays cultural-linguistic crisis, from a languages teaching perspective, in the field of methodology and not only. The issue of education can be dealt upon and treated in numerous ways, and if we are to put side by side evolution and involution, progress or regress, then we should remember first that in society, ever since the Bible was sent to humans through Moses as a juridical-moral/religious code of behaviour, we knew that somewhere in our minds, there lurks the saying: “If someone longs for education, then he should long for, and have, moral education, first”. Moral education stands as an important principle in pedagogy, methodology, despite the laical trend which threatens to never respond to students and pupils` psychological, complex needs of nowadays.

If moral education is a very strong aspect, to which we also turn in psychology and pedagogy, then, relativism tends to be somewhat dangerous to clear-cut principles of moral education. Allowing so many different opinions, the world around us tends to rather lock us up into mental frames or boxes, very complex structured, but nevertheless boxes and “spaces” brought forwards and backwards just like drawers, mental drawers. This social claustrophobia has correspondents, obviously, in humanistic areas, despite the so-called “liberated access to communication of all kind”, and the communication and hence, linguistic crisis, are brought in as a consequence.

In fact, when speaking about culture, we know that there is no such thing called as “ prevailing culture “ or cultural aspect in language teaching and especially in communicative foreign language teaching, as this is what this approach has been criticized of bearing: more exactly, the process of acquisition of a certain language and hence, culture, implies a holistic absorption of many cultures, global or local, implies at least a symbiotic bi-culturalism, if not straight multiculturalism rather than, for instance, “Britishness” or “Americanism” .

From the cultural studies point of view, however, one could very well argue that any language learning material or resource is in a sense, “culture bound” none is neutral, therefore, the absolute usefulness of the field of cultural studies for making students and learners understand them .

But the problem with nowadays language teaching practice is that it somehow fails to provide learners with that insightful and fearless analysis and critique of the various angles and mentalities that language learning written and oral resource provide. We are confronting ourselves with a crisis of choice, at first sight, which, at a deeper level, translates itself into a crisis of identity, of identification with the richness of ideas, feelings and life that another language brings. I do not mean “de-personalization” by “identification” , but “empathy”, joining, partnership, dialogue, in fact, the very essence of real and mutual communication, not monologue or one-side oriented methods of teaching. In short, the “prosecutors” who attack culture “internationalization” or English culture internationalization argue that learners are in a way, “brain-washed” out of the fear of “avoiding” culture subjectivity, and out of the eagerness of bringing in a “global”, (over)European politically correct approach, the result being , they say, that we risk to get exactly the opposite product, not really that neutrality and equi-distanced reflective, “internationalized” position, but a lack of ego, instead. They argue that in this way, the individuals risk of searching continually for an ego of the learner, of the discoverer, since society has already, in its turn, made us modern “sociopaths”, modern citizens of a fast developing Babel, hence the suspicious thinking about a “disorganized“ and purposefully created “globalism” or “order-in-chaos” or about a continuous subliminal social and cultural subversion.

Learners do need a cultural analysis and critical education, in order to be able to stand for a personality of their own, which comes from the subtle individual right towards judgment and comparison rather than from “neutralization” or, for instance, “internationalisation” of the English language teaching approach, like in the “Threshold Level” of the Council of Europe recommendation for structuring language materials.

But of course, English being so overwhelmingly embraced, this internationalization in teaching is also a reality, just as it is the fact that any learner of other languages becomes aware of the multiple valences that any of these languages and cultures gives us, that also in the process of exchanging views upon the practice of language teaching, with other speakers, not only of our own mother tongue, we have already embraced the vibration and energy of other teaching practices, whether we are conscious or not and we have exchanged our practice experience in more than just in a bi-cultural way. We have exchanged our practice experience by acquiring, in a subtle, unconscious or conscious way, an Anglo-Saxon inclined personality, or an American one, or simply an English speaking influenced mentality, blending it into the international culture pot that is the whole history of English language teaching methodology and approach that we have come into contact with and are still coming into contact with daily.

If I want to give an example by pointing at me as a languages teacher, I could say that my reflection has discovered for me that yes, pupils do need to identify themselves, more or less willingly, depending upon the individual, with a British or American person, or in general with a native speaking English person if they want to be empathic in the process of language learning and thus, get into the real feeling of thinking in English and learning it . I must say that for me as a teacher , it is a matter of necessity to let my students be carried away by this psychological wave, since if I know that one particular student or group of students actually identify themselves with the English of American culture snapshots they usually infuse themselves with through the media, then this thing being a strong incentive for them in order to be proficient in English, I should feed their motivation by building my teaching approach and strategy, activities, etc, taking into account the way their personality is developing and the way their psychology works particularly at this point.

But I think we still have to fight against the plateau effect of the post-communicative foreign language teaching turn, in the sense that this plateau effect can be created by the shallowness in adapting our teaching methods to a more concrete reality, by the shallowness of taking it too “globally” and in a more holistic way than necessary, and thus not benefiting from the complex advantages of sharing so many combined teaching methods from past to present, all within the frames, not within the literal constraints, of a more genuine communicative motivation and strategy.

Post communicative turn, during which we supposingly are at the moment in the history of English teaching methodology and practice, does not have to mean only analysis, but also synthesis, it has to bring in the whole history of past or more contemporary language teaching and make full use of it, adapt it out of wisdom, use its global view not to create chaos, but to create learner personalities, to direct them towards self-searching, reflection and discipline, towards focusing and not towards over-individualisation and hence, cold neutrality, but towards strength of views, dialogue, partnership, challenge, originality, character.

Post communicative turn in ELT can be analyzed through a set of complex coordinates that include a lot of principles from previous well-known approaches in language teaching, at all levels, from primary to high-school, from adult education, business English to all kind of specialized English. Basically, post-communicative ELT means that we have to teach English communicatively, but in a highly-cultured way, because a well educated person needs more than sheer confidence in expressing himself through English for sheer communicative purposes. That is, we need to teach our students grammar thoroughly, literature must be given its due respect and use and writing skills must be practiced fully in order to increase and fulfill the goal of fluency and when I say writing I mean also that we should stress especially creative writing in order for real proficiency to be gained.

When teaching grammar thoroughly, as mentioned above, we should bear in mind that there are two main directions in teaching grammar: traditional(classical, deductively) and modern(or inductively). However, there is no strict delineation between the two, since especially nowadays, when we have such a large range of methods and requirements , we have come to blend communicative activities and all kind of integrated skills, grammar practice in both a modern and traditional way . And especially in humanities classes, theoretical presentation of grammar with complex language study and comparisons, large explanations, are highly valued and requested by pupils as an important resource for them to feed from all along their way with English. In fact is absolutely true that, even if language study does not help acquisition in itself, but only exposure to language does, we can apply or use grammar study communicatively in order for our students to be fully provided with the complete equipment for an elevated speaker. After all, the main role of school instruction and school language instruction is that of perceiving that not only do the students have the ability and high enthusiasm for speaking good English with fluency in speaking, but also that behind their manner of expression there is also to be found a solid literary language training, grammar mastery and mastery of the tips of an elevated language communicator altogether.

I believe that it is a matter of pride for any school institution, be it an elementary, a high-school or an university, to make itself acknowledged through a reputation that speaks for itself, of having produced well-instructed students, students that should receive native speakers` appreciation because they have learned English in a non-native environment, but yet they can compete with and even surpass or overshadow (and this is also a reality), the literary ability of a native speaker. In spite of his “native speakerism”, the native can very well fail to prove the same literacy in his own language as the other non-native speaker passionate fellow does.

But the problem with providing the ideal “educated fluency” in English still resides, nowadays, in our Romanian schools, in the way that the language syllabus is conceived, because, in spite if its visible or ostentatious “richness” or “exhaustiveness” , it has somehow left aside the benefits of good literature excerpts practice in coursebooks or official schedules. Some coursebooks still maintain some pieces of literature, of course, but the majority of nowadays “trendy” modern ELT materials tend to or seem to overlook this important aspect that would so much help raise not only the students` levels in more elitist language classes like bilingual or intensive, but also the general level of English speaking abilities in high-school or elementary on the whole. Language competence as a communicator and not only can be reached not only in the frames of an official group or class, but also by anyone who has got the talent for languages, loves speaking languages, learns them in his own way or according to the streams of interests that he or she has. But that trainee should be given the proper care from teachers in order to make them aware of the great advantages that good literary texts can give them by feeding their mental structures, comprehension, vocabulary, with good “ingredients”.

Special language classes in schools should be given their due attention in order to be perpetrated and made to be the best of whatever they are. At the same time we should make sure that there is no discriminatory approach in the way we understand to teach English to non-philological other classes, for the aim is to get proficient in English communicatively (and post-communicatively), not to provide good, elevated language instruction discriminating in favor of someone within the literal constraints or seemingly “benefits” of the official frames of a syllabus or schedule for language classes only. We would be talking alone in this respect, as teachers or trainers and most of all, as philologists or humanists and our students inter-personal contact would be reduced heavily. It is known that languages talent is not only a prerogative of anyone who entitles himself a linguist, but also a prerogative of people from other fields, whether technical or not, or business or any other specialized field, that can in their turn, as well, prove as literate and as fluent in their scientific texts as a humanities specialist or linguist can prove to be. And while a lot of literary people can produce extraordinary pieces of literary art, at the same time technical or other specialized persons can be extremely competent translators (better than all the others) and technical writers (or specialized writers in general) within their own field, because there is no other better person who can understand the scientific phenomena and who can interpret it better than they do!

Practicing writing and creative writing especially, is in its turn a great tool for achieving faster language competence and fluency, since from a humanistic point of view (which I myself happen to share with great enthusiasm), there is no other better incentive for a pupil than an appeal to his own a experience and affect, an appeal to his own affective autonomy and “language cuddling effect”, to say it in a leisurely, humanistic way! As one great contemporary humanistic trainer and personality says, Mario Rinvolucri, in his books, we can apply communicatively our writing tasks and activities, and be extremely flexible in our teaching methods just by using, first, our good-will in bringing these methods to our class. We should stir our pupils into practicing creative writing and push them into setting up debates following their creations, we should advertise for them in order to become authors, and why not authors of compositions and writings from a young age, since the gift of writing only needs to be discovered and encouraged, for it does exist in teenagers even if it is in a latent state. It would be such a pity for us not to breed such tendencies in schools in our country as well! Many of them might end up being taken over by foreign environments that really do appreciate Romanians` gift for writing and creation and will certainly make full use of their gift. When I say this, I am surely thinking about the fact that it is no longer a secret that non-native English writers might be just as good as a native ones,(we are not talking here, obviously, which one could be “better”, for such attempt is useless and a-rational) or there should not be any matter of differentiation at all an artistic level, between a good writer and another, if one is a native speaker and the other is not-let us think of Joseph Conrad, the famous Polish-Ukrainian writer, the well-known author of “Lord Jim”, “Heart of Darkness”, etc, who only began studying English actually at the age of 21, while he was at sea with a Sailing Company! And if we are to look upon modern English Teaching Practice books, we shall see that it has long been voiced there that there is no longer a taboo not to counterpoint native speaker teachers and non-native ones, or non-native authors of language production and native ones-because there really is no discrimination between them professionally.

The world has changed and we have got rid of the prejudice or past century narrow-mindedness that only native speakers could be good teachers of English and hence, good language producers. (Jeremy Harmer-The Practice of English Language Teaching, fourth edition).

We should run fast onto achieving the art of “authorship” for our students from a very young age, and make them accountable for the verbalization and bringing forward of their spirit. They can use their own created websites in order to express themselves freely and why not, try to publish there serially their own novels, poems and compositions. This will help them raise their “agency” in studying English, that is, they will be aware of their own development and they will be educated to become autonomous learners and to manage themselves as their own teachers besides being students/trainees.

Post communicative teaching is meant to be context oriented and in this respect, a lot of international trainers of English have brought forward, through their writings and practice, that teaching English nowadays in the 21st century, especially in far-flung parts of the world, implies the adoption of an entire methodology which is context oriented , in the sense that local psychology and mentality, practice, teaching culture, all these converge towards a realization of the fact that they should adapt their teaching practice also to those countries local cultures, besides also giving them the benefits of their own western, uprooted, practice and experience. In this respect, Asian countries are known to be quite reluctant to some western patterns, so it is a matter of local cultural personality that good trainers have to take into account if they want to be successful. Even in European cultures, like our own, non Anglo-Saxon and Latin type, we could say that there is a certain gap when we wish to adopt or impose certain “rites” of teaching that come from the west, because, even if they might be quite useful and competitive, as they really are and prove to be, there is a “filter” of culture and mentality, of personality and vibration, that make learners and teachers react differently at the level of both perception and manifestation, in their own way, adapted to our local culture. This has been a widely debated issue of temperament in learning and teaching, and it was highlighted also within psychology or pedagogy treaties and seminaries, conferences, on culturally adapted teaching practice and learning/instruction.

Culturally adapted teaching practice has to take into account a series of factors, like the history of the place/country we teach in, their spirituality, traditions, in-born beliefs, mentalities from different angles, social realities, local specificities/nuances. If we are to determine what approach would be more appropriate in order to teach in a culturally adapted way, I think that the post-communicative approach would be the best, but provided it is really post-communicative and “cleaned” of its “plateau effect” above mentioned, that is we should make sure we have cleaned off its possible bad interpretations. This has to be done not by formally adopting some set of principles, but by putting into practice the whole pot of teaching traditions that post-communicative turn implies. Teaching humanistically might be the best solution. Of course, in this case, teaching humanistically means teaching as adapted to the local culture, for a good humanistic teacher will have to strike a bargain between the best western teaching practice and other teaching practices, delete the “false ego” and respect the “affective” way of learning, the personalized manner of approaching every learner’s personality. Of course, adapted humanistic teaching means that, within the rich range of class activities, those that draw back to the individual student’s internal, emotional life, family background, etc, are part of that local specificity that I have mentioned as culturally adapted teaching and we should make sure not to disturb one’s taboo in communication if that reluctance to communicate something in a certain way comes from his own, embraced, living culture .

Post communicative teaching, in a word, but not the only one, of course, can be understood, in the actual context, as being a “cultural-historical” or “holistic”, movement and it is paradoxically both contextually caught, in its specificities, as well as globally existent, analyzable, in its integrality of theories/ approaches, methods, strategies and techniques.

The historical component of the post communicative turn can be seen from various angles and one could be the tradition versus innovation debate. But if we mention innovation, then innovation “holistically” embraces old and new, classical and modern, in the best possible way.

But have the communicative and post-communicative turn that are supposed to have manifested already in Romania been criticized for being at a disadvantage if someone tries to compare that to the 1970`s western communicative turn that has brought us so much? I think the answer would be definitely yes, unfortunately, especially in our country, where I could say that first of all, the communicative turn did not really manifest itself freely because of the isolation during the communist regime, in which there were practically quite a few means of socializing and of interaction between us and the English speaking world or foreign language speaking world, in general.

At that period, the 1970`s, when the communicative turn and its theories were flourishing in the west, we were so far away from it! And today, instead of pursuing fluency, and cultivated fluency, unfortunately the sequels of that isolation still ravage our schools, because many teachers who were young at that time have learnt languages in a non-communicative way, non-exposed to language, and English was “filtered” through Romanian, classical, good classical methods , among which grammar-translation, very thorough indeed, but nevertheless not helping natural acquisition, spontaneity, fluency, but rather one-side language study approach and didacticist learning. And even if it is absolutely true that in any age we can meet people who react communicatively and today we have huge opportunities for learning many languages, is also true that we could say that we meet older people, from the classical generation, who are a lot more educated and “communicative”, and devoted to the real practice of the foreign language, than nowadays young people, who, despite their young age, still lack the benefits of good cultural and reading instruction, of educated approach. The brilliant seniors are the lucky exceptions, not the very few exceptions, of the before 1970`s and communist period here in our country in the languages field. I say “not few”, because the seniors` generations that excelled in languages counted numerous people of value. At the same time, today’s language learning may be at a disadvantage, and the result is the same as the past one, but from different reasons: language learning may arise out of a need of learning a language for specific purposes and at this point I fear that those speakers could be nothing more that “commercial language” speakers, or “language for purpose speakers” and not subtle ones, dedicated to literary language and to language for language sake or for message and real interaction. So even if our young people or students get to speak languages in order to be able to communicate with foreign environments, they might be doing it not for pure humanistic and artistic purposes, or for elitist ones, but for a job, or for promotion, or because it is “trendy”, not because they feel a continuous natural incentive in order to do so.

At the same time, one cannot build something up by ignoring completely the pre-existent background, by taking into account that when prescribing new “medicine”, we have to take into account also the previous history, the ground upon which language learning was built, or good tips that would just prove to be great components, if properly used in the new way. If we mix classical methods in language teaching practice, with modern way of behaving, with communicative and humanistic approach, we cannot possibly deprive our learners anymore of good language or literary instruction. Maybe a great idea would be to realize that the notion of “skills” does not have to be understood as “skills alone”, but it has to be mixed with deeper study, reflection and a desire to better ourselves daily through constant learning and through the activating of these skills in a profound way.

One very important suggestion to follow would be that of trying to acquire a culture of an autonomous learner, besides that of a well-guided learner by modern teachers through modern means and digital revolution, of course. In the paragraphs below I shall try to make a point in favour of one solid component of the post-communicative approach: learner autonomy.

Learner autonomy as a reality, concept and practice existed long before the Council of Europe and other language institutes and international forums have voiced it in a powerful manner. These official forums and institutions have “advertised” for this particular concept especially since the 1970s, and afterwards, for in every educational culture, I am absolutely sure about that, learners and teachers alike have come across it many times in their life and it was so necessary for teachers to see it highlighted in specialty books and in all formal educational environments, from top to bottom!

This concept has been known in pedagogy and foreign languages methodologies under different denominations maybe, varying slightly upon the already existing conventions on the matter, or allowing nuances of meaning in the course of its translation in different languages. The fact is, that once the restrictions of old type of ELT have gone away completely, (or almost completely), from official language teaching practice materials, coursebooks, and so on, especially in those countries where political changes have put an end to the cultural and linguistic claustrophobia, like the ex-comunist countries, learner autonomy and its other “fellow ingredients” have certainly been on the menu! To how extent has each country or school and teacher really applied it to their practice, it is a matter of slight differentiation, (I hope!), or a matter of specific teaching culture, of national and local personality!

Learner autonomy as a concept has been strongly voiced in language research environments eversince the father of this concept, Henri Holec, now a famous linguist , has treated the theme within the group of researchers in linguistics and languages in France, under the leadership of Yves Chalon, the founder of the C.R.A.P.E.L., the leading French institution in the field of language research and language teaching research (Centre de Recherches et d`Applications Pedagogiques en Langues, University of Nancy, France). Henri Holec and the group of researchers have been specifically involved in the field of language learning autonomy since the end of the 1960’s, and in 1979-1981 he has promoted the notion through official publications, becoming the “father of learning autonomy concept” (he also was a chairman of language teaching comitee and an expert member of the Council of Europe No. 8 Language Project of the Council for Cultural Cooperation”). Henri Holec’s worldwide known book “Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning” in 1981, challenges the numerous implications of the notion not only in psychological terms, as reflections, but also in relationship to its practical manifestation in the field of language teaching methodology.

Learner autonomy is not only an important keyword when somebody speaks about modern teaching, education reform, foreign language teaching and communicative revolution, but also a means of promoting language teaching and at the same time a methodology or set of approaches and rules in itself.

Learner autonomy is in direct relationship with the concept of lifelong learning, or with self-directed learning, with the “learning to learn” concept. Learner autonomy does not only mean self-assessment, goal-setting and reflection, but it means modern educational technology such as self-access learning centres, like the SALC at Kanda University of International Studies in Japan SALC, the SAC at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and ELSAC at the University of Auckland, to name only quite a few of all existing centres, libraries and other similar cultural centers of this kind around the world. Learner autonomy has been considered as an important concept developed in the field of educational policies at the highest levels with numerous implications and it is also an essentially human feature or trait and much more.

Learner autonomy is also about learner centered teaching, which has switched the focus from the old teacher-centered means of education to the most important “product”, the learner. This also brings about special curricula or syllabus design and a whole range of language teaching activities that needs to be readjusted if we wish to make full use of this particular approach.

Learner autonomy comes in direct connection with the challenging concepts of acquisition versus learning, exposure to language in the field of foreign language teaching, humanistic teaching, having a “global” dimension. It comes altogether with the concepts of peer cooperation or collaboration in class, of group focus and dynamics, of successful class management and of a revolutionary methodology of modern teaching. When speaking about learner autonomy one should also think that the Western schools have given us, through the implementation of this concept, a wonderful suggestion about how we should stream our teaching approach, suggestion that might lead onto not only more “humanistic” or “humane” way of conceiving school language education, but towards a re-actualization of the elitist focus on education which seems to lack completely within some countries` systems nowadays, thus making full recognition and use of the values within our young people. I say “elitist” not with an exclusivist meaning, but bearing in mind the fact that, the actual cultural and linguistic crisis, a reality, has been brought by a lack of elitist educational policy that would help our country and not only, but the world in general, to appreciate and make full use of their human values, intellectuals and young people with extraordinary potential who can really change the world through their brains. The “plateau effect” would cease to exist, and the dangerous drive towards the generalization of mediocrity in society would be annihilated.

Let us hope that learner autonomy being promoted, it will help change the content and not focus upon the form, that it will change minds, hearts and ways of thinking and that it shall be another priority within the educational reform!

References

Harmer, Jeremy, The Practice of English Language Teaching, Pearson Longman, fourth edition.

Rinvolucri, Mario, Davis, P., Confidence Book: Building Trust in the Language Classroom, Longman Publishing Group, October, 1990.

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