TESOL Methodology － Thoughts and ideas based on a teacher's experience

Since from mid-1990s, when I was a junior high and senior high school student, English teaching styles in class at compulsory school haven't changed so much (at least from my perspective). As a learner, I learned English in teacher-centered classes with grammar-translation method at school. There were 40 students on average in class and we sat and listened to the teacher; no interaction with peers and studied in a passive way. Seen from the perspective of Bloom's Taxonomy, our learning at that time aften covered lower level thinkings, such as remembering and understanding.  I am not complaining about or blaming the classroom situation at that time since it was the educational scheme in the past specific period. However, it is problematic that the teaching context in English class still remains the same after 30 years. Because of the learners' Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner, 1985), teaching styles should meet students' requirements for maximizing their strengths...

In the 3rd module, I learned how principal teaching styles have been changing according to the two major concepts: instructivism and constructivism.  Instructivism (teacher-centered) is the teaching concept based on behaviorism, which evaluates students' behavior and external changes of students, so teachers will accomodate their instructions based on the students' behavior. In Japan, this approach is still dominant in English lessons at school, even though many teachers have learned TESOL or they understand benefits of student-centered approach.  Constructivism (student-centered) is another teaching concept and it seems to be equivalent to communicative language teaching, in other words. It is based on cognitivism; students will acquire a language skill through solving problems or interacting with someone/something. This approach encourages students to communicate through a target language in authentic situations and motivate students to learn the language because of meanin...