Approaches & Methods in Language Teaching (Richards & Rodgers)
Approaches & Methods in Language Teaching (Richards & Rodgers) is a recommended TEFL/TESOL title from the Global English reading list, available to buy on Amazon.
What it is. A survey of language teaching methods, by Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers for Cambridge University Press. Its lasting contribution is not the list of methods but the frame it puts them all in.
How it is built. Every method is analysed the same way, on three levels. Approach: what the method assumes about what language is and how it is learned. Design: its objectives, its syllabus, its activity types, and the roles it hands to the learner, the teacher and the materials. Procedure: what actually happens in the room. Applying one grid to grammar-translation, the direct method, situational language teaching, audiolingualism, the Silent Way, Suggestopedia, Community Language Learning, Total Physical Response, the Natural Approach, communicative language teaching, content-based instruction and task-based teaching makes the real differences visible - and the borrowed ones too. Editions differ in how many methods they take in, so check the contents list if you are buying a secondhand copy for a particular one.
Who it suits. Trainees moving past "here is a technique" into "why this technique and not that one", which is the step from Level 3 work into Level 4 and Level 5. It is also the fastest way to place a method you meet in a staffroom or in a job interview.
What it does not do. It describes and analyses rather than recommends, and it is thin on classroom detail by design - you will not learn to run a Silent Way lesson from it. Read it to place a method, not to pick one.
Recommended for these courses:
Available from Amazon - price & delivery shown on Amazon.
View on Amazon