Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Appropriate Methodology and Social Context by A. Holliday (1994)
Appropriate Methodology and Social Context by A. Holliday (1994)
Appropriate Methodology and Social Context by A. Holliday (1994)
Abstract
In this chapter, describes the diversity and interconnection between and among cultural
contexts as national, professional, host institution, student and classroom culture and in
more detail the context, and analyses the local cultures of teacher-learner relationship. He
also explains his point about the real lack of knowledge of what happens between people
from two basic contexts (BANA & TESEP) making it difficult to be sure of the ideal
methodology in the classroom. The author also mentions various positions on the issue in
question.
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Index
I.
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II.
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III.
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IV.
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V.
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VI.
Personal Appraisal
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Bibliography
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necessarily deal with the attitudes and expectations of people in the learning situation
where social forces influence both within the institution and the wider community outside
the classroom. For example Breen (1962 :142 - 151) argues that the metaphor of the
classroom as culture or as coral gardens allows us to perceive the psychological
change and social events characteristic of the classroom as irrevocably linked and
mutually engaged. Such a perspective on classroom can help explain more fully the
relationship between classroom input and learning outcomes, and is particularly relevant
in the culture learning situation. Then syllabus and curriculum designers try hard to
consider the social-logistical, administrative ,psycho- pedagogic and methodological
constraints on their work in the pots Munby era.
Holliday (ibid.) describes the lack of information necessary for the proper design of a
product, such as situations that actually happens in the classroom. Other authors like
Allwright (1988) argued the classroom is the place where the multiplicity and complexity of
interaction but Holliday (ibid.) discusses with him about that it is not sufficient to look only
within the classroom to understand the interaction. He emphasized that within classroom
is influenced by factors within the wider educational institution, the wider educational
environment and the wider society.
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THE CLASSROOM
Influenced by
THE WIDER
EDUCATIONAL
INSTITUTION
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MACRO SOCIAL
CONTEXT
MICRO SOCIAL
CONTEXT
Holliday chooses to focus on the macro social context because it concerns the influences
from outside. He argues that attitudes derived from relationships of status, role and
authority brought by students and teachers. As also it is important to include sociology
and anthropology for elaboration of an appropriate methodology in classroom situations.
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Based on Holliday (ibid.), the classroom is described as a micro social context in the
sense that what happens within the classroom reflects, affects, and is affected by the
complex of influences and interests of macro social context i.e. the host educational
environment (consisting the host countrys ministry of education, aid agency, and other
involved government institutions). Investigating the micro context to discover what
happens between teacher and students will be through looking at the macro context
additionally, that is, the wider social relationships between classroom participants and
influences from outside the classroom.
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Personal Appraisal
This chapter I found very interesting and the way Holliday (1994) not only gives his views
on the importance the social context plays in learning but also the author explains the
difference and the reasons why it should be developed syllabus, curricula and materials
that fit properly to each sector. (BANA & TESEP). On the other hand Holliday (ibid)
mentions that there were attempts to improve teaching methodologies in the Post Munby
but were not successful because the problem was not seen from a more social
perspective. He argues that the experts could not identify the reason for the problem in
this case were (the deep social forces) in local settings affect which language learning.
Other authors (Hutchinson 1989 - Robinson 1989 - White 1988) say that another missing
element was the information necessary for proper product design. I think in those times
both designers and syllabus and curriculum specialists could not see the most important
factor in learning: the social and emotional factor, or perhaps not given the place it
deserved and profited only education without reaching the solution. As explained by Hoyle
(1970) how "unfinished" research is adequate for the needs of curricula planning.
An important distinction made by Cazden (2001) is that teachers are responsible for both
the affective and academic aspects of effective classrooms and classroom talk. Teachers
can direct classroom discourse so that both these goals are targeted and supported. For
example, teachers can accept, deny, recast, expand, or encourage elaboration of
students' responses. "Success for students in culturally diverse classrooms depends on
the degree to which there are strategies that encourage all students to talk and work
together" (DeVillar & Faltis, 1991). One strategy (among many) promoted by Echevarria
and Graves (2003) is the use of direct, rather than indirect, questions to promote clarity.
So while instructional talk should be engaging, there is a place to use direct questions of
students and then facilitate the elaboration of their responses as a means to develop
academic language use and motivate them as learners. Thus the teacher serves as a
conduit for sharing information and scaffolding social and academic language. Low levels
of instruction and low-quality interactions often combine to yield poor academic
achievement among students who are busy constructing the meaning of the language and
the content of school. Rich language interactions, however, encourage thinking, social
relationships, and expanded language use. As Johnston (2004) admonished, we "have to
think more carefully about the language we use to offer our students the best learning
environments we can".
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Also, information technology transfer is not an easy task, and seems to be particularly
daunting for developing countries. As most technology is designed and produced in
developed countries, it is culturally-biased in favor of those developed countries social
and cultural systems. In short, Hollidays (1978) suggestion is that, in the scope of
language education, we interpret culture from a linguistic viewpoint: just as in language
education the term language does not mean the whole, abstract concept of English or
other language , but a particular variety of a language, such as commercial Chinese,
academic French, or beginners literacy in context English, the cultural context for
language teaching/learning should not be seen as: English culture or western culture in
general, but something much more specic: the cultural context in language education
practice is a context for language, a system of meanings that is realized in language and
hence can be construed in language (Holliday, ibid).As far as language educational
contexts are concerned, texts realize what Lemke (1990) calls activity structures, i.e., the
situational contexts in which discourse sequences occur. According to Lemke an activity
structure is dened as a socially recognizable sequence of actions, and the types of
situation that make up the overall context of situation for learning
(e.g. a foreign
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Bibliography
Teaching English
May, 1-22.
Hutchinson (1989), Robinson (1989), White (1988) Learning how to manage.
Cairo, Ain Shams University.
Johnston (2004) Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning,
Stenhouse Publishers.
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