The term principled, when applied to the eclectic

approach, signifies that the use of a variety of language

learning activities must be guided by giving appropriate
importance to the different components of language
learning rather than separating them into chunks of
grammar and vocabulary

Applying Principled Eclectisim

While this "loose" approach may sound either ideal or simplistic depending
on your point of view, it requires a basic grasp of some of the principle
schools of thought as a means of getting an overview of issues directly
related to satisfying learners' needs. In a nutshell, the application
of principled eclecticism proceeds by first addressing the issue of learners'
needs and styles. Once these two basic elements have been evaluated, the
teacher can develop a needs analysis which can then be used to develop the
course syllabus.

Definitions
 Interlanguage Skill: A scala of languages that fit the level of the
student's language skill at any moment. In other words, there are
many levels of speaking a language each of which can be sufficient
for a given student.
 Comprehensible Input: Originated by Krashen, the core of this
idea is that if we do not understand the input we cannot learn.
 Negotiation of Meaning: Interactional hypothesis that states that
learning comes about in the moment of exchange between a native
speaker and a non-native speaker.
 Product Oriented Approach: The accumulation of bits and
pieces of a language (for example, learning tenses and doing
exercises based on correct tense usage).

Example Cases
The following two cases give examples of the process involved in applying
this approach to different types of classes.

Class 1 Needs and Styles

 Age: young adults from 21-30
  Nationality: class of German students located in Germany
 Learning Styles: college educated, familiarity with a product-
oriented approach to learning a language, widely traveled and
familiarity with other European cultures.
 Goals: First Certificate Examination at end of course
 Interlanguage Skills: all students can communicate in English and
accomplish most common language tasks (i.e., completing day-to-
day tasks in a native speaker society, telephone, expressing
viewpoints, etc.), higher level complexity such as writing essays,
expressing complex arguments in fine detail is next desired step.
 Course Duration: 100 hours

Approach
 As the First Certificate Examination is the goal of the course and
there is a limited number of hours, the course will have to often
employ a deductive (i.e., teacher-centered, book learning) approach
in order to complete all the grammatical tasks required by the
examination.
 Students are very familiar with traditional learning approaches such
as grammar charts, drill exercises, etc. In this case, awareness
raising concerning basic language patterns will not be necessary.
However, as the students are quite young and most fresh out of
college, they may have to be helped to understand and accept more
innovative (i.e., inductive) approaches to learning (i.e., role-playing
for improving speaking skills, general class discussions with little or
no correction) as they are probably used to more goal-oriented study
situations.

 As the First Certificate Exam includes many authentic materials,

students will benefit greatly from exercises that focus on
the negotiation of meaning. This negotiation of meaning is a type of
interactional learning that comes about in the moment of exchange
with a native speaker context that requires the learner to "negotiate
meaning" thereby expanding his language skills.
 Objectives of the First Certificate Examination will be the overriding
factor in the determination of class activities. In other words,
activities based on Neuro Linguistic Programming may not be
desirable as this approach to teaching focuses on a "holistic"
learning method, which, unfortunately, may not provide all the bits
and pieces required to complete the examination exercises such as
sentence transformation.
 As the course duration is limited and the objectives are many, there
will be little time for experiments and "fun" activities. Work needs to
be focused and principally goal oriented.

Class 2 Needs and Styles

  Age: immigrant adults from 30-65
 Nationalities: a variety of countries
 Learning Styles: most of the class has had little secondary education
and has not studied languages formally
 Goals: Basic ESL skills for everyday usage and job acquisition
 Interlanguage Skills: basic tasks such as ordering a meal and making
a telephone call are still difficult
 Course Duration: 2-month intensive course meeting four times
weekly for two hours

Approach
 The approach to teaching this class is dictated by two principal
factors: need for "real world" skills, lack of background in traditional
learning styles

 Pragmatic functional English is of prime importance. Luckily, the

course is intensive and provides the perfect opportunity for intensive
role-playing and "real world" game activities.
 As students are immigrants and a native speaker environment is at
hand, teaching can also take place by bringing the "real world" into
the classroom and/or - even more preferably - taking the classroom
out into the "real world".
 Low-level English skills mean that comprehensible input will play a
great role in the success or failure of the class. Considering the low
level of interlanguage skill, students desperately need the teacher to
help them by filtering experiences into a comprehensible form so
that they may make sense of situations that are too difficult if faced
on a strictly "authentic" level.
 Learning by process will be of great importance. The positive side of
low-level education is that students are not attached to traditional
learning methods such as grammar charts, exercises, etc. The use of
holistic learning approaches can be very effective as students will not
have any pre-conceived notions about what learning should be like.

Beare, Kenneth. "Principled Eclectism." ThoughtCo, Oct. 12, 2021, thoughtco.com/what-is-principled-

eclectisim-1210501.