• What was especially interesting in this article/chapter? Why?
• Was there anything that gave you a new perspective on language teaching and learning?
• What would you like to know more about?
• Can you relate the literature to learning and teaching in your classroom?
• Has it changed your way of thinking?
• Will it influence your teaching in the future? How?

This article gives great background information about one of the things that are usually left out when it comes to discussing language teaching approaches, its historical background and development.
I found it especially interesting to see how various approaches evolved and than the newer approaches tried to “fix” the mistakes, or improve upon the previous ones. 
It's it also good to know how the different approaches developed, why they developed and what the thought process behind them was.

After reading the article you realize how far back language teaching goes and how big of steps language teachers and researchers took along the way. It certainly helps to know what “older” approaches are out there, because most of them can still be used today in one shape or form. If not for ones personal teaching approach, but as a reflective tool to think about the own development.

I would really like to know more about the specific differences in teaching a second language to young learners and adult learners. I could not figure out if this article is about language teaching approaches in general or about a specific time frame, i.e. adult education. I can imagine that most of these approaches would be applicable to all ages of learners, but as future teachers in a particular age group, it could be more useful to know about the specific areas I will work in.


In my opinion these five points are the most valuable advice any teacher can get:

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1. Assess student needs: Why should they learning English? For what purpose? (See Johns and Price-Machado’s chapter in this volume.)
2. Examine instructional constraints: time (hours per week, days per week, weeks per term); class size (nature of enrollment); materials (set syllabus and text, or completely open to teacher?); physical factors (classroom size, AV support). Then decide what can be reasonably taught.
3. Determine the attitudes and learning styles (see Oxford’s chapter in this volume) of individual students to the extent that this is possible, and develop activities and materials consistent with the findings.
4. Identify the dicourse genres, speech activities, and text types that students need to learn so they can incorporate them into materials and learning activities.
5. Specify how the student’s language learning will be assassed (see Cohen’s chapter in this volume.)

Another great quote and advice stems form Clifford Prator, who summed up a language teachers responsibilities like this: Adapt; don’t adopt.

These five points and the quote are something to always keep at the back of ones mind whilst preparing for lessons and reflecting about teaching and can certainly help in future teachings.

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