Current approaches to second-language teaching in the U.K.

Abstract

In Great Britain, theory and practice in second-language teaching has developed in a very different direction from that taken in North America. Halliday suggest that a language system would be better viewed as a system for making meanings than as a system for generating structures; it is this view of what language is that has produced the difference. The present article comments briefly on the development of the functional/notional or communicative approach and its implementation in Great Britain. There is a description of the kinds of demands made on the language teaching profession which have resulted from the Council of Europe proposals for a unit/credit system of language teaching. Immigration into Britain has also made unusual demands. Theoretical developments and practical needs have combined to bring about developments which are receiving much attention in the profession. A visit to the U.K. in May of 1978 is described, in which the author visited several institutions, each representative of a different area of the language teaching map, as it were. The visit provides an integrated overview of research and teaching in the U.K. today. There is also some information on the influx of foreign students into Britain, and the response of language teaching institutions to the demands of this particular clientele.