A few years ago I was introduced to principled eclecticism as a means of establishing ESL/EFL class objectives. Basically, principled eclecticism refers to the use of various teaching styles in a discriminating manner as required by learner needs and styles.
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).
