The need to adhere to a certain standard of instruction

In my 15 years of teaching English in the Philippines, I have attempted to send signals and messages to all language centers and teachers that there is a need to adhere to some methodology or approach. I have been consultant and curriculum developer(at times for free) to at least four English language centers in the Philippines. In this four language centers, I have introduced four different kinds of concept. I did that to prove that there is no single way to language acquisition but there is the need to adhere to at least one.

To the BEST Language Center, I introduced functional-notional approach since most of their teachers were using cognitive approach using ALM textbook. In 1995, BEST developed the Conversation Development Program focusing on the need to speak through the enhancement of the macro and micro skills.

The Educational and Culture International, I have introduced the communicative-transformational approach which blends communicative competence with linguistic competence in their man-to-man classes in 1999. ECI came out with the Communicative Language Program, a six-level program designed for each language level. It has also developed a way to separate language learner through a diagnostic test and description of learners for each level.

For Samson Language Institute, I have introduced communicative approach since most of their teachers then possessed a level of English language eloquence.

With the Subic Bay Academy, I have proposed a natural approach since the concept of the center is to blend language learning and sports learning. I developed the English Language Program, a one-year English language curriculum. ELP is an output-oriented curriculum designed to mainstream the learner through a step by step, skill by skill scheme towards fun and spun learning paradigm.

However, misunderstanding was still there since most of the teachers lack the pedagogy of language teaching. As soon as I live, the concept that I have planted would go back to the cognitive which is very comfortable for most Filipino-English teachers since they have learned the language in that manner. A sad reality but has to be accepted and transformed. It is not because the approach or method was not working but the reality of it is hard to teach old dogs new tricks.

Awareness of teaching is empowerment. The more interest teachers have in gaining awareness of their teaching, the more freedom they will have to direct this teaching toward a successful learning.

In most English language learning centers for Korean students in the Philippines, there is a quest to create an action-learning situation that interest and immerse students to a contextual, creative and communicative language-rich environment. Furthermore, there is this exigency for a total English language-rich acquisition objectives ranging from language immersion to communicative proficiency. These scenarios require teachers to have a pedagogical understanding and pragmatic creativeness for exploring language teaching and bring about expected learning output.

Actually, second language teaching is an approach or a point of view. It is not a specific method. It is the awareness on the part of the teacher that when the students learn another language they have already developed a set of habits in their native language. These habits may interfere with learning a second language. The teacher releases the systematic nature of language. She has come to think of language as pattern, not as words. In the classroom, she teaches the language in context. She drills her students in the use of the structure, continuing practice until the patterns have been learned so well that they can be used with unconscious mastery. By using strict controls and putting words and patterns into the student’s mouth, she sees to it that they spend their time learning to use correct form with as few errors as possible. Then, she releases the controls and allows her students more freedom until they learn the language for the purpose for which it is intended – COMMUNICATION.

Communication is an intricate human activity that serves as a vehicle for thoughts and feelings. With this in mind, second language teachers has to be given specific strategies on how to conduct meaningful communicative language encounters that may recreate the reality to prepare the students to a real and more complicated communication requirements.

Enabling the language learners then entails exploring beyond boundaries of theories and techniques of language acquisition. Since the thrust of streamlining the language learners hinges on the real time, real situation and real communication, second language teaching requires much more than simple language acquisition device. In most of the time, it requires much eclecticism on the part of the teacher, hence, the need for the teacher to master various approaches, techniques, methodologies and pedagogy of language teaching.