Talk delivered at the 'Empowering Language Teaching and Learning' professional development day, organised by the Panhellenic Association of State School Teachers of English. Athens: October 2011.

1. From Applying
Theory to
Theorising
Practice
Achilleas Kostoulas
Epirus Institute of
Technology

2. Presentation Outline
Applying Theory
What it is Problems
Theorising practice
Inverting Applied Science A conceptual framework
Using the conceptual framework
What? How? Why?

3. Applied
Science Linguistics
Pedagogy
Literature
Practice

4. What is wrong with Applied Science?
• Professional development and practice are
physically and temporally disconnected.
• Scholarship is perceived as irrelevant to
practice.
• Teachers are relegated to lower status
compared to ‘expert’ policy-makers.

5. Theorising theory
Practice

6. In brief…
Applying Theorising
Theory practice
Theory theory
General Personal
Abstract Situated
Top-down Bottom-up

7. Communicative
WHY?
Transmissive Critical
cf. Kostoulas, A. 2011. From local pedagogy and global influences to eclectic practice. Paper
presented at the British Association of Applied Linguistics Language Learning and Teaching SIG
conference, hosted by Aston University. Birmingham: July 2011

8. Content
What should be taught in an ELT class?
“Another preposterous disadvantage of
the book is the heroes’ pronunciation in
most texts”
“The listening tasks are another bane of
the book. The heroes’ accent is
extremely bad…”
“…even more unacceptable
pronunciation of the texts” [sic]

9. Content
Building a theory Is a native-like accent a
requisite for communicative
competence?
Do these books help Is it useful to expose learners
students to develop a to emerging varieties (e.g.
native-like accent? ‘World Englishes’, ELF?)

10. Media
How can I use the tools at my disposal?
“Learners cannot survey the grammar
that they are taught because there’s no
substitution table aside the texts.”
“Most passages are meaningless,
uninspired, stale and therefore create no
joy to our students.”
“the passages are hard to understand and
technical, and there is no song, no game,
nothing at all to ‘break’ the insufferable
boredom they generate”

11. Media
Building a theory How can these media be used
to develop communicative
competence?
Do these media conform Who makes the choice of
to my expectations, as a media to be used? How is
language teaching expert? this choice made?

12. Ends
Why are students made to learn English?
“Whoever dreamt up
the state certificate
using these books,
is seriously
deluded!”

13. Ends
Building a theory Is communicative
competence a useful goal?
Does my teaching promote
this?
Is examination Is intercultural competence
competence a useful goal? a useful goal? In what ways
How does my teaching can my teaching promote
promote this? this?

14. We build theory by questioning
practice…
Is it useful to teach ‘World
Is examination competence a useful goal? How
Englishes’ and ELF?
does my teaching promote this?
Is a native-like accent important?
Does my coursebook conform to
my expectations, as an language
teaching expert? Who decides what should be taught? How
is this choice made?
Is communicative competence a useful goal?
Does my teaching promote this? Do these books help
students to develop a
How can these media be used to native-like accent?
develop communicative competence?
Is intercultural competence a useful goal? In
what ways can my teaching promote this?

15. Questioning all aspects of practice
Who benefits from teaching English the way we do?
Are there aspects of our practice that serve our
interests more than those of our learners?
What are the implications of using the same
coursebook across the country?
Why was this coursebook designed in the way it
was?

16. Thank you for
your attention!
achilleas@kostoulas.com

17. Questions?
achilleas@kostoulas.com