Appropriate Methodology and Social Context

Cambridge Language Teaching Library

by Adrian Holliday

The methodology of English language education has been developed mainly in the English-speaking countries of 'the west' and does not always fit the needs of the rest of the world. Appropriate Methodology and Social Context investigates this state of affairs by looking at the wider social context of what happens between teachers and students. It uses an ethnographic framework to explore the complex and diverse cultures of classrooms, of student groups and teacher communities in different countries and educational environments. It goes on to argue that these factors have to be acknowledged in the design and implementation of appropriate methodologies. Although a major concern is with classroom teaching, the methodologies for curriculum and project management and design are also addressed.

248 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 1994

About the author

Adrian began his career as a teacher of English, History, Economics and Sociology at North Romford Comprehensive School in London, where, in 1972, he wrote a course in sociology. He then went to Iran in 1973 as a teacher of English at the British Council Centre in Tehran, and then managed a small British Council curriculum unit in Ahwaz and designed technical English programmes for oil company technicians and engineers.

After his masters degree at Lancaster University, between 1980 and 85 he was instrumental in setting up the English for Special Purposes Centre at Damascus University. This is now the successful Higher Languages Institute.

Between 1985 and 90 he was involved in a national university curriculum project in Egypt. Located at the Centre for Developing English Language Teaching (CDELT), Ain Shams University, this took in 18 universities across the country. This project provided the experience of the global politics of English and the ethnographic material which informed his PhD thesis at Lancaster University in 1990.

While at Canterbury Christ Church University, between 2002 and 2017 he was the Head of The Graduate School, where he provided academic management for research degrees across the University. In the late 1990s he was involved in regulating and accrediting British English language teaching qualifications across the university and private sectors. As Chair of the British Association of TESOL Qualifying Institutions, he was instrumental in setting up the then British Institute of English Language Teaching.

Throughout his career, with a clear trajectory from his undergraduate days as a student of sociology, he has been developing his thinking and writing around the relationship between the individual, culture and social structures. His long-standing relationship with Iran and the Middle East more generally has provided him with an acute awareness of the global politics which surround these relationships, and of the profound lack of Western understanding of non-Western realities despite the massive proliferation of global information and communication.

Reviews

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The authors experience of working in Egypt was very interesting to read about. I have experienced similar things in Japan within the last ten years. What is the culture of the classroom and to what extent does it differ from other cultures that exist within the idea of a national culture? This book caused me to think about my own cultural influences (national, professional, etc.) and how they are constantly changing in relation to different cultural influences / situations I encounter. The first year I walked into a Japanese public school class definitely lead to a crisis resulting in an interest to find out more about methodology which in turn caused a monumental paradigm shift in the way that I conceive the relationship between methodology and social context. I could identify a lot with the author's experience.