Question: What is Reform Movement? Discuss the role of Reform Movement in the history of English Language Teaching focusing the principles of Reform Movement.
Reform Movement
Reform stands for making a change, improvement, repairing or rectification and movement means going opposite to or reaction against an established idea or rule due to its drawbacks or monopolies. In the second half of 19th century, GTM was to face criticism due to its insufficient techniques and outputs for second language development.
As a result, a “Reform Movement” was a must for language teaching and it happened and came into being with certain principles. The principles of ‘Reform Movement’ have been playing a vital role in the history of language teaching with a triumph march since its birth.
The roles of Reform Movement focusing on its principles
Some leading linguists such as philologist, phonetician and grammarian Henry Sweet of England, German illustrious linguist Wilhelm Vietor and founder of IPA (International Phonetic Association) Paul Passy of France came forward for ‘Reform Movement’. They have also provided some principles which have brought about a revolutionary or dramatic change in language teaching.
More Notes of ELT
Speaking and asking teaching procedure
Prior to “Reform Movement”, the language teaching procedures consisted on reading and writing excluding speaking and asking. In such teaching process, the pupils never got real world communicative competence. But the change started and has been perpetual because of principles of ‘Reform Movement’ which are “emphasis on spoken language over written language and target language-based classroom discourse”. So, speaking and asking teaching procedure is the first and foremost product of ‘Reform Movement’.
IPA based language teaching
International Phonetic Alphabet based language teaching is the second most significant change in the history of language teaching owing to the “phonetics and modern linguistic studies” principle of ‘Reform Movement’. According to Wilhelm Vietor, rote learning teaching was not only not moral but also useless as the students did not get any result for international communication without having proper phonetics.
Inductive grammar teaching
Inductive grammar teaching means that the students are to figure out the grammatical rules themselves. According to sundry principles of ‘Reform Movement’, grammar would be taught after having learnt how to speak and in a sensible way when needed. One of such principles is “Grammar should be taught inductively”. Thus, ‘Reform Movement’ in language teaching is a blessing for students.
Oral discussion language teaching
Replacement of translation-based language teaching by oral discussion language teaching has been possible by the influential principles of ‘Reform Movement’. Translation of long text was tedious and useless and had to be replaced by oral discussions about those text in class. This language teaching has come into being because of the principles of “Avoidance of translation” and “Inclusion of everyday vocabulary and phrases”.
Thus, “Reform Movement” has changed whole scenario of language teaching techniques fulfilling choices of students and given forth a huge number of effective “Target Language” teaching methods such as DM, ALM, CLT and so on.
