Dr Willy A Renandya is a language teacher educator with extensive teaching experience in Asia. He currently teaches applied linguistics courses at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has given numerous presentations at international ELT conferences and has published extensively in the area of second language education. His publications include Language Teaching Methodology: An anthology of current practice (2002, Cambridge University Press) and Student-centred cooperative learning (2019, Springer International). He maintains a large teacher professional development forum called Teacher Voices.
Abstract
Understanding faulty beliefs and practices in ELT
"Life-long learning is not only about learning new thingsor new ways of doing things throughout life, but also about constantly reflecting, re-constructing, revisingor even discarding ourexisting knowledge, beliefs and practices that are no longer tenable. The aim of my presentation is to critically examine a number of ELT beliefs and practices that hinder rather than support second language learning. These include the beliefs and practices that(1) teachingand assessing languageas discrete items would lead to successful acquisition, (2) grammar, rather than vocabulary, should be given more curriculum time, (3) systematic teaching of language skills and strategies would greatly improveL2 proficiency, (4) native-like accent should be the goal of L2 teaching and (5) teacher-centred pedagogy is the most effective way to drive language learning in the classroom. I will argue that we should take a hard look at these and other mistaken beliefs and practices and replace them with ones that reflect current thinking and research in ELT."