В этой статье автор проводит анализ ряда уникальных методов обучения, которые отличаются от более традиционных подходов, применяемых специалистами в области педагогики. В работе рассматриваются четыре конкретных метода обучения, анализируются их потенциал, а также положительные и отрицательные стороны на основе научных статей, посвященных этим методам.

Ключевые слова: преподавание, уникальный, образование, обучение.

There is no surprise at all that student’s diligence and learning efficacy is dependent not only on their willpower or ethics, but the teacher and the educational organization play a big role as well. Throughout the years English teaching methods, that were most widely recognized, focused on the more traditional ways of pedagogical process such as using textbooks, teacher explanation, grammar and lexical exercises and English-only instruction input, or a mix of any of the mentioned principles together at a varying capacity. However, with each passing year more and more alternative approaches to teaching have emerged that sometimes slightly and sometimes even cardinally change the role of the teacher, the learner and the materials and technology they use, as well as the language itself. While these methods vary, they can introduce a newer spin on the more traditional ways teachers conduct their educational processes or may even present a completely unique way. The present paper will highlight some of the more widely known and noted unique teaching methods by analyzing works of other researchers discussing the highlighted teaching techniques. While these teaching methods may actually be quite efficient in creating successful teaching processes in more than one language, the article will focus on alternative teaching methods for English teaching specifically. Additionally, it is quite important to note that some of these unique English teaching methods are not equally well established. Nevertheless, this article does not aim to make an organized rating list for these less traditional ways to conduct educational processes but as a steppingstone leading to more future discussion on the topic of untraditional pedagogical approaches.

While it is easy to recognize that conceptually there are as many teaching methods out there as there are teachers, since every person brings their own individual aesthetic and unique aspect to teaching, this work will focus on four relatively well-established English teaching methods:

– Dogme;

– Translanguaging;

– Flipped classroom;

– And last but not least is Content and Language Integrated Learning also known as CLIL.

Dogme or Teaching Unplugged

One of the less established teaching methods presented in this article comes in a form that presents itself in a broader form that more so resembles a teaching philosophy than a pedagogical technique. Teaching unplugged or also called Dogme, named so in reference to the Dogme 95 film movement, goes beyond what one may call standard pedagogical methods focusing more on the spontaneous and practical aspects of pedagogy and foregoing “unwieldy” books that potentially can deter willing and unwilling learners alike. According to multiple sources a Dogme classroom is actually presented as a textbook free zone that focuses on learner involvement than extra materials for studying. Moreover, any materials used during classes by the teacher or the students should be learner produced, ensuring the “purity” of the linguistic medium, leaving nothing but their own abilities. To make sure that happens members of the pedagogical field participating in this technique are also highly encouraged to use graded language to level themselves to the linguistic prowess of the learners engaged in the class. As a result of such content filtering the only lessons emerging from this teaching method are the ones created through classroom interactions that learners and teachers alike took direct participation in. This also means that student’s interests and contribution have a direct influence on the lessons provided to the class. As such the main focus of the educational process centers around communication and emergent language. This can be seen in the work of Nguyen and Bui, who aimed to critically discuss the Dogme approach with their research. In their article they describe three main principles of such teaching, presenting largely the more organized version of the aforementioned statements, basing their understanding of teaching Unplugged as the producer of emergent language in a materials-light environment. This in turn helps firstly teachers consult their students’ interests and problematic areas to create a peculiar and yet engaging teaching environment that is not solely based off curriculum teaching materials which in turn increases engagement levels among learners.

While this does sound quite intriguing one problem comes to light quite quickly — if Teaching Unplugged is supposed to avoid using educational materials during classes, how proficient does the learner have to actually be for this method to prove efficient? While the research for this learning method is quite sparse, Sarani and Malmir have conducted research to answer this very question and found that Dogme managed to facilitate increased willingness to speak and general openness to learning the language in advanced students while the same cannot be said about intermediate and upper-intermediate students who could not foster their speaking skills and found it difficult to be inclined to communicate in English.

This means that as a unique method of language teaching Dogme fails to fulfil its purpose on many levels. However, this does not necessarily mean that it does not belong in general English language teaching. Such a freeing and peculiar way to spend class time can be quite effective to open up those participants of linguistic classes that, while having a good basis of language skill tow ork with, can often find it hard to express themselves due to many external reasons not necessarily connected directly to English or any language. Filtering the class materials to be personally intertwined with learners themselves creates a unique rapport between the students and teachers and creates a risk-free zone or a “safe space” where learners can speak freely on the interesting for them topics thus developing or improving speaking prowess without extra pressure that may be present otherwise.

Translanguaging

The second highlight for the present work comes in the form of a practice called Translanguaging. Unlike the more traditional way of preferring to assure linguistic purity of the teaching environment by limiting communication to the language in question, Translanguaging instead pushes the language boundaries focusing on the multilingual aspect of teaching, encouraging students to use other languages while still maintaining focus on the primary subject. According to Prilutskaya, this is a potent tool for pedagogical use that can bolster linguistic acuity in both learners and teachers alike. Moreover, it may assist in teacher-student and peer interactions in class, all the while providing a good way for learners to participate in more complex topics and think their ideas through thoroughly before attempting to formulate them in the language in question. Additionally, it is also worthy of notice that this particular unique method of teaching is exceptionally well-received in studies of English. Since one of the more peculiar aspects of the language is that it has quite a considerable number of borrowed words in its vocabulary, leaners can find it educating as well as entertaining to find similarities or discrepancies when stacked against their native language.

Additionally, Huang and Chalmers, another group of researchers engaged in translanguaging research, state in their work that based on evidence they collected that pedagogical Translanguaging may actually prove quite useful when teaching, as by itself attempting to produce a coherent explanation for complex grammatical, lexical or even simply topical specifics in the studied language can prove exceptionally difficult due to teacher’s inability to grade their language properly or the learner’s lack of linguistic prowess blocking their progress in topic comprehension.

However, it is also important to note that according to Huang and Chalmers the unique attributes of translanguaging may actually not provide such big of an impact on learners’ studies for there to be an official inclusion of such practices instead or even simply in line with more traditional methods of teaching since the low methodological quality of the several studies that were used for their research does not actually allow them to be able to form any sort of firm statements about Translanguaging and its effectiveness when compared to more default practices. Nevertheless, perhaps its unique aspect can be most welcomed by the beginners and those who wish to grasp complex topics early on in their education.

Flipped classroom

While Dogme leaves out learning materials and Translanguaging tries to help out learners by letting them use their native and other available languages to communicate the Flipped classroom does not actually rip away from the mold of the default practices but, as its name suggests, reverses activities that learners engage in during classes and during their out of class time. Essentially this unique practice pushes learners to study the required material on their own in order to fully devote themselves to active practice and communicative interactions in classes. It is also important to note that this practice, according to Vitta and Al-Hoorie and their research article, does vary in its efficiency depending on the skill level of those who practice it. As such the more advanced learners would find it more useful for their studies than those of lower linguistical prowess. The authors also state that perhaps the efficiency of the practice depends on quite many other factors besides language skill level and note that perhaps the heterogeneity of their findings may be explained by certain moderations including learner proficiency, study type and target outcome of the language studies as a whole for the learners. Nevertheless, the general view of the researchers on this practice is quite positive even though it does not break the mold or stand out like other perhaps more “flamboyant” or innovative examples of unique teaching methods since it may eliminate the setting of mistakes during learners’ practice in class since, unlike during out-of-class hours when students would usually engage in practice and various interactive linguistic activities, in this teaching method the moments that usually lack teacher’s presence are swapped around and allow the educator to engage with students at times when mistakes are abundant and may set in.

In addition to its potential practical value, Flipped Teaching can also be useful in increasing engagement of learners during class. As per the research article conducted by Fisher and Tran, their findings state that even though their research results can clarify for educators that Flipped Learning ability to positively influence the acquisition of key learning skills remains largely unproven, there are factors that indicate a positive perception of this teaching method by those who participated in it, perhaps due to the facilitation of self-regulated learning behaviors.

As such, while the educational value is still largely unclear to be stated that Flipped Teaching can be considered better than traditional methods, it can be surely said that while with its implementation at the very least an educator can find positives in increased engagement and more practice-oriented lesson and class structures.

Content and Language Integrated Learning

Last but not least method that needs to be highlighted in this paper is CLIL. The unique aspect of this teaching practice is actually quite similar to another complex methods of studying namely ESP or English for Specific Purposes. The core principle revolves around combining academic subjects that are primary to learners faculty with studies of English language. It is important to note that this particular method of educational practice has been regarded by some researchers to be more advanced than others as mainly requires external subject knowledge to sufficiently participate in such specific language practice. Regardless of its potential difficulty for the learner, its efficiency has been marked in several research papers. According to Lee and their colleagues, CLIL overall shows positive trends in development of English skills and general language competence even when compared to the more mainstream variants of educational methodologies both in short and long term. Additionally, they also note that this unique practice does not work well in every scenario, stating that reaction was more positive in more advanced groups, a notable trend among all specialized methods of teaching mentioned in this paper, and when focus was set particularly on the vocabulary or when the native language of the study group is similar to the one they are learning (in this particular case it was English). Still, they regard it as only being moderately beneficial to learners’ linguistic progress likely attributed to many factors like increased English instruction during classes.

Similar conclusions were made by Kaiypova and their colleagues in their very own article. While it is important to note that their research was focused on secondary school students, the overall view of CLIL and its potential largely remains the same, as the authors similarly state that while the positive attributes of this teaching method are moderate at best and do not necessarily make it that much better than the more traditional ways of pedagogical process, they do also conclude that there are no particular detriments to this style of learning and as such it presents a unique and exciting way to learn a language.

Conclusion and implications

All of the mentioned styles of teaching bring something truly unique to the table, which, aside from being quite innovative in most cases, creates a special type of environment for the learners to benefit from, be it material-less classes or subject studies in English. However, an important detail concerning most of the aforementioned methods of teaching is that most of them are not studied and researched enough to be considered fully expanded upon and as such their true effectiveness cannot be proved with confidence. In addition to that most of the presented cases of unique study methods either require a complex list of conditions to be met to work or show results that only marginally better than the more traditional methods. Still, even with all the risks and lack of assuredness in their true efficiency in mind, it would be imprudent not to at the very least weigh the possibility of introducing newer practices into the standard curriculum of some language- and in most cases specifically English-adjacent faculties. After all, every mentioned unique teaching method presents their own positive outcomes that may prove quite beneficial to a particular learning group. This article was writing primarily to highlight more original learning style concepts and hopefully it may serve as an additional argument for use of more out-of-the-box techniques when providing language studies to learners.

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