This concept which exists in fields such as economics, art, science, music and
literature Will be referred to as the pendular swing,
meaning the tendency for one movement to replace another movement
through a reaction of the perceived deficiencies of the former.
For example, in art, we have two movements at extreme ends of the pendulum.
First, we have abstract expressionism This type of art appeared around the 1940's and
1950's, at the end of World War II, and focused mostly on various shapes and
colors, representing a mixture of emotions and expressions.
Two famous works from this period in are Number 1, Lavendar Mist, done
in 1950 by Jackson Pollack And Door to the River, done by Willem de Kooning in 1960.
At the other end of the pendulum, we have the photorealism movement.
This type of art came out in direct contrast to the abstract expressionism movement.
This type of art appeared in the 1960s and 70s and focused on creating recreations of realistic scenes.
Often taken from a photograph, and adding artistic enhancements to make the scene even more vivid and lifelike.
Two famous works from this movement are Self-Portrait, done in 1969 by Chuck Close, and McDonald's Pick-up, done in 1970.
By Ralph Goings.
As you can see, these two movements represent two extremes in art and
the pendulum swung from one to the other rather quickly.
This has been true in the language teaching for the last 130 years or so but especially the first 100. From about 1880 to 1980.
This moving from extreme to another is something we want you to pay close attention to as you form your own ideas and ground yourself in a more balanced approach.
This does not mean that you can't choose sides. Rather that we want you to gain as much information as you can. Suspend judgement for a time, and then make educated decisions about who, what, why, and how you believe what you believe, to form your own philosophy about language teaching.
At the end of each presentation of an approach, we will try to show you best practices based on research studies that come from each of these theories. In other words, rather than swinging back and forth like monkeys on a vine. We would like you to consider what good was learned from each approach, and what we can take away with us through an examination of each period in language teaching history.
All right, enough introduction, are you ready to go? I am. Put those thinking caps on and get ready. In the next module , we are going to go back to the 1880s, to discover a very interesting approach to learning a language. It permeated the United States and many other parts of the world, and it's called the grammar translation approach.
