Activating the Brain in the Classroom

Abstract

Since the Reform Movement, research on why it is so difficult to learn a SL in a classroom situation and what can be done to make it less of a struggle allowed teachers to make great strides in tackling the SLT Dilemma in the twentieth century. As we saw in the opening chapter, the initial “scientific” response to the Dilemma was the DM, which the reformers believed would facilitate the SLA process on its own, regardless of who was doing the teaching. The DM did not last. But teachers did not, as a consequence, abandon the method notion. On the contrary, they seemed to believe that sooner or later they would find the “right theoretical ingredients” to help them construct the “method to end all methods.” The ALM was thought to be that method. But it too did not last. So, by the late 1960s it became obvious that something other than the “method response” to the SLT Dilemma was needed.

We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master.

Maria Montessori (1870-1952)