![]() Focusing greater attention on the role of learners rather than the external stimuli learners are receiving from their environment.In second language education, the principal paradigm shift over the past 40 years flowed from the positivism to post-positivism shift and involved a move away from the tenets of behaviorist psychology and structural linguistics and toward cognitive, and later, socio-cognitive psychology and more contextualized, meaning-based views of language. Paradigm Shift in Second Language Education Reliance on experts and outsider knowledge-researcher as externalĬonsideration also of the "average" participant and insider knowledge-researcher as internal Table 1 - Contrasts between positivism and post-positivism PositivismĮmphasis on parts and decontextualizationĬonsideration only of objective and the quantifiableĬonsideration also of subjective and the non-quantifiable Table 1 provides a brief look at some contrasts between positivism and post-positivism. Awareness of this broader shift helps make clearer the shifts that take place in any one particular field. Twentieth century paradigm shifts across a wide variety of fields can be seen as part of a larger shift from positivism to post-positivism (Berman, 1981 Capra, 1983 Merchant, 1992). When a paradigm shift takes place, we see things from a different perspective as we focus on different aspects of the phenomena in our lives. We resist the notion that no pattern exists. The human brain is designed to generate, discern and recognize patterns in the world around us. We use these patterns to understand situations, raise questions, build links and generate predictions. Pattern forming is part of the way we attempt to make meaning from our experiences (Ausubel, 1968). The term "paradigm" is another word for pattern. Our objective in writing the article is to argue that this shift has not been implemented as widely or as successfully as it might have been because educators and other stakeholders have tried to understand and implement the shift in a piecemeal rather than a holistic manner. We describe each of these eight aspects, connect it to the overall shift in our field and highlight implications for second language education. Next, we examine eight aspects of the paradigm shift in second language education perhaps most popularly known as communicative language teaching. We begin this article by briefly explaining the concept of paradigm and paradigm shift and discussing paradigm shifts of the past century. Since the early 1980s, the term "paradigm shift" has been used as a means of thinking about change in education. Paradigm shifts have also occurred in the social sciences, e.g., sociology and the humanities, e.g., art. Well-known examples of paradigm shifts in the physical sciences include from Ptolemeian to Copernican astronomy and from Newtonian to quantum physics. These shifts involve the adoption of a new outlook on the part of researchers and others in that community. PARADIGM SHIFT PROFESSIONALInstead, new paradigms emerge as the result of tradition-shattering revolutions in the thinking of a particular professional community. He argued that change in a scientific field does not occur as a step-by-step, cumulative process. Kuhn (1970) did pioneering work on the process of paradigm change or shift in the sciences. Two reasons for this partial implementation are: (1) by trying to understand each change separately, second language educators have weakened their understanding by missing the larger picture and (2) by trying to implement each change separately, second language educators have made the difficult task of change even more difficult. The authors argue that in second language education, although the paradigm shift was initiated many years ago, it still has been only partially implemented. The paradigm shift of which these changes are part is put into perspective as an element of larger shifts from positivism to post-positivism and from behaviorism to cognitivism. These eight changes are: learner autonomy, cooperative learning, curricular integration, focus on meaning, diversity, thinking skills, alternative assessment and teachers as co-learners. This article describes eight changes that fit with the paradigm shift in second language education toward what is most often described as communicative language teaching. The concept of paradigm shift offers one means of making such connections. We can better understand and implement change in second language education if we look for connections between changes. Paradigm Shift: Understanding and Implementing Change in Second Language EducationĬhange seems to be a constant in education. ![]()
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