English Language Teaching in its Social Context

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 63seen as increasing the likelihood of an innovation becoming adopted (e.g. feasibility, relevanceand explicitness). That is why they are to be viewed positively. Other attributes are likelyto inhibit innovation (e.g. complexity). Still others may promote or inhibit innovationdepending upon the particular adopters. For example, in the case of originality, some teachersmay be more likely to implement an innovation if it calls for their own original contribution(e.g. in developing new teaching materials) whereas others may be less likely to do so. Theattributes also vary in another way. Some (e.g. initial dissatisfaction and relevance) seem tobe more relative than absolute in the sense that their application depends on the particularcontext in which teachers are working, whereas others (i .e. complexity, explicitness,triability, and observability) seem more concerned with the inherent characteristics of theinnovation. Applied linguists interested in evaluating proposals drawn from SLA are likelyto benefit from paying close attention to the inherent rather than the relative attributes ofproposals.In addition to these sets of factors that influcnce the uptake of innovatory ideas, there isalso the question of what aspects of language pedagogy are involved in the change.This, too,can influence the likelihood of thc innovation being successful. Markee (1 994b), drawing inparticular on the work of Fullan (1982 and 1993) in education, suggests that innovations inthe form of the development and use of new teaching materials constitute the easiest kindof change. Innovations requiring change in methodological practices and, even more so inthe teachers’ underlying pedagogical values, are less likely to prove successful.There have been relatively few attempts to apply an innovationist perspective to languagepedagogy. Beretta (1 990) sought to evaluate the extent to which the methodologicalinnovations proposed by Prabhu as part of the CommunicationalTcaching Project (CTP) inIndia (Prabhu 1987) were actually implemented by the teachers involved. This project isbased on the assumption that learners acquire grammar subconsciously when their attentionis focused on communicating in meaning-focused tasks. Although Prabhu did not drawdirectly on SLA rcsearch/theory, his proposal is very similar to that advanced by Krashenand for this reason is of considerable interest here. Bcretta collected historical narratives from15 teachers involved in the project and then ratcd these according to three levels of implementation:1 orientation (i.e. the teacher demonstrates he/she does not really understand theinnovation and is unable to implement it)2 routine (i.e. the teacher understands the rationale of the CTP and is able to implementit in a relatively stable fashion), and3 renewal (i.e. the teacher has adopted a critical perspective on the innovation,demonstrating awareness of its strengths and weaknesses).Forty per cent of the teachers were rated at Level 1,47 per cent of teachers at Level 2and 1 3 per cent at Level 3. Beretta considered Levels 2 and 3 demonstrated an adequate levelof adoption. However, when he distinguished between regular and non-regular classroomteachers involved in the project, he found that three out of four of the regular teachers wereat Level 1. He concluded that:. . . it seems reasonable to infer that CTP would not be readily assimilable by typicalteachers in South Indian schools (or, by extension, in other schools elsewhere wheresimilar antecedent conditions pertain) (ibid. : 333).He points out that the failure of the regular teachers to reach an acceptable level ofimplementation reflects their lack of ownership of the innovation and problems regarding