Today to talk to because of check Richardson to discuss his new book approaches and methods in

language teaching. This book has been on the bookshelf of many teachers around the world for
many years. Can you tell us a little bit about the book? Well the book surveys different approaches
and methods that have been used velocity hundred years how many years or so for teaching English
as a second or foreign language postgraduate programs for teachers require teachers to do two
kinds of courses one. What is a methodology course which looks at principles and practices for
teaching Reading Writing grammar pronunciation? And so on. This is not that kind of book. This is a
book that looks at specific General methods that have been used to teach English over the last
hundred years and in particular the ones that are still prominent today. So the first edition of this
book came out in 1986 and there has been a second edition since why the need for a third edition
now, well, the book has been very widely used and translated into a number of different languages.

So I've had many requests from professors and teachers for a new addition because they want to
continue using the book but they wanted to be more up to date. So that was the basic motivation.
We did some market research found out what people would like to see in a new edition and those
changes are want to see in this third edition. So apart from refreshing the content what are some of
the other changes that you have made to the book there are several new Chapters at least 3 or 4
totally new chapters. There are now discussion questions at the end of each chapter. Chapter there
are also some examples of commercial materials based on these methods of detached to some of
the chapters and at the back of the book. We have as a chart that summarizes all the principles of
these different methods and their procedures so that one can see at a glance how they all differ and
what their similarities are. Now the book was co-authored with Theodore Rogers and yourself. How
did you manage being in two different locations? Well, it's true.

We have been in quite a distant location for some time. And so headed at the commitments and
wasn't really able to give as much help with this addition as with the previous Edition. So I didn't
mind taking on the bulk of the work for this Edition. Some readers would say aren't we in a post
methods period now, why do we still need a book on methods in language teaching? That's true and
we look at that issue in a number of places in the book of the diverse it you know some Years ago
that we've moved Beyond methods to sort of teachers personal principles of teaching. In fact, the
reality is that in most institutions teachers do tend to teach within the framework of a particular
philosophy or approach and so others who have researched teaching practices argue that that post
methods is gone and we're back to methods if you like in the book, there are a number of new
features that try to engage the readers through discussion questions and enter Reflective questions
and so on. How would you like to see your readers use the book? It's really an information driven
book. It's not a book that's designed to give techniques that teachers can apply in their own
classrooms. It's to give them the knowledge to be able to look critically at these methods to
understand a little about the history of the profession where our ideas about language teaching
come from and what's the characterizing current approaches to language teaching today. So it's a
resource for developing awareness knowledge and critical. King really so it's the book mainly text-
based or Does it include additional features as well. There are tasks as well. So in each chapter that
the end of each chapter in discussion questions and follow-up tasks that the teachers and trainers
can make use of if they want to go into more depth into some of the methods that are looked at.
There is the book suitable to work through for readers independently, or is it a book that is more
suitable for use as a classroom. Text it. No, I think it can be used by.
Teacher who wants to update their Professional Knowledge. I've tried to keep the writing style as
clear as possible. We do cover a lot of territory as you can see the Third Edition is much bigger than
the previous editions. I think it's running to about 400 pages and that's partly because of the
additional new content the for new chapters plus some of the other chapters needed extensive
revision the chapter on learning theories, for example, since so much has gone on in that area
needed extensively updating. Can you give us some examples?