Widdowson - Against Dogma - Reply to Swan

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Against dogma:A reply to Michael SwanH. G. Widdowson

This article is a reply to the two articles entitled A critical look at theCommunicative Approach by Michael Swan, which appeared in the twoissues that preceded this one (39/1 and 39/2). It is argued that Swan mis-represents the ideas which have gone to make up what is now known as thecommunicative approach; and that Swans arguments are in themselvescontradictory. In the authors belief, Swan fails to offer evidence or supportfor his own position on the theory or practice of ELT, and is thus guilty of thesame charge that he lays, undeservedly, at the door of those whose viewshe attacks.Michael Swans two articles are admirably provocative pieces, eloquentlywritten and stimulating to read. This much should be acknowledged. Itshould be noted, however, that they are not to be read as dispassionatecriticism of a careful analytic kind. They are, rather, an indictment,charged with feeling, almost as if Swan felt that the ideas he opposes were apersonal affront. And the desire to have a dig at theorists and to pander toanti-intellectual prejudice at times reduces the discussion to farce. So withreference to their title, these papers are critical only in the sense of beingcaptious: they are not evaluative. Nevertheless, they do indicate areas ofmisunderstanding and misconception, and as such warrant a reply.

Dogma an d enquiry The first point I should like to make is a very general one about the purposeof intellectual enquiry. The ideas that have been put forward concerning acommunicative approach to language teaching do not, as Swan himselfacknowledges, constitute a coherent and monolithic body of doctrine, norwere they intended as a manifesto for revolutionary change. They cannotby definition therefore be a dogma. Swan represents them as such in orderto make a better target for attack. This is, to say the least, regrettable,because these ideas were proposed (for the most part) in the spirit ofpositive enquiry and were intended to encourage teachers not to rejectcustomary practices out of hand and embrace a new creed, but on thecontrary to subject these practices and proposals to critical (i.e. evaluative,not captious) assessment. So the intention behind the enquiry was to actagainst the dogmatism of doctrine whether new or old, revolutionary orreactionary. Its purpose was to provoke, not to persuade; to liberatethought, not to confine it by the imposition of fixed ideas. Perhaps I mightbe permitted to give two quotations from my own work to correct the quitefalse impression of doctrinaire assertion that Swan, for some reason, wishesto convey:

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language combined with the skills the learner has already acquired fromthe experience of using his own mother tongue? According to the dogmawhich denies any relevance to the use/usage distinction, decoding andinterpreting should not be different processes at all. Fluency (whateverSwan might mean by this) in the one ought not to be distinct from fluency inthe other. This problem of poor performance may also, we are told, becaused by the fact that the learners have been trained to read classroomtexts in such a different way from real-life texts that they are unable toregard them as pieces of communication. But how can this be? If they knowthe language, why cant they automatically apply this knowledge?

And what, anyway, does it mean to say that learners treat texts in adifferent way? How then is this distinct from regarding them as pieces ofcommunication? These questions can be clarified by reference to theconcepts of cohesion and coherence and strategies of prediction and nego-tiation, but this kind of jargon is inadmissible, so all we are left with is abefuddled vagueness which, to use Swans own expression, contributesnothing to our understanding of how to teach foreign languages. We aretold that the inability of learners to regard texts as pieces of communicationis the result of poor methodology and that the solution involves changingwhat happens in the classroom, not what happens in the student. Whatexactly is it that might lead us to assess one methodology as poor, anothergood? What sort of change in the classroom is called for? And anyway whatis the point, we might ask, of changing what happens in the classroomunless it brings about changes in the student?

Questions of this kind (in so far as they make sense) need careful andtheoretical consideration. They cannot be resolved by bland statement.

Repeatedly we find in these articles assertions about teaching and learn-ing which can be justified, or indeed understood, only by reference to thekind of idea that Swan ridicules with such relish. And not infrequently, aswe have seen, such assertions actually presuppose the validity of these ideaseven when they are intended to undermine them.

Approve wi th care Elsewhere, what Swan conceives of as the communicative approach isfavoured with approving comment. It has, we are told, many virtues.What are they then? It has new information and insights to contribute (forinstance about the language of social interaction). What new informationand what new insights? At times, Swan seems to suppose that the languageof social interaction simply means the stereotyped, idiomatic side of lan-guage to be learned as a collection of conventional and idiomatic expres-sions of the kind provided by a notional/functional inventory. Even acursory glance at the literature on the pragmatics of language use woulddisabuse him of such a simplistic notion. But then pragmatics, dependingas it does on recognizing a distinction between usage and use, has littlerelevance to foreign language teaching and is anyway grossly over-valuedat the moment. The communicative approach is, again, given credit forenormous improvements in our methodology. Methodology is perhapsthe area where the Communicative Approach has done most to improveour teaching. What exactly are these improvements? On what principlesare they based? And how have they come about, if they are based on ideasthat are apparently so defective in theory and irrelevant in practice?Unreasoned approval of the communicative approach is no better thanunreasoned condemnation. What we need is clear thinking and explicit,well-informed argument of the kind which Swan conspicuously fails to

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provide. He fails to provide it because he is more interested in attacking thecommunicative approach than in seeking to understand and assess it, andso finds it convenient to invent a distorted version so as to present his ownviews more effectively. These views are represented as being in oppositionto the ideas about communicative language teaching. But many of them,particularly those put forward in the second paper, have already beenexplored in relation to these ideas, although Swan, by ignorance or design,fails to acknowledge the fact. His discussion about the use of authentic data,for example, and the classroom replication of reality has long since beenanticipated by others pursuing the implications of a communicativeapproach. Similarly there has long been a recognition of the importance ofgrammar and lexis and the need to teach them as an essential communica-tive resource. The difference is that these matters have been treated asissues to be thought out and not just pronounced upon. Most of those whohave given any systematic consideration to the effective teaching of gram-mar, for example, would wish to question the proposal for a separatetreatment of the formal and functional aspects of language which Swan (notvery humbly or tentatively, I may say) puts forward with such apparentconviction:

Simplifying somewhat, one might say that there are two kinds of lan-guage: stereotyped and creative. Semantic syllabuses are needed tohelp us teach the first; only structural/lexical syllabuses will enable us toteach the second.

This statement, we should note, presupposes both a theory of language anda theory of pedagogy. The least we might expect is that such theoreticalpresuppositions should be made as explicit as possible so that they can bebrought out into the open and debated.

Of course it is more comfortable (and convenient) to deny the validity oftheoretical enquiry and instead make easy appeals to prejudice in the nameof experience and common sense. But if we claim that our activities haveany professional status, then we have to accept the need for a carefulappraisal of the principles upon which they are based. And this mustrequire the exercise of intellectual analysis and critical evaluation not asspecialist or lite activities, but ones which are intrinsic to the wholepractical pedagogic enterprise. Naturally there are risks involved: ideas canbe inconsistent or ill-conceived; they may be misunderstood or misapplied;they may induce doubt. Some of us believe that such risks are worth taking.For others the delusion of simple answers will always be available as anattractive alternative to thought. Received January 1985

ReferencesWiddowson, H. G. 1978. Teaching Language as

Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Widdowson, H. G. 1979. Explorations in Applied

Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.The authorH. G. Widdowson is Professor of English for Speakersof Other Languages at the University of London Insti-tute of Education. Previously he was a lecturer at theUniversity of Edinburgh, where he also did his doctor-

ate; before that he had worked for several years withthe British Council in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. He isthe author of a number of books, including Stylistics andthe Teaching of Literature ( 1975), Teaching Language asCommunication (1978), and Explorations in Appied Lin-guistics (1979). With J. P. B. Allen he edited the Englishin Focus series (OUP), and he is the Associate Editor ofthe series Reading and Thinking in English (OUP). Hislatest book, Learning Purpose and Language Use, was pub-lished by OUP in 1983. He was one of the foundereditors of Applied Linguistics.

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