... Teacher`s Innovations ...

What exactly does the phrase “innovative approaches to language teaching” mean? Well, that is probably the million dollar question for all ESL teachers who have been struggling in the language classroom to adapt new methodology and innovative materials to make the students’ learning process more effective in order to have better and more gratifying results to both the teacher and the learner.
When we talk about “innovation in language teaching” we surely think about different approaches and methodology. As matter of fact, the real concern on this document is discovering the reason why some new materials and ideas work well while others don’t. To reach to a conclusion we may ask ourselves what the goals of these findings are and how they are involved in the process of diffusion of innovations. Lots of questions on the topic have been formulated due to the obvious and disappointing outcomes of failed methodologies on one hand. However there have been some new pedagogical implementations that have succeeded. What is the factor that determines this?

The implementation of change in language education could either promote or inhibit this process. This means that a number of social factors are involved in it, not only the educational system as one might think. First, educational change should be a part of the basic intellectual preparation of a future-to-be professional. Second, curriculum and teacher development should be treated as one inseparable issue which must be addressed as a very important part of a successful long-term source of change and innovation to produce a challenging and creative classroom environment.
As consequence of avoiding the time consuming process of researching about new materials and the poor assessment that program directors transmit to the teachers there is a negative factor that is currently affecting the teaching-learning process: educators are less optimistic.

To research on innovation could have limitations and drawbacks that all professionals in language teaching should be aware of: 1) the assumption of using such research as a tool to promote innovation; 2) the impact that innovation could have with the socioeconomic part of a society in study and other consequences; 3) to blame it on individuals and not the society for the failure of a methodology in use; 4) and lack of methodological rigor.
However all innovation is risky and difficult to assimilate, language teaching would benefit greatly if teachers develop their own critically informed tradition of innovation research and practice since the importance of continuous innovation as part of our own professional development is constantly changing.
In order to understand what kind of innovations are needed to be implemented in the ESL and the EFL classrooms, we could start by studying the British ELTO program which works with high profile specialists whose objective is to transmit their knowledge to underdeveloped nations’ teachers and train them so they can pass it on other fellow colleagues. The notional-functional syllabus and the process syllabus are quite different in their effectiveness: the first one has been created with a very strong social purpose to learn the target language and the second one promotes a problem-solving model change where the syllabus, materials, content and other aspects are negotiated rather than predicted at the beginning of a class. The natural approach which was developed as a EFL method for adult learners, the procedural syllabus which hit upon the idea of using tasks and meaning-focused methodologies, the task-based language teaching which focuses on analytic activities and the context-based approach in which language learning is contextualized and purposeful…All of these approaches and syllabuses and methodologies are trying to aim at the same goal: better outcomes in the EFL and the ESL classrooms. What about their applicability in our cultural and social context? The answer to that question depends on the adopter’s perceptions: the implications for educational change that deal with ethics, the attributes of innovations and the strategies that are used to manage change in a particular context.