Mikiatures 17 - Whatever

Whatever Diploma in English Language Teaching to Anyone, July 2011 Module One, Paper 1, Task 1 “I wanna be eclectic.” (A. Cooper) Nine times out of ten, the teacher who claims to be “eclectic” is nothing more than a lazy sod who can’t be bothered to take an interest in the methodological issues involved. Discuss the above with reference to yourself and your colleagues. Examiners’ Report This question was enormously popular, with candidates letting off steam by bitching about their colleagues behind their backs. The general argument was, “Most of my colleagues haven’t a clue what ‘eclectic’ means; and, even if they did, it wouldn't help them”. One candidate got quite carried away at this point, laying into poor “Pepe”, whom she described as “thick as two short planks” and “quite incapable of distinguishing between such basic concepts as ‘approach’, ‘method’ and ‘theory’.” Although the overwhelming majority of candidates claimed to be well aware of “the methodological issues involved”, very few actually made an attempt at outlining them – suggesting just a hint of hypocrisy on their part perhaps? Honesty was appreciated, therefore, and candidates who freely admitted to calling themselves eclectic in order to gain street credibility received extra points here.