You're quite right that those questions should be driving planning, rather than the lesson structure you want to go for. I wonder how many teachers really think in those terms, anyway, and like the methodology that underpins the planning move towards a principled eclectic approach.
Also very curious to hear about your CELTA tutor's comments about PPP. I did mine in 2011 and certainly didn't hear any such criticisms (quite the opposite, in fact)!
Great point. I suspect far fewer teachers start with those questions than we’d like to think. Structure often becomes the comfort blanket, especially under time pressure, even though the underlying principles are what really drive learning. A principled eclectic approach feels like the natural endpoint once teachers have enough experience to trust their judgement.
On PPP, my CELTA was earlier, and the message I got was very much “use it, but don’t mistake it for how languages are actually acquired.” It wasn’t presented as wrong, just limited, and best seen as a planning scaffold rather than a learning theory. Interesting that your experience in 2011 was different. It probably says a lot about how training centres, tutors, and even prevailing orthodoxies shift over time.
You're quite right that those questions should be driving planning, rather than the lesson structure you want to go for. I wonder how many teachers really think in those terms, anyway, and like the methodology that underpins the planning move towards a principled eclectic approach.
Also very curious to hear about your CELTA tutor's comments about PPP. I did mine in 2011 and certainly didn't hear any such criticisms (quite the opposite, in fact)!
Great point. I suspect far fewer teachers start with those questions than we’d like to think. Structure often becomes the comfort blanket, especially under time pressure, even though the underlying principles are what really drive learning. A principled eclectic approach feels like the natural endpoint once teachers have enough experience to trust their judgement.
On PPP, my CELTA was earlier, and the message I got was very much “use it, but don’t mistake it for how languages are actually acquired.” It wasn’t presented as wrong, just limited, and best seen as a planning scaffold rather than a learning theory. Interesting that your experience in 2011 was different. It probably says a lot about how training centres, tutors, and even prevailing orthodoxies shift over time.