Criticism of the Dominant Academic Standards of “Scientific Communication” in the Didactics of Languages-Cultures

Abstract

Two fundamental criticisms can be made of the dominant academic standards of "scientific communication” in the Didactics of Languages-Cultures: 1) While Didactics of Languages-Culturesbelongs to the action paradigm, since its main aim is to improve the teaching-learning processes, these standards belong to the communication paradigm; yet these two paradigms are opposed to each other, as can be seen in Didactics of Languages-Cultures precisely in the differences between the social action-oriented approach and the communicative approach, with the repetitive vs. inchoative, durative vs. punctual and imperfective vs. perfective respectively. 2) Whereas Didactics of Languages-Cultures seeks primarily to develop models (in the sense of products of the modeling operation) as indispensable interfaces between theory and practice, because they alone are both practical enough to generate modes of intervention in the classroom, but sufficiently abstract to be adaptable to very varied and variable teaching-learning environments, the current scientific paradigm admits only theoretical communication, or practical communication, or communication that strives, with variable degrees of relevance, to put theory and practice in direct relation in one direction or the other.Text written from the slideshow of my talk at the ITC International TESOL conference 2022,  "Envisioning possibilities", Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, December 9-10, 2022.

First publication: ESBB Journal (English Scholars Beyond Borders), ESBB Volume 9, Issue 1, 2023. Full issue available online.