![]() ![]() We use these patterns to understand situations, raise questions, build links and generate predictions. Pattern forming is part of the way we attempt to make meaning from our experiences (Ausubel, 1968). The term "paradigm" is another word for pattern. Our objective in writing the article is to argue that this shift has not been implemented as widely or as successfully as it might have been because educators and other stakeholders have tried to understand and implement the shift in a piecemeal rather than a holistic manner. We describe each of these eight aspects, connect it to the overall shift in our field and highlight implications for second language education. Next, we examine eight aspects of the paradigm shift in second language education perhaps most popularly known as communicative language teaching. We begin this article by briefly explaining the concept of paradigm and paradigm shift and discussing paradigm shifts of the past century. Since the early 1980s, the term "paradigm shift" has been used as a means of thinking about change in education. Paradigm shifts have also occurred in the social sciences, e.g., sociology and the humanities, e.g., art. Well-known examples of paradigm shifts in the physical sciences include from Ptolemeian to Copernican astronomy and from Newtonian to quantum physics. These shifts involve the adoption of a new outlook on the part of researchers and others in that community. Instead, new paradigms emerge as the result of tradition-shattering revolutions in the thinking of a particular professional community. He argued that change in a scientific field does not occur as a step-by-step, cumulative process. Kuhn (1970) did pioneering work on the process of paradigm change or shift in the sciences. Two reasons for this partial implementation are: (1) by trying to understand each change separately, second language educators have weakened their understanding by missing the larger picture and (2) by trying to implement each change separately, second language educators have made the difficult task of change even more difficult. The authors argue that in second language education, although the paradigm shift was initiated many years ago, it still has been only partially implemented. The paradigm shift of which these changes are part is put into perspective as an element of larger shifts from positivism to post-positivism and from behaviorism to cognitivism. These eight changes are: learner autonomy, cooperative learning, curricular integration, focus on meaning, diversity, thinking skills, alternative assessment and teachers as co-learners. This article describes eight changes that fit with the paradigm shift in second language education toward what is most often described as communicative language teaching. The concept of paradigm shift offers one means of making such connections. We can better understand and implement change in second language education if we look for connections between changes. Paradigm Shift: Understanding and Implementing Change in Second Language EducationĬhange seems to be a constant in education. ![]()
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