?What is the eclectic approach ?Are you an advocate to it? Why

Hello Khaldun,

To be honest, I never encountered the term 'eclectic' in my studies. Here in North America, we focus greatly on learning-centered or student-centered approach in teaching. Most likely the term 'eclectic' is more common in other parts of the world such as Europe. If you have studied within North America (e.g. Canada or the US), you will defiantly encounter the term 'student-centered'. Student-centered approach is all about the student rather than the teacher. That is, the instructor plays the role of the language facilitator rather than the knowledge disseminator where the emphasis becomes on the learner not on what the teacher hopes to achieve. This will allow the responsibility of the learning process to be shared among the students and take charge of it rather than holding the teacher to be fully accountable about the learning process. Speaking of the learning process, when I looked up the term 'eclectic approach', I found that it means to adopt various methods in teaching rather than adopting a single method. This is true and very reasonable, and in fact it is expected from teachers of today. This is because today's classroom, particularly the ESL classroom, is very diverse; hence, teaching from the book, for instance, will not work with every student. Each learner is a unique individual, and how one learner approaches a problem will be different from another learner. This is just one concept from the student-centered approach that I just discussed, so I would say that eclectic approach is under the umbrella of the student-centered approach, which is the main method adopted in all ESL classes within the States and Canada.