Reflections on the Production Oriented Approach (POA) in China: A New Name and a New Acronym
When there is a new name and a new acronym in academia in general, this is often intended as indicating a departure from what is unsatisfactory. It is seen as creating and enhancing a new reality, and as the signal of a paradigm change. The evidence of the 'Second International Conference on Innovative Foreign Language Education in China' subtitled "POA in different cultural contexts" and hosted at the University of Vienna on 13 14 October 2017, suggests that this is also the case with the POA, the ProductionOriented Approach as expounded by Wen (e.g. 2016, 2017) and fleshed out and illustrated in impressive detail in conference presentations by members of the POA team, notably Zhang Wenjuan, Qiu Lin, Bi Zheng, Zhang Lingli and Zhang Yi. It can be inspiring and stimulating to compare teaching approaches locally and internationally. As a member of the above conference's Dialogue Panel it seems to this discussant/writer that, in the context of profound change such as it is envisaged and trialled in the case of the POA, it would be illuminating to see not only what may be new about the POA and how it differs from foreign language teaching elsewhere or previously, but also how it ties in with other or earlier approaches that aim at increasing productive language use. Where are the points of contact with other approaches? Are there parallels with traditions or new work done elsewhere? The POA's enabling phase reminds one, for instance, of the 'can do' descriptors used in the action oriented Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR 2001) recently updated with new descriptors in the Council of Europe's September 2017 companion volume. Is this just a superficial resemblance or are there commonalities that, if explicitly explored, could lead to progressive impulses in the development of both? When comparing teaching and learning contexts of English (for Academic Purposes) internationally, the distance between the languages involved and other elements of the