History of English Language Teaching The English language
teaching tradition has been subject to tremendous change,
especially throughout the twentieth century. Perhaps more than
any other discipline, this tradition has been practiced, in
various adaptations, in language classrooms all around the world
for centuries. While the teaching of Maths or Physics, that is,
the methodology of teaching Maths or Physics, has, to a greater
or lesser extent, remained the same, this is hardly the case
with English or language teaching in general. As will become
evident in this short paper, there are some milestones in the
development of this tradition, which we will briefly touch upon,
in an attempt to reveal the importance of research in the
selection and implementation of the optimal methods and
techniques for language teaching and learning. The Classical
Method In the Western world back in the 17th, 18th and 19th
centuries, foreign language learning was associated with the
learning of Latin and Greek, both supposed to p