This does not mean that I believe 'student-centred' methods never work. It means that I believe there are at least some circumstances in which they do not work very well, and others in which they do not work at all, and that teacher-trainers ought to equip teachers with both 'teacher-fronted' and 'student-centred' skills.

I can give you many examples of such groups in which allegedly 'learner-centred' methods often do not work at all, or - if they do, work best when balanced by and with competent 'teacher-fronted' styles of instruction. I will confine myself to only four examples of groups which I have personally taught.

The class consisted of 40 young adolescents, all 12 or 13 years old. The room was typical of many schools all over the world. It was 'narrow and long', with a low ceiling. There were 5 rows of chairs bolted to the floor. Each 'row' had 8 seats. One or two rows, I recall, had a ninth seat which was rarely occupied while I was there. The children in the class had never done group or pair work. When I tried to introduce this kind of interaction, they joked and laughed in 'Valens' ? the local variety of Catalan spoken in Valencia. Although the group behaved well enough considering the classroom and the total lack of motivation or 'perceived need' to communicate in English, attention-span was very limited. Nobody in the class spoke any English. They had not learned even the most basic vocabulary.

The group consisted of between 25 and 30 older adolescents, all Japanese nationals (many of whom had Korean ancestry) The classroom was a kind of audio-visual language laboratory. The textbook was based on a BBC English video called 'The Lost Secret'. They were supposed to be 'low intermediate' level. However, even very simple questions like 'What's your name?' or 'Where are you from? seemed to pose immense problems of comprehension for them. When I tried to get them involved either in interaction with each other or with me, they sat like 'bumps on a log' and gaped in amazement. Even the simplest 'directives' like 'Ask your partner the questions in exercise 2' or 'Ask the questions. Don't just say the number of the question' were not understood at first and required long and patient repetition, demonstration and encouragement before the class, slowly and with great reluctance took a more active role. Even then, they tended to behave like spectators at a porn-show who are suddenly asked to take off their clothes and perform acts on a well-lit stage that they thought they would be able merely to watch passively and anonymously from the safety. of their darkened seats at the back of the theatre. Even when at last they did begin to do simple pair-work exercises, I often wondered what, if anything, they were learning. The only real exposure they got to anything that sounded like real English was when I questioned them or interacted directly with the class as a whole. I say 'interacted with' ? I do not mean 'merely lectured', which was what they clearly expected me to do.