4 Research and Implications of Principled Eclecticism in Teaching
Including Chinese language instruction, dialogue plays a pivotal role in the foreign language learning process as a key to understanding the target language’s culture. Lyotard (1984) posited that denotative utterances are created among the sender, the addressee, and the referent, facilitating a space where each participant has the opportunity and freedom to express and validate knowledge through dialogue. For foreign language learners, engaging in dialogue facilitates the gradual comprehension of new languages and cultures (Fielding, 2021). Principled eclecticism, as a paradigm in foreign language education of this century, underscores the significance of interaction between teachers and students and peer discussions, aligning perfectly with the elements necessary for cultivating target language proficiency and cross-cultural understanding.
Recent studies have validated the effectiveness of principled eclecticism in foreign language learning. For instance, a three-month study integrating Systematic Communicative Language Teaching with Principled Eclecticism Approaches to train students in English speech reporting revealed that continuous, systematic, and principled instructional guidance not only addressed common errors with present and past tenses but also significantly enhanced the students’ abilities to deliver English speeches (Tabiri, 2016).
Centering on student-focused learning, principled eclecticism combines various teaching methods and activities to offer diverse learning opportunities. Alharbi (2017) applied this approach in an English writing course at a Saudi Arabian university, finding that principled eclectic teaching facilitated systematic and logical organization of learning content. This approach enabled students to analyze the syntactic structure, functions, and pragmatic uses of English, and practice variations between written and spoken forms, proving beneficial for students’ English writing skills. However, Alharbi (2017) also reflected on how frequent teacher-student interaction might impact students’ creativity in writing, noting the necessity for instructors to invest extra effort in guiding students less inclined towards peer collaboration or not skilled in giving peer feedback.
To understand how English teachers apply principled eclecticism in designing assessments, Thamrin et al. (2023) conducted convenience sampling interviews with 16 high school English teachers. The findings suggested that thinking with principled eclecticism allows for diverse assessments, yet the capability to design assessments impacts the quality of the test items critically. Ghafar et al. (2023) analyzed literature from 2019 to 2023, indicating principled eclecticism’s effectiveness in enhancing learning experiences and communication skills, often integrating communicative language teaching, task-based learning, grammar translation teaching, and audio-lingual teaching.
Compared to the broader field of foreign language education, which explores issues of language ontology, motivation, and teaching methods, the discourse on principled eclecticism is still emerging. Its focus on systematically integrating various teaching methods based on learners’ characteristics, needs, and the teaching context to provide an attractive and effective learning experience has not only sparked discussions but also garnered research support. However, a review of the literature reveals a lack of specificity regarding the research tools and the treatment of data reliability and validity, critical factors influencing research quality (Ahmed & Ishtiaq, 2021; Mohajan, 2017). Checklists emerge as one method to ensure research quality (Yadav, 2022; Casey et al., 2023). Consequently, developing a checklist for principled eclectic Chinese language teaching is essential for future research and practical application in this nascent area of inquiry.