Language Teaching Methods and Pedagogy of Partnering: Criticizing a Detachment

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the way current innovation puts into practice different teaching methodologies, especially -but not exclusively- in higher education. Two facts are therefore presumed: teaching always implies teaching (in) a language and, consequently, many methodological assumptions about language teaching undoubtedly belonging to the past are surprisingly considered innovations in the present. Thus, the teaching method `pedagogy of partnering' -a set of active methodologies- and several language teaching approaches are compared, taking as a basis the hypothesis that the history of the former runs parallel to that of the latter, despite the fact that there is no relation between them. As a conclusion, although further similar studies are needed, it is suggested that every teaching method should focus on how languages are taught because, without these, there can be no teaching at all.