The Grammar-Translation Method. In the 18th century foreign languages started to appear on the school curricula, requiring a systematic approach to teaching them. The standard system was similar to the system for teaching Latin. Rather than speaking, the goal was for students to be able to read literature in the target language, and benefit from the mental discipline of studying a language. Textbooks combined abstract grammar rules, vocabulary lists with translations, and sentences for students to translate. Sentences were chosen to illustrate grammar, with no relation to actual communication. During lessons, the teacher presented grammar structures, rules were studied, and the students worked through translation exercises. Grammar-Translation was influential until the 1950’s. Often the frustration of language learners who experienced this method is that they spent years studying, but still could not speak the language.
The Direct Method achieved worldwide publicity through Berlitz, since Maximilian Berlitz had created a form of this method. An increase in travel in the second half of the 19th century created the need to speak languages. It was noted (not for the first time) that children learn to speak with no reference to grammar at all. The Direct Method put proficiency in speaking the language at the top of the agenda and was the first of many ‘natural’ methods that claim to teach a second language the way first languages are learned. Lessons were taught exclusively in the target language. Teachers were usually native speakers and used a lot of demonstration, pictures, gestures, and association of ideas to make meaning clear. The goal was to build up communication skills through question and answer drills between teacher and student, and there was a carefully graded progression from simple grammar structures to more complex. Grammar was taught through the use of examples chosen to help the student ‘work out’ the rules and there was a focus on everyday vocabulary. The role of the teachers was very important as they were expected to go to any length to avoid translation, and there was very little use of textbooks or the written word in class. In class, there was plenty of drilling and correction, no translation, and no rules. The Direct Method was influential into the 1950’s and beyond. Its principles are still significant in language teaching today, but there is now much more emphasis on student-centered instruction, and a greater understanding of how to build communicative competence, other than through drilling correct forms.
The Audiolingual Method. In the 1960s both Grammar-Translation and the Direct Method were questioned as applied linguistics became a mature discipline. US entry into the second World War created the need to teach oral proficiency in foreign languages quickly to troops. Behavioral psychology also influenced the development - speech was just another habit to be acquired. No rules, no need to even comprehend (at least not at first). Dialogues and drills form the basis of classroom activities according to the Audiolingual Method: dialogues are used for repetition and memorization, and then specific grammatical patterns in the dialogue are selected and become the focus of between 10 and 15 possible types of drill exercise. While the role of the students is almost entirely reactive, and they have little control over the content, pace, or style of learning, the role of the teacher is central and active. The teacher models, controls the direction and pace of the lesson, and monitors responses to correct all mistakes. The teacher would focus on pronunciation, intonation and fluency, and would correct immediately. Principles of Audiolingualism can still be identified in the type of “learn-in-a-month” programs that promise “You listen, you repeat, you understand!” Today there is greater understanding of the student’s role in learning, and the need for real communication as a key aspect in language learning.
In the 1970s the humanistic values that informed the times led to a series of methods that focused more fully on the learners’ needs and abilities:
The Silent Way
(Developed by Caleb Gattegno)
Gattegno saw foreign language learning as an intellectually engaging process of problem solving and discovery. The teacher remains silent and guides the learning process while responsibility for working out the rules falls on the learner. In silence, the student concentrates on the task to be accomplished. Colored Cuisenaire Rods and various charts were used to guide the students - these rods might represent key points of the lesson, e.g., language items or the actors in a story.
Community Language Learning
(Devised by American psychologist Charles Curran)
Community Language Learning was based on humanistic counseling techniques. The group decides what happens with the teacher, or ‘knower’, in the role of consultant. In the group, one student begins a conversation with another by saying something in their native language – this is then translated by the instructor, and the first speaker repeats this statement or question in the target language, saying it to the person he was talking to and into a tape recorder.
Suggestopedia
(Developed by Georgi Lozanov)
By inducing a relaxed but aware mental state in the learner through the use of music, classroom décor, and ritualized teacher behavior, Lozanov claimed that the power of memory could be optimized. The students should assume a ‘pseudo-passive’ state. The instructor was expected to dress immaculately, behave solemnly throughout, create situations where students were most ‘suggestible’, and then present material in a way that encourages retention.
While it is rare for any of these methods to be used today as the exclusive method for a particular language teaching institution, quite a few of their techniques, or principles, have been incorporated within current language teaching. For example,
• Student-centered instruction,
• Cuisenaire rods remain a useful and effective tool in teaching,
• Creating a relaxed and stimulating learning environment.
Total Physical Response was also developed in the 1970’s. TPR is ‘natural’ method developed by psychologist James Asher based on the observation that children learn in stress-free environments by responding physically to commands before they start speaking. Asher made clear that TPR should be used in association with other methods and teaching techniques.
The method was built around the coordination of speech and action – TPR tries to teach language through physical activity. Asher believed also that if a method is undemanding and involves game like functions, this creates a positive mood in the learners, facilitating learning. While the first role of the students is to listen and perform, they are encouraged to speak when they feel ready. Gesture, use of voice, and mime are very important. An example of a lesson might start with a fast paced review activity in which students respond to commands like, ‘Pablo, drive your car around Miako and honk your horn. Jeffrey, throw the red flower to Maria…’ New commands would be introduced with lots of demonstration, e.g. ‘Wash your hands! Wash your face!, Look for a towel! Look for a comb!’
TPR techniques are used within a variety of current approaches and methods and are effective and fun, e.g., for Kids’ language instruction. Stephen Krashen’s hypotheses on language acquisition reinforced TPR and Asher’s claim that what you understand you will later produce automatically.
The Communicative Approach grew out of sociolinguistics in the 1970s and the view that there is more to communication than just grammar and vocabulary. Communication involves ‘communicative competence’ – the ability to make yourself understood in socially appropriate ways. The claim is that L2 is learned best when the students try to communicate, i.e., to say something that they really want or need to say. Nowadays most teachers and students take the need for real communication in class for granted, but English as a Foreign Language (EFL) history clearly shows that this has not always been the case! Within the Communicative Approach itself the precise role of communication is debated. The so-called ‘weak’ form of the approach sees communicative activities as opportunities for students topractice new language and develop fluency. A weak version of language teaching using this approach might simply mean adding more opportunities to communicate to a traditional grammar based curriculum.
The ‘strong’ Communicative Approach on the other hand states that language is acquired through communication. It is not just a question of using communicative activities to activate passive knowledge of the language that has been pre-taught at an earlier stage. The belief is that communicative confidence only develops if students are thrown in at the deep end and required to carry out tasks that demand real-life communication. Rather than a communicative activity being a chance for students to show what they can do or to use what they have learned, it is through working on a task that the students learn what they need.
It is impossible to make sense of current EFL teaching, especially in the west, without reference to the Communicative Approach. The weak Communicative Approach has had the most far-reaching impact on the EFL world, probably because its acceptance meant adapting rather than rejecting existing materials and methodology. The strong Communicative Approach has been very influential in the development of Task Based Learning.
The 1980s saw the Natural Approach, and with it linguist Stephen Krashen’s seminal views on how languages are learned. Krashen claimed that language learning is a subconscious process of acquisition. Only exposure to language we understand (comprehensible input) can activate this acquisition process. Krashen argued that consciously learned language – gained through formal study - acts as a monitor, allowing people to self-correct and ‘edit’ their speech.
Because of the belief that through the process of acquisition, students will begin to use language in their own time, errors and all, students are not expected to start speaking until they are ready - when they are ready, they will naturally do so. Teachers adhering to the Natural Approach expose their students to as much comprehensible input as they can, by setting up activities and situations where students can work out meaning from context. Interactive class activities focus on meaning rather than reacting to form.
Many now contest the idea that formal study cannot lead to acquisition, but the concept has taken such a firm foothold in EFL thinking that whether or not acquisition takes place is one of the main criteria used to judge methods past and present.
Krashen’s acquisition theory also provides a rationale for Immersion Teaching, which is an approach that has developed to meet the linguistic needs of people who live in bilingual communities, and Content Teaching, which is the idea that language can be learned through studying another subject like cookery.
Within the Immersion approach, students study subjects in both languages from the day they start school, often with no formal language teaching at all.
Within Content Teaching, students study subjects of interest, e.g., cooking, in the foreign language.
Task-Based Learning, one of the most talked-about recent methods, can be traced back to the ‘strong’ Communicative Approach, where teaching is done entirely through communicative tasks. There is no set grammar syllabus. Focusing on language use after a task has been completed is widely accepted as an aid to acquisition, and task repetition gives students the chance to practice new language.
What are tasks? ‘Tasks’ are a feature of everyday life – in daily life, a task might be shifting a wardrobe from one room to another or planning the budget for the next financial year. In the classroom, communication is always part of the process, whether the task involves creativity, problem solving, planning, or completing a transaction. Students become actively involved in communication and focus on achieving a particular goal. They have to comprehend, negotiate, express ideas, and get their message across in order to reach that goal. Bringing tasks into the classroom puts the focus of language learning on the meaning and the goal, rather than on the form of the communication. ‘Real life’ tasks for students might even be selected to make a course relevant to particular students.
As techniques from Task-Based Learning start to find their way onto teacher training programs, it is likely to have an increasing influence on teaching in the future. The question many have asked is whether it will revolutionize teaching or remain a useful addition to the informed teacher’s repertoire.
The Direct Method achieved worldwide publicity through Berlitz, since Maximilian Berlitz had created a form of this method. An increase in travel in the second half of the 19th century created the need to speak languages. It was noted (not for the first time) that children learn to speak with no reference to grammar at all. The Direct Method put proficiency in speaking the language at the top of the agenda and was the first of many ‘natural’ methods that claim to teach a second language the way first languages are learned. Lessons were taught exclusively in the target language. Teachers were usually native speakers and used a lot of demonstration, pictures, gestures, and association of ideas to make meaning clear. The goal was to build up communication skills through question and answer drills between teacher and student, and there was a carefully graded progression from simple grammar structures to more complex. Grammar was taught through the use of examples chosen to help the student ‘work out’ the rules and there was a focus on everyday vocabulary. The role of the teachers was very important as they were expected to go to any length to avoid translation, and there was very little use of textbooks or the written word in class. In class, there was plenty of drilling and correction, no translation, and no rules. The Direct Method was influential into the 1950’s and beyond. Its principles are still significant in language teaching today, but there is now much more emphasis on student-centered instruction, and a greater understanding of how to build communicative competence, other than through drilling correct forms.
The Audiolingual Method. In the 1960s both Grammar-Translation and the Direct Method were questioned as applied linguistics became a mature discipline. US entry into the second World War created the need to teach oral proficiency in foreign languages quickly to troops. Behavioral psychology also influenced the development - speech was just another habit to be acquired. No rules, no need to even comprehend (at least not at first). Dialogues and drills form the basis of classroom activities according to the Audiolingual Method: dialogues are used for repetition and memorization, and then specific grammatical patterns in the dialogue are selected and become the focus of between 10 and 15 possible types of drill exercise. While the role of the students is almost entirely reactive, and they have little control over the content, pace, or style of learning, the role of the teacher is central and active. The teacher models, controls the direction and pace of the lesson, and monitors responses to correct all mistakes. The teacher would focus on pronunciation, intonation and fluency, and would correct immediately. Principles of Audiolingualism can still be identified in the type of “learn-in-a-month” programs that promise “You listen, you repeat, you understand!” Today there is greater understanding of the student’s role in learning, and the need for real communication as a key aspect in language learning.
In the 1970s the humanistic values that informed the times led to a series of methods that focused more fully on the learners’ needs and abilities:
The Silent Way
(Developed by Caleb Gattegno)
Gattegno saw foreign language learning as an intellectually engaging process of problem solving and discovery. The teacher remains silent and guides the learning process while responsibility for working out the rules falls on the learner. In silence, the student concentrates on the task to be accomplished. Colored Cuisenaire Rods and various charts were used to guide the students - these rods might represent key points of the lesson, e.g., language items or the actors in a story.
Community Language Learning
(Devised by American psychologist Charles Curran)
Community Language Learning was based on humanistic counseling techniques. The group decides what happens with the teacher, or ‘knower’, in the role of consultant. In the group, one student begins a conversation with another by saying something in their native language – this is then translated by the instructor, and the first speaker repeats this statement or question in the target language, saying it to the person he was talking to and into a tape recorder.
Suggestopedia
(Developed by Georgi Lozanov)
By inducing a relaxed but aware mental state in the learner through the use of music, classroom décor, and ritualized teacher behavior, Lozanov claimed that the power of memory could be optimized. The students should assume a ‘pseudo-passive’ state. The instructor was expected to dress immaculately, behave solemnly throughout, create situations where students were most ‘suggestible’, and then present material in a way that encourages retention.
While it is rare for any of these methods to be used today as the exclusive method for a particular language teaching institution, quite a few of their techniques, or principles, have been incorporated within current language teaching. For example,
• Student-centered instruction,
• Cuisenaire rods remain a useful and effective tool in teaching,
• Creating a relaxed and stimulating learning environment.
Total Physical Response was also developed in the 1970’s. TPR is ‘natural’ method developed by psychologist James Asher based on the observation that children learn in stress-free environments by responding physically to commands before they start speaking. Asher made clear that TPR should be used in association with other methods and teaching techniques.
The method was built around the coordination of speech and action – TPR tries to teach language through physical activity. Asher believed also that if a method is undemanding and involves game like functions, this creates a positive mood in the learners, facilitating learning. While the first role of the students is to listen and perform, they are encouraged to speak when they feel ready. Gesture, use of voice, and mime are very important. An example of a lesson might start with a fast paced review activity in which students respond to commands like, ‘Pablo, drive your car around Miako and honk your horn. Jeffrey, throw the red flower to Maria…’ New commands would be introduced with lots of demonstration, e.g. ‘Wash your hands! Wash your face!, Look for a towel! Look for a comb!’
TPR techniques are used within a variety of current approaches and methods and are effective and fun, e.g., for Kids’ language instruction. Stephen Krashen’s hypotheses on language acquisition reinforced TPR and Asher’s claim that what you understand you will later produce automatically.
The Communicative Approach grew out of sociolinguistics in the 1970s and the view that there is more to communication than just grammar and vocabulary. Communication involves ‘communicative competence’ – the ability to make yourself understood in socially appropriate ways. The claim is that L2 is learned best when the students try to communicate, i.e., to say something that they really want or need to say. Nowadays most teachers and students take the need for real communication in class for granted, but English as a Foreign Language (EFL) history clearly shows that this has not always been the case! Within the Communicative Approach itself the precise role of communication is debated. The so-called ‘weak’ form of the approach sees communicative activities as opportunities for students topractice new language and develop fluency. A weak version of language teaching using this approach might simply mean adding more opportunities to communicate to a traditional grammar based curriculum.
The ‘strong’ Communicative Approach on the other hand states that language is acquired through communication. It is not just a question of using communicative activities to activate passive knowledge of the language that has been pre-taught at an earlier stage. The belief is that communicative confidence only develops if students are thrown in at the deep end and required to carry out tasks that demand real-life communication. Rather than a communicative activity being a chance for students to show what they can do or to use what they have learned, it is through working on a task that the students learn what they need.
It is impossible to make sense of current EFL teaching, especially in the west, without reference to the Communicative Approach. The weak Communicative Approach has had the most far-reaching impact on the EFL world, probably because its acceptance meant adapting rather than rejecting existing materials and methodology. The strong Communicative Approach has been very influential in the development of Task Based Learning.
The 1980s saw the Natural Approach, and with it linguist Stephen Krashen’s seminal views on how languages are learned. Krashen claimed that language learning is a subconscious process of acquisition. Only exposure to language we understand (comprehensible input) can activate this acquisition process. Krashen argued that consciously learned language – gained through formal study - acts as a monitor, allowing people to self-correct and ‘edit’ their speech.
Because of the belief that through the process of acquisition, students will begin to use language in their own time, errors and all, students are not expected to start speaking until they are ready - when they are ready, they will naturally do so. Teachers adhering to the Natural Approach expose their students to as much comprehensible input as they can, by setting up activities and situations where students can work out meaning from context. Interactive class activities focus on meaning rather than reacting to form.
Many now contest the idea that formal study cannot lead to acquisition, but the concept has taken such a firm foothold in EFL thinking that whether or not acquisition takes place is one of the main criteria used to judge methods past and present.
Krashen’s acquisition theory also provides a rationale for Immersion Teaching, which is an approach that has developed to meet the linguistic needs of people who live in bilingual communities, and Content Teaching, which is the idea that language can be learned through studying another subject like cookery.
Within the Immersion approach, students study subjects in both languages from the day they start school, often with no formal language teaching at all.
Within Content Teaching, students study subjects of interest, e.g., cooking, in the foreign language.
Task-Based Learning, one of the most talked-about recent methods, can be traced back to the ‘strong’ Communicative Approach, where teaching is done entirely through communicative tasks. There is no set grammar syllabus. Focusing on language use after a task has been completed is widely accepted as an aid to acquisition, and task repetition gives students the chance to practice new language.
What are tasks? ‘Tasks’ are a feature of everyday life – in daily life, a task might be shifting a wardrobe from one room to another or planning the budget for the next financial year. In the classroom, communication is always part of the process, whether the task involves creativity, problem solving, planning, or completing a transaction. Students become actively involved in communication and focus on achieving a particular goal. They have to comprehend, negotiate, express ideas, and get their message across in order to reach that goal. Bringing tasks into the classroom puts the focus of language learning on the meaning and the goal, rather than on the form of the communication. ‘Real life’ tasks for students might even be selected to make a course relevant to particular students.
As techniques from Task-Based Learning start to find their way onto teacher training programs, it is likely to have an increasing influence on teaching in the future. The question many have asked is whether it will revolutionize teaching or remain a useful addition to the informed teacher’s repertoire.
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