Approaches And Methods In Language Teaching PORTABLE
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Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching
While most of us are familiar with the language teaching methods used in secondary education, there is a huge variety of language learning methods available and some of them are better suited to certain learners than others.
In this method, the teaching is done entirely in the language being learned. The learner is not allowed to use his or her original language. Grammar rules are avoided and there is an emphasis on good pronunciation.
The focus of the teaching is on the completion of a task which in itself is interesting to the learners. Learners use the language they already have to complete the task and there is little correction of errors. The aim here is to highlight the importance of learning the language by making it vital to task completion.
Keep on reading for all the details you need to know about the most popular foreign language teaching methods. Some of the ones covered are the communicative approach, total physical response, the direct method, task-based language learning, suggestopedia, grammar-translation, the audio-lingual approach and more.
This approach and method in language teaching was developed in the 1970s by psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov. It is sometimes also known as the positive suggestion method but it later became sometimes known as desuggestopedia.
The role of the teacher in this second language teaching method is to evaluate how students will use the language. This will serve as a guide for what should be taught in class. Teaching specific grammar patterns or vocabulary sets does play a role but the purpose for which students need to know these things should always be kept in mind with the functional-notional Approach to English teaching.
This approach loosely falls under the behaviourism view of language as habit formation. The situational approach to teaching English was popular in England, starting in the 1930s. Find out more about it:
A language teaching approach is a way of thinking about teaching and learning. An approach produces methods, which is the way of teaching something, in this case, a second or foreign language using techniques or activities.
Throughout history, there have been just over 30 popular approaches to language learning. However, there are around 10 that are most widely known including task-based learning, the communicative approach, grammar-translation and the audio-lingual approach. These days, the communicative approach is all the rage.
The different teaching approaches in this post can be classified into four theoretical orientations: structural, cognitive, psychological and functional.
Language pedagogy is the discipline concerned with the theories and techniques of teaching language. It has been described as a type of teaching wherein the teacher draws from his prior knowledge and actual experience in teaching language.[1] The approach is distinguished from research-based methodologies.[1]
There are several methods in language pedagogy but they can be classified into three: structural, functional, and interactive.[2] Each of these encompasses a number of methods that can be utilised in order to teach and learn languages.
In the late 1800s and most of the 1900s,[3] language teaching was usually conceived in terms of method. In seeking to improve teaching practices, teachers and researchers would typically try to find out which method was the most effective.[4] However, method is an ambiguous concept in language teaching and has been used in many different ways. According to Bell, this variety in use "offers a challenge for anyone wishing to enter into the analysis or deconstruction of methods".[5]
Additionally, there is an abundance of proprietary methods tied to particular companies or schools that are not as widely used in mainstream teaching. The most notable being specific computer courses which use programming and speech recognition to give feedback to participants.
In 1963, the University of Michigan Linguistics Professor Edward Mason Anthony Jr. formulated a framework to describe various language teaching methods, which consisted of three levels: approach, method, and technique.[6] According to Anthony, "The arrangement is hierarchical. The organizational key is that techniques carry out a method which is consistent with an approach."[3] His concept of approach was of a set of principles or ideas about the nature of language learning which would be consistent over time; "an approach is axiomatic".[3] His method was more procedural; "an overall plan for the orderly presentation of language material, no part of which contradicts, and all of which is based upon, the selected approach."[3] Finally, his concept of technique referred to the actual implementation in the language classroom; "a particular trick, stratagem, or contrivance used to accomplish an immediate objective."[3] He saw techniques as being consistent with a given method and by extension, with a given approach.[6]
A method is a plan for presenting the language material to be learned and should be based upon a selected approach. In order for an approach to be translated into a method, an instructional system must be designed considering the objectives of the teaching/learning, how the content is to be selected and organized, the types of tasks to be performed, the roles of students, and the roles of teachers. A technique is a very specific, concrete stratagem or trick designed to accomplish an immediate objective. Such are derived from the controlling method, and less directly, with the approach.[2]
Anthony's framework was welcomed by the language teaching community when it was introduced, and it was seen as a useful way of classifying different teaching practices.[7] However, it did not clearly define the difference between approach, method, and technique, and Kumaravadivelu reports that due to this ambiguity there was "widespread dissatisfaction" with it.[7] Anthony himself recognized the limitations of his framework, and was open to the idea of improvements being made to it.[7]
The grammar translation method instructs students in grammar, and provides vocabulary with direct translations to memorize. It was the predominant method in Europe from the 1840s to the 1940s.[16] Most instructors now acknowledge that this method is ineffective by itself.[citation needed] It is now most commonly used in the traditional instruction of the classical languages, however it remains the most commonly practiced method of English teaching in Japan.[citation needed]
At school, the teaching of grammar consists of a process of training in the rules of a language which must make it possible for all the students to correctly express their opinion, to understand the remarks which are addressed to them and to analyze the texts which they read.The objective is that by the time they leave college, the pupil controls the tools of the language which are the vocabulary, grammar and the orthography, to be able to read, understand and write texts in various contexts. The teaching of grammar examines texts, and develops awareness that language constitutes a system which can be analyzed.
This knowledge is acquired gradually, by traversing the facts of language and the syntactic mechanisms, going from simplest to the most complex. The exercises according to the program of the course must untiringly be practiced to allow the assimilation of the rules stated in the course.[citation needed] That supposes that the teacher corrects the exercises. The pupil can follow his progress in practicing the language by comparing his results. Thus can he adapt the grammatical rules and control little by little the internal logic of the syntactic system. The grammatical analysis of sentences constitutes the objective of the teaching of grammar at the school. Its practice makes it possible to recognize a text as a coherent whole and conditions the training of a foreign language. Grammatical terminology serves this objective. Grammar makes it possible for each pupil to understand how his mother tongue functions, in order to give him the capacity to communicate his thought.
The audio-lingual method - also known as Aural-Oral Method - was developed in the United States around World War II.[17] The government realized that they needed more people who could conduct conversations fluently in a variety of languages, work as interpreters, code-room assistants, and translators. However, since foreign language instruction in that country was heavily focused on reading instruction, no textbooks, other materials or courses existed at the time, so new methods and materials had to be devised.[18] Soldiers needed to converse with people in lands they were stationed so they had to learn new languages quickly.[17] The U.S. Army Specialized Training Program created intensive programs based on the techniques Leonard Bloomfield and other linguists devised for Native American languages, where students interacted intensively with native speakers and a linguist in guided conversations designed to decode its basic grammar and learn the vocabulary. This "informant method" had great success with its small class sizes and motivated learners.[2]
The U.S. Army Specialized Training Program only lasted a few years, but it gained a lot of attention from the popular press and the academic community. Charles C. Fries set up the first English Language Institute at the University of Michigan, to train English as a second or foreign language teachers. Similar programs were created later at Georgetown University, University of Texas among others based on the methods and techniques used by the military. The developing method had much in common with the British oral approach although the two developed independently. The main difference was the developing audio-lingual methods allegiance to structural linguistics, focusing on grammar and contrastive analysis to find differences between the student's native language and the target language in order to prepare specific materials to address potential problems. These materials strongly emphasized drill as a way to avoid or eliminate these problems.[2] 041b061a72