1. Approaches to Language
Teaching
In this presentation, I will show for each approach
to classroom teaching, to what extent it satisfies
the requirements for optimal input and to what
extent it puts learning in its proper place. We will
review the most widely used methods, such as:
Grammar-translation, Audio-lingualism, Cognitive-
code Teaching, and one version of the Direct
Method, and We will study some new approaches,
Asher's Total Physical Response Method, Terrell's
Natural Approach and Lozanov's Suggestopedia.
by Jennifer Granja
Language Acquisition
2. Grammar-translation usually consists of the following activities:
(1) Explanation of a grammar rule, with example sentences.
(2) Vocabulary, presented in the form of a bilingual list.
(3) A reading selection, emphasizing the rule presented in
(1) above and the vocabulary presented in (2).
(4) Exercises designed to provide practice on the grammar
and vocabulary of the lesson. These exercises emphasize
the conscious control of structure ("focus on", in the sense
of Krashen and Seliger, 1975) and include translation in
both directions, from L1 to L2 and L2 to L1.
Most grammar-translation classes are designed for foreign
language instruction and are taught in the student's first
language.
GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION
3. Features:
- The Requirements for optimal input must be:
comprehensible, interesting and relevant, not
grammatically sequenced, of quantity, the teacher must to
have an affective filter level, use tools for conversational
management.
- In the Learning: learning needs to precede acquisition.
There is no limitation of the set of rules to be learned to
those that are learnable, portable, and not yet acquired.
There is no attempt to account for individual variation in
Monitor use, nor is there any attempt to specify when rules
are to be used, the implicit assumption being that all
students will be able to use all the rules all the time.
4. AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD
Is an oral-based approach. The Audio-Lingual Method
drills students in the use of grammatical sentence
patterns.
It was thought that the way to acquire the sentence
patterns of the target language was through
conditioning—helping learners to respond correctly to
stimuli through shaping and reinforcement. Learners
could overcome the habits of their native language
and form the new habits required to be target
language speakers.
5. Features:
There are four basic drill types: simple repetition,
substitution, transformation (e.g. changing and
affirmative sentence into a negative sentence), and
translation.
The student can over-learn a variety of patterns to
be used directly in performance
Instructional materials in the Audio-lingual Method
assist the teacher to develop language mastery in
the learner.
Tape recorders and audiovisual equipment often
have central roles in an audio-lingual learning.
7. Features
Cognitive-code is that
conscious learning can
be accomplished by
everyone, that all rules
are learnable, and that
conscious knowledge
should be available at
all times.
Cognitive code attempts to
help the student in all four
skills, speaking and listening
in addition to reading and
writing.
Cognitive code posits that
"competence precedes
performance.
Cognitive code assumes, that "once
the student has a proper degree of
cognitive control over the structures
of a language, facility will develop
automatically with the use of
language in meaningful situations". In
other words, learning becomes
acquisition.
Cognitive- code encourages
over-use of the Monitor,
unless all rules "fade away"
as soon as the structures
become automatic.
8. THE DIRECT METHOD
The direct method presumes that
conscious control is necessary for
acquisition, that conscious knowledge of
grammar can be accessed at all times, and
by all students. It demands full control of
late-acquired structures in oral production
from the very beginning (e.g. gender),
and may thus encourage over-use of the
grammar.
The direct method, has been very
successful with students who have intrinsic
motivation for language study and who
believe that the study of conscious
grammar is essential. For these students,
the inductive study of grammar is in itself
interesting, and provides all the interest
necessary.
9. Features:
The Direct Method has one very basic rule: No translation is
allowed. Meaning is to be conveyed directly in the target
language through the use of demonstration and visual aids.
The direct method presumes that conscious control is
necessary for acquisition, that conscious knowledge of
grammar can be accessed at all times, and by all students.
It demands full control of late-acquired structures in oral
production from the very beginning (e.g. gender), and may
thus encourage over-use of the grammar.
The direct method, has been very successful with students
who have intrinsic motivation for language study and who
believe that the study of conscious grammar is essential.
For these students, the inductive study of grammar is in
itself interesting, and provides all the interest necessary.
13. Applied Linguistics Research
A portion of applied
linguistics research has
consisted of empirical
comparisons of language
teaching methods.
When older methods such
as grammar-translation,
cognitive-code, and audio-
lingual are compared with
each other, we see small
differences, or no
differences in terms of
efficacy.
Cognitive-code, in some
studies, shows a very slight
superiority for adult
students when compared to
audio-lingual, and no
differences are seen when
adolescents are compared.
Newer approaches, such as
Total Physical Response,
produce significantly better
results than older
approaches.
We will conclude that we see little difference between
older methods since they all fail many of the
requirements for optimal input and overemphasize
conscious learning. The newer methods put to the
method comparison test satisfy the requirements
better, and are also shown to outperform their rivals.
14. Alternative to Methods
•Refers only to interaction with a native speaker who is motivated to try to help the second language
acquirer understand, and who is genuinely interested in the acquirer as a person.
Conversation
•Pure pleasure reading. What is read depends on the student and what is available to him. The only
requirement is that the story or main idea be comprehensible and that the topic be something the
student is genuinely interested in, that he would read in his first language.
Pleasure reading
•Another class of alternatives to classroom teaching involves the use of subject matter in the second
language classroom, using the second language as a vehicle, as a language of presentation and
explanation, special classes for second language students, in which teachers make some linguistic and
cultural adjustments in order to help their students understand.
Using subject matter for language teaching
• In immersion programs, initially monolingual majority children are schooled in a minority language.
They are taught their academic subjects totally in the second language. In what is known as "total early
immersion", input in the second language begins in kindergarten.
Evidence for subject matter teaching
•Subject matter teaching can be extended to other second language acquisition domains, and utilized to
at least supplement the second language classroom and provide some help in the difficult transition
from language class to real world. For example: one of these domain is the university.
Other possibilities in subject matter teaching
15. Some Problems
Acquisition is slow and subtle.
Acquisition takes time; it takes far more
than five hours per week over nine
months to acquire the subjunctive. It
may, if fact, take years. Good linguists,
on the other hand, can consciously
learn a great deal in a very short time.
Also, when we have acquired
something, we are hardly aware of it.
In a sense, it feels as if it was always
there, and something anyone can do.
Learning is fast and, for some people,
obvious.
Learning is different. Some people
derive great pleasure from the learning
and use of conscious rules. It is
sometimes hard for people like us to
understand that this sort of pleasurable
activity is not real language acquisition.
These have to do with the acceptance, by teachers
and students, of language acquisition as primary,
and comprehensible input as the means of
encouraging language acquisition.
These problems are caused by he fact that
acquisition differs from learning in two major
ways:
by Jennifer GranjaThank you!
