APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE TEACHING

Karina Chancusig

Language Acquisition

PRESENT DAY- TEACHING METHODS

GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION

Grammar-translation method did exactlywhat they said. Students were givenexplanations of individual points ofgrammar, and then they were givensentences which exemplified thesepoints. These sentences had to betranslated from the target language L2back to the students’ first language L1and L1 to L2.

Classes are taught in the mother tongue,with little active use of the targetlanguage.

It requires few specialized skills on thepart of teachers.

Test of grammar rules and of translationsare easy to construct and can beobjective scored

COGNITIVE-CODE

ACTIVITIES

It consists of the following activities:

Much vocabulary is taugh in the form

of lists of isolated words.

Grammar provides the rules for

putting words, together, and

instruction often focuses on the form

and inflection of words.

Reading of difficult classical texts is

begun early.

Often the only drills are exercises in

translating disconnected sentences

from the target language into the

mother tongue.

Little attention is paid to the content

of texts, which are treated as

exercises in gramatical analysis.

AUDIO-LINGUALISM

Relied heavily on drills to form these habits;

substitution was built into these drills so that, in

small steps, the student was constantly learning and,

moreover, was shielded from the possibility of

making mistakes by the design of the drill.

“Success "could be overtly experienced by students

as they practiced their dialogues in off-hours.

Language wasn’t really acquired through a process of

habit formation and overlearning, that errors

weren’t necessarily to be avoided at all costs, and

that structural linguistics didn’t tell us everything

about language that we needed to know.

Much audio-lingual teaching stayed at the sentence

level, and there was little placing of language in any

kind of real-life context. A Premium was still placed

on accuracy; indeed Audio-lingual methodology does

its best to banish mistakes completely. The purpose

was habit-formation through constant repetition of

correct utterances, encouraged and supported by

positive reinforcement.

COMPREHENSIBLE

There is Little or no grammatical explanation.

Grammar is taught by inductive analogy rather

tan by deductive explanation.

Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in

context.

There is much use of tapes, language labs, and

visual aids.

Great importance is attached to pronunciation.

Very Little use of the mother tongue by teacher

is permitted.

There is a great effort to get students to

produce error-free utterances.

There is a tendency to manipulate language and

disregard content.

COGNITIVE-CODE Increasing interest in generative transformational grammar and focused

attention on the rule-governed nature of language and language acquisition led

some language-teaching programs to promote a deductive approach rather tan

the inductivity of the Audio-lingualism.

Arguing that children subconsciously acquire a system of rules, proponents of a

cognitive code learning methodology began to inject more deductive rule

learning into language classes. Retained the drilling typical of the Audio-

lingualism but added healthy doses of rule explanations and reliance on

grammatical sequencing of material.

Cognitive code learning wasn’t so much a method as it was an approach that

emphasized a conscious awareness of rues and their applications to second

language learning.

It was a reaction to the strictly behavioristic practices of the Audio-lingualism

and ironically, a return to some of the of the practices of Grammar Translation.

As teachers and materials developers saw that incessant parroting of

potentially rote material was not creating communicatively proficient learners,

a new twist was needed, and cognitive code learning appeared to provide just

such a twist.

Unfortunately, the innovation was short-lived, for as surely as rote drilling

bored students, overt cognitive attention to the rules, paradigms, intricacies,

and exceptions of a language overtaxed the mental reserves of language

students.

THE DIRECT

METHOD

It depends on the idea that the

input students receive (that is

the language they are exposed

to) will be the same as their

intake (that is the language

they actually absorb).

However, the Direct Method,

which believed essentially in a

one to one correspondence

between input and output,

really got going when married

to the theory of behaviorism.

THE NATURAL APPROACH

Natural approach was to build the basic personalcommunication skills necessary for everydaylanguage situations daily conversations, shopping,listening to the radio, and the like. The initial taskof the teacher was to provide comprehensibleinput, that is, spoken language that isunderstandable to the learner or just a Littlebeyond the learner’s level. Learners need not sayanything during this “silent period” until they feelready to do so. The teacher was the source of thelearners’ input and the creator of an interesting andstimulating variety of classroom activitiescommands, games, skits, and small-group work.

The preproduction stage is the development oflistening comprehension skills.

The early production stage is usually marked witherrors as the student struggles with the language.The teacher focuses on meaning here, It doesn’t onform, and therefore the teacher doesn’t make apoint of correcting errors

TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE

It is based on first language acquisition research.

Children listen and acquire receptive language

before they attempt to speak, they develop

understanding through moving their bodies, and

they are not forced to speak until they are ready.

In total physical response, the teacher gradually

introduces commands, acting them out as she says

them. The students initially respond by

performing the actions as the teacher

demonstrates them. Gradually, the teacher’s

demonstrations are removed and the students

respond to the verbal commands only.

Today TPR, with simplicity as its most appealing

facet, is a household Word among language

teachers.

COMPREHENSIBLE Total physical response is generally used with Young

children or English language learners with very little

English knowledge, it can be used to introduce new

procedure and vocabulary at almost any level.

that’s why it is an active learning approach for supporting

comprehension in a low anxiety atmosphere. For this

reason, it is very popular with English language learners

and teachers alike. Also highly effective in teaching

vocabulary associated with content-area knowledge.

Teachers can introduce vocabulary and have students

respond by drawing, pointing, putting pictures in order, or

any other physical response that encourages active

involvement and verifies understanding.

Commands were an easy way to get learners to move

about and to loosen up: Open the door, Close the window,

stand up, sit down, pick up the book, give it to Derek, and

so on. No verbal response was necessary. Eventually

students, one by one, would feel comfortable enough to

venture verbal responses to questions, then to ask

questions themselves, and to continue the process.

SUGGESTOPEDIA

The human brain could process great quantities ofmaterial if given the right conditions for learning,among which are a state of relaxation and giving overof control to the teacher.

People are capable of learning much more tan theygive themselves credit for.

The primary difference lay in a significant proportionof activity carried out in soft, comfortable seats inrelaxed states of consciousness.

Students were encouraged to be as “childlike” aspossible, yielding all authority to the teacher andsometimes assuming the roles (and names) of nativespeakers of the foreign language

Suggestopedia gave the language-teaching professionsome insights.

Became a business enterprise of its own , and itmade promises in the advertising world that were notcompletely supported by research.

CONCLUSIONS TO METHOD COMPARISON

Method comparison studies using audio-lingual, grammar-translation, and cognitive code are

quite consistent with the theoretical analysis of these methods presented in the previous

section: according to this analysis, none of these methods does a particularly effective job

in encouraging subconscious language acquisition, although each will provide at least some,

and the cognitive methods will allow somewhat more learning.

cognitive systems show for older subjects and the more "verbal“ adolescents. It also predicts

that other methods should do much, much better. Unfortunately, we do not have detailed

method comparison data on all the newer methods, but some is available, and the results

are quite consistent with this prediction.

Alternatives to Methods

Exist three main alternatives:

It is used approaches to classroom second language teaching in terms of the

requirements for optimal input presented in Chapter III and the criteria for

teaching conscious grammar rules, as presented in Chapter IV.

Second, it was seen that certain methods satisfied these requirements and

criteria better than others.

Third, it was claimed that the available applied linguistics research reveals

that those methods that are shown to be superior in method comparison

research come closer to satisfying the criteria that derive from second

language acquisition theory.

FUNCTION OF THE CLASSROOM

We have expected active participation in class, and we have encouraged

adventurous students who are prepared to have a go even when they aren’t

completely sure of the language they trying to use.

When teacher from one culture teach students from another, it is often easy

to see where cultural and educational differences reside.

We have to provide students with enough comprehensible input to bring their

second language competence to the point where they can begin to

understand language heard "on the outside", read, and participate in

conversations

Thanks for your attention