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TOPIC 13
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The concepts: the listing of the elements that one must teach in order to
get these objectives. - The procedures: the materials that should be used
in order to cover these contents.
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tongue, even for grammar explanations. Berlitz, however, never used the term
"natural" and named his method 'the Berlitz method" (1878), and it was known for
being taught in private language schools, high-motivated clients, the use of nativespeaking teachers, and no translation under any circumstances. In spite of his
success, this method lacked a basis in applied linguistic theory, and failed to
consider the practical realities of the classroom.
In Europe, one of the best known representatives of language teaching was
Gouin who, in 1880 attempted to build a methodology around observation of child
language learning when publishing L'Art d'Enseigner et d'tudier les Langues.
He developed this technique after a long struggle trying to learn to speak and
understand German through formal grammar-based methods. However, their total
failure and his turning to observations of how children learn a second language is
one of the most impressive personal testimonials in the recorded annals of
language learning.
According to Richards & Rodgers (1992), although the Direct Method
enjoyed popularity in Europe, not everyone had embraced it enthusiastically. In the
1920s and 1930s, the British applied linguist Henry Sweet and other linguists
recognized
its
for the
development of
sound
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American educators. West (1926), teaching in India, argued that learning to read
fluently was more important for Indians learning English than speaking West
recommended an emphasis on reading not only because he regarded it as the
most useful skill to acquire in a foreign language, but also because it was the
easiest. He constructed readers with a controlled vocabulary and regular repetition
of new words. The student was given detailed instructions on reading strategies.
The course of study that was developed over a period of decades provided graded
reading materials and a systematic approach to learning to read. The spoken
language was not entirely neglected, but it was the reading objective that received
the main emphasis.
The techniques were not radically different from those developed under the
traditional methods. As under grammar-translation, the use of the first language
was not banned in language instruction. The introduction of the second language
was oral as in the direct method because facility in pronunciation as inner speech
was regarded as an important aid in reading comprehension. Above all, vocabulary
control in reading was regarded as of prone importance, and so was the distinction
between intensive reading for detailed study and extensive rapid reading of
graded. "readers" for general comprehension.
This method had a strongly pragmatic basis. Its educational assumptions
were similar to those current in the American school curriculum of the twenties,
namely to gear educational activities to specified ultimate practical uses.
The reading method grew out of practical educational considerations, not
from a shift in linguistic or psychological theory. It introduced in language teaching
some important new elements:
a) the possibility of devising techniques of language learning geared to
specific purposes.
b) the application of vocabulary control to second language texts, as a
means of better grading of texts.
c) the creation of graded readers.
d) thanks to vocabulary control, the introduction of techniques of rapid
reading to the foreign language classroom,
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languages.
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intellectual analysis. Emphasis is laid on active and simple practice. The intention
is to make language learning less of a mental burden and more a matter of
relatively effortless and frequent repetition and imitation .The audiolingual method
has introduced memorisation of dialogue and imitative repetition (mimicry) as
specific learning techniques. In addition it has developed pattern drills (also called
structural drills). Such drills were not unknown before, but they became essential
features of audiolingualism. Audiolingualism techniques, therefore, appeared to
offer the possibility of language learning without requiring strong academic
background and inclination.
Audiolingualism reflects the descriptive, structural and contrastive linguistics
of the fifties and the sixties. Skinner in "Verbal Behaviour" applied his theories of
how human language is acquired. He suggested that language is a kind of
behaviour. Stimulus-response-reinforcement. According to Skinner , languages are
made up of a series of habits, and if learners could develop all these habits, they
would be able to speak the language correctly. He also believed that a contrastive
analysis of languages would be invaluable in teaching languages.
In the early sixties audiolingualism had raised hopes of ushering in a golden
age of language learning but in practical terms its hopes were not fulfilled. In the
long run, students were not creative. They repeated things like parrots but most of
the time they didn't know what they were saying Teachers applying the Audiolingual
method conscientiously, complained about the lack of effectiveness of the
techniques in the long run and the boredom engendered among students. Another
problem was that these patterns excluded semantics. In view of these criticisms it
is necessary to remind oneself of the major contributions of audiolingualism to
language teaching. First, it was among the first theories to recommend the
development of a language teaching theory on declared linguistic and
psychological principles. Second, it attempted to make language learning
accessible to large groups of ordinary learners. Third, it stressed syntactical
progression, while previously methods had tended to be preoccupied with
vocabulary and morphology. Fourth, it led to the development of simple techniques,
without translation, of varied, graded and intensive practice of specific features of
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the language. Last, it developed the separation of the language skills into a
pedagogical device. The audiolingual method introduced specifically designed
techniques of auditory and oral practice.
2-5 THE AUDIO-VISUAL METHOD
A visually represented scenario provides the chief means of involving the
learner in meaningful utterance and contexts.
Language learning is visualised as falling into several stages: a first stage to
which the audio-visual method is particularly applicable in which the learner
becomes familiar with everyday language. a second stage involving the capacity to
talk more consecutively on general topics and to read non-specialised fiction and
the newspaper: and a third stage involving the use of more specialised discourse
of professional and other interests. The audio-visual method is intended particularly
for the first stage.
Audio-visual teaching consists of a carefully thought-out but rigid order of
events. The lesson begins with the filmstrip and tape presentation. The sound
recordings provide a stylised dialogue and a narrative commentary. A filmstrip
frame corresponds to an utterance. In other words, the visual image and spoken
utterance complement each other and constitute a semantic unit. In the second
phase of the teaching sequence the teacher through pointing, demonstrating,
selective listening, question and answer explain the meaning of sense groups. In
the third phase, the dialogue is repeated several times and memorised by frequent
replays of the tape recordings and the filmstrip, or by laboratory practice. In the
next stage of the teaching sequence, the developments phase (exploitation or
transposition), students are gradually emancipated from the tape-and-filmstrip
presentation: for example. the filmstrip is now shown without the tape recording,
and the students are asked to recall the commentary or make up their own; or the
subject matter of the scenario is modified and applied to the student himself, his
family or friends, by means of question and answer or role playing. Besides this
thorough treatment of the dialogue situation, each lesson contains a portion for
grammatical drill which practises a pattern or a group of patterns which has
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previously occurred in the context of the tape and filmstrip dialogue presentation.
Grammatical as well as phonological features are practised. No importance is
attributed to linguistic explanations. Writing and reading are delayed but in due
course are nonetheless given emphasis.
The audio-visual method seeks a basis in linguistics. It derives its
grammatical and lexical context from descriptive linguistic studies. But in contrast
to the antecedents of the audio-lingual method, the audio-visual method stresses
the social nature and situational embeddedness of language. The visual
presentation is not an added gimmick. It is intended to simulate social context in
which language is used.
The audio-visual approach represents a distinctive modern attempt to come
to grips with the problem of language learning. It has defined three different levels
of language instruction. it has attempted to place language learning into a
simplified social context and to teach language from the outset as meaningful
spoken communication. The replacement of the printed text of the direct method by
a visually and aurally presented scenario has provided a fresh alternative in
language pedagogy and was a responsive and, at the same time, responsible way
of exploiting technology for the benefit of language learning. The audio-visual
method is open to two major criticisms. Like the direct method, from which much of
its pedagogy derives, it has difficulties in conveying meaning: the visual filmstrip
image is no guarantee that the learner does not misinterpret the meaning of the
utterance. The equivalence between utterance and visual images is often
theoretically questionable, and presents practical difficulties. The other criticism
that can be made is that the rigid teaching sequences imposed by this method are
based The other criticism that can be made is that the rigid teaching sequences
imposed by this method are based on an entirely unproved assumption about
learning sequences.
2-6- THE COGNITIVE
THEORY
This theory or method has been interpreted by some as a 'modified, updated grammar-translation theory' (Carroll 1966.102) and by others as a modified,
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up-to-date direct method approach (Hester 1970; Diller 1971, 1975, 1978). In its
recent forms, as expressed by Diller (1971, I 978) or Chastain (1976), it lays
emphasis on the conscious acquisition of language as a meaningful system and it
seeks a basis in cognitive psychology and in transformational grammar.
No single theorist can be identified as the main proponent of a cognitive
approach. Carroll (1966) was the first to characterise a cognitive theory of
language teaching. Chastain (1969, 1976) gives a helpful interpretation of cognitive
theory and teaching. Diller (1971, 1975, 1978) has contrasted the cognitive and
audio-lingual methods. As a fully-fledged language teaching theory the cognitive
method has not as yet been critically examined. In the early eighties its contribution
has been overshadowed by the increasing shift of interest to communicative
approaches.
As an alternative to the audiolingual method the cognitive theory developed
from the mid-sixties in response to the criticisms levelled against the audiolingual
method. The rediscovery of grammar-translation or the direct method was no mere
turning back of the clock. It was an attempt to bring to language pedagogy the new
insights of psychology, psycholinguistics, and modern developments in linguistics.
Several language programrnes have been published since the early seventies
which claim to be based on cognitive theory. But the practice techniques that this
method has yielded have hardly introduced much that is new. The main effects of
the cognitive theory seem to have been that it has loosened the tight hold that the
audiolingual method had exercised on materials and practice and that it removed
the stigma that had been placed on grammar-translation and direct method
practices.
Broadly speaking, the goal of cognitive teaching is the same as that
proposed by audio-lingual theorists (Chastain 1976: 146-7), but is less differences
in immediate objectives are apparent. Cognitive theory is less concerned with the
primacy of the audio-lingual skills. Instead it emphasises the control of the
language in all its manifestations as a coherent and meaningful system, a kind of
consciously acquired competence. which the learner can then put to use in real-life
situations. Carroll defines the objective in these terms:
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In other words, the cognitive approach does not reject, disguise or deemphasise the conscious teaching of grammar or of language rules. It does not
avoid the presentation of reading and writing in association with listening and
speaking. Instead of expecting automatic command of the language and habitformation from intensive drill, it seeks the intellectual understanding by the learner
of the language as a system and practice of meaningful material is regarded as
being of greater merit than the drive towards automatic control. The behaviourist
view of learning in terms of conditioning, shaping, reinforcement, habit-formation,
and over-learning, has been replaced by an emphasis on rule learning. Meaningful
practice, and creativity.
Cognitive theory is principally a critique of audiolingualism in the light of
changes in linguistics and psychological theory. It has pinpointed theoretical and
practical weaknesses of the earlier theory and has drawn attention to important
facets of language and language learning which the audiolingual theory had
disregarded or underemphasized, such as creativity and meaning. it has also rediscovered valuable features in grammar-translation and in the direct
method.
2-7 PRESENT-DAY TRENDS: THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH
Communicative Language Teaching has its origins in two sources. First, the
changes in the British and American linguistic theory in the mid-late sixties and
secondly, changes in the educational realities in Europe. Therefore teaching
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five
dimensions
of
communicative
competence:
grammatical,
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Usage: A present perfect question with ever placed in front of the past participle.
2.7.2- Functional syllabus and structural syllabus.
In a functional syllabus functions are the primary organizing feature. The
course content is based on functions not grammatical structures. A typical unit
might be Giving Advice. The content of the unit would include:
I think you should . . .
Why don't you . . .
If I were you, I would . . .
You'd better . . .
This could be a very basic unit taught to beginners even though the the
grammatical complexity of these expressions is quite high (including a second
conditional with subjunctive mood!). This can be contrasted to structural syllabuses
where the syllabus is ordered according to grammatical complexity.
Other examples of functions include: asking for directions, telling stories
about the past, talking about rules, and requesting information
2.7.3- Fluency:
Fluency refers to the ability to produce rapid, flowing, natural speech, but not
necessarily grammatically correct speech. This is often contrasted with accuracy
2.7.4- Accuracy:
Accuracy refers to the ability to produce grammatically correct sentences
that are comprehensible
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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