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UNIT 1:
DIDACTIC EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGES. PRESENT-DAY APPROACHES
TO THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH. THE COMMUNICATIVE
APPROACHES
1. INTRODUCTION
2. FIRST APPROACHES TO THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
2. 1. The grammar-translation method
2. 2. The direct method
3. 20TH CENT. APPROACHES TO THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
3. 1. The audio-lingual method
3. 2. The silent way
3. 3 Suggestopedia
3. 4. Communicative language learning
3. 5. The Total-Physical response method
4. PRESENT-DAY TRENDS: THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH
4. 1. Meaning and use
4. 2. Appropriacy
4. 3. Skills and Strategies
4. 4. Syllabus design
4. 5. Methodology
5. CONCLUSION
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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1. INTRODUCTION
The need for instruction in other languages has led to a variety of educational
approaches which are aimed at fostering L2 acquisition.
Approaches designed to promote L2 acquisition which have been used since
last century have tended to reflect different views on how a foreign language is
best learned.
2. FIRST APPROACHES TO THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
2.1. The grammar-translation method
It has its roots in the traditional approach to the teaching of Latin. In the first
decades of the 20th century, this method was used for the purpose of helping
students read and appreciate foreign language literature. The principles of this
method are the following:
Students are taught to translate from one language to another. They study
grammar deductively (they are given the grammar rules and examples, are
told to memorize them and then are asked to apply the rules to other
examples).
Vocabulary and grammar are emphasized. Reading and writing are the
primary skills that the students work on.
If the students make errors or dont know the answer the teachers supplies
them with the correct answer.
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Although the teacher directs the class activities, the student role is less
passive than in the previous method.
Teachers who use this method intend that students learn how to
communicate in the target language.
The initiation of the interaction goes from teacher to students and from
students to teacher. Students converse with one another as well.
3.
LANGUAGES
3. 1. The audio-lingual method
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It was developed in the United States during World War II. At that time there
was a need for people to learn foreign languages rapidly for military purposes.
This approach was strongly influenced by a belief that the fluent use of a language
was essentially a set of habits which could be developed with a lot of practice.
The principles of this method are the following:
New vocabulary and structures are presented through dialogues that are
learned through imitation and repetition. Grammar is induced from the
examples given.
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The teacher should give the students only what they need to promote their
learning.
Students begin their study of the language through its basic building
blocks, its sounds.
The teacher sets up situations that focus students attention on the structure
of the language.
The teacher assesses student learning all the time. The teacher must be
responsive to immediate learning needs and help them overcome negative
feelings.
The teacher is the authority in the classroom. The students must trust and
respect him/her.
The students work with handouts containing lengthy dialogues in the target
language.
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After listening to the dialogue and reading it, students will realize some
activities to gain facility with the new material: dramatizations, games,
songs, question-and-answer exercises
Students are considered whole persons. This means that teachers consider
not only their students feeling and intellect, but also have some understanding of
the relationship among students, their instinctive protective reactions and their
desire to learn.
This method takes its principle from the counselling- learning approach
developed by Charles A. Curran. He believed that a way to deal with the fears of
students is for teachers to become language counsellors.
The principles of this method are the following:
Teachers who use this method want their students to learn how to use the
target language communicatively. In addition, they want students to learn
about their own learning.
Initially, the teacher structures the class, but later the students may assume
more responsibility for this.
The most important skills are understanding and speaking the language.
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Teachers who use this method believe in the importance of having their
students enjoy their experience in learning to communicate in a foreign
language.
Initially, the teacher is the director of all students behaviour. The students
are imitators of her/his non-verbal model.
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Communicative
Approach
starts
from
theory
of
language
as
participants,
purpose,
channel,
and
topic.
3. Occurrence means that the native speaker knows how often something is
said
in
the
language
and
act
accordingly.
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when British applied linguists began to call into question some of the theoretical
assumptions underlying Situational Language teaching in different senses, such as:
1. The fact that the current standard structural theories of language did not
account for the fundamental characteristic of language: its creativity.
2.The
fact
that
proper
teaching
method
should
focus
upon
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attention of linguists has been focused on meaning and it has come to be widely
believed that the secret of successful language teaching lies in incorporating
meaning properly into our syllabuses.
Traditional language courses taught forms, but did not teach what the forms
meant or how to use them. They may indeed have failed to teach people to do
some important things with language. It is also true that many traditional courses
adopted a very mechanical approach to drilling what was taught, that is to say,
meaning was often neglected during the practice phase of a lesson.
Traditional courses taught one kind of meaning (that found in the grammar and
dictionary), but did not teach another kind (the communicative value that
utterances actually have in real-life exchanges). It is this second kind that we
really need to teach.
Traditional courses failed to teach students how to express or do certain things
with language. We must incorporate these things (notions, functions, strategies)
into our syllabuses.
Even if older structure-based language courses taught meanings as well as
forms, they did so very untidily and inefficiently. A communicative syllabus
approaches the teaching of meaning systematically.
For many people, the central idea in communicative teaching is probably
that of a semantic syllabus. In a course based on a semantic syllabus, it is
meanings rather than structures that are give priority, and which form the
organizing principle or skeleton of the textbook. Lessons deal with such matters
as greetings, agreeing and disagreeing, comparisons and so on.
Unfortunately, grammar has not become any easier to learn since the
communicative revolution. Some points of grammar are difficult to learn and need
to be studied in isolation before students can do interesting things with them.
When deciding what to teach to a particular group of learners, we need to take
into consideration several different meaning categories and several different
formal categories. We must make sure that our students are taught to operate key
functions such as, for example, greeting, agreeing or warning. They are also
taught basic notions such as size, definiteness, texture or ways of moving, and to
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discuss topics which correspond to their main interests and needs (music,
football). At the same time we shall need to draw up lists of phonological
problems that will need attention, as well as lists of high-priority structures and
vocabulary that our students will need to learn.
A great deal of language does involve knowing what is conventionally said in
familiar situations (interrupting, asking for something, correcting oneself and so
on). This stereotyped, idiomatic side of language accounts for a substantial
proportion of the things we say, and this is the area in which the Communicative
Approach is perhaps mainly concerned.
Not all language, of course, is stereotyped. Students need to learn to say new
things as well as old things. To sum up, one might say that there are two kinds of
language: stereotyped and creative. Semantic syllabuses are needed to help us
teach the first; only structural lexical syllabuses will enable us to teach the
second.
Language work should involve genuine exchanges, and classroom discourse
should correspond as closely as possible to real-life use of language.
4. 5. Methodology
Each individual in a class already possess a vast private store of knowledge,
opinions and experiences, and each individual has an imagination which is
capable of creating whole scenarios at moments notice.
In fact, it is obviously desirable to use both scripted and authentic material at
different points in a language course for different reasons. Scripted material is
useful for presenting specific language items economically and effectively: the
course designer has total control over the input, and can provide just the linguistic
elements he/she wishes. Authentic material gives students a taste of real language
in use, and provides them with valid linguistic data for their unconscious
acquisition processes to work on.
5. CONCLUSION
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To sum up, I would like to say that the theories of learning and teaching
languages I have mentioned here must lead us to the conclusion that a sensible
methodological approach to the teaching of languages should take into account
both input practice and communicative output. While students need a lot of
input, and while there must be an emphasis on communicative activities that
improve the students ability to communicate, there is also place for controlled
presentation of input and semi-controlled practice. What is required in the
classroom is a balanced approach of input and output. This balance is the
essential ingredient of the methodology, both for pedagogical reasons and for our
students continuing interests in foreign language learning.
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brumfit, C. and Johnson, K. The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching.
OUP. Oxford, 1981.
Harmer, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman. London, 1983.
Howatt, A.P.R. A History of English Language Teaching. OUP. Oxford, 1981
Johnson, K. Communicative Syllabus Design and Methodology. OUP. Oxford,
1982,
Littlewood, W. Communicative Language Teaching. CUP. Cambridge, 1981.
Stem H. H. Fundamental Concepts in language teaching, OLJP 1983.
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