APPROACH IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Compiled by :

1. Dhiya Farras Permata Sari (1201050036)

2. Farah Maesaroh (1701050044)
3. Dody Riyanto (1701050050)

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

THE FACULTY OF TEACHING TRAINER
UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH PURWOKERTO
A. CONCEPT
Situational language teaching is originally called oral approach. It occurs
by following a series of success and failure paths through a realistic situation
based on achieving the main learning objective. The Oral Approach and
Situational Language Teaching relied on the structural view of language. Both
speech and structure were seen to be the basis of language and, especially,
speaking ability.

B. CHARACTERISTIC
1. Situational Language Teaching / SLT
The Oral Approach or Situational Language Teaching is an
approach developed by British applied linguists between the 1930s
and the 1960s. While it is unknown for many teachers, it had a big
influence on language courses till the 1980s. Textbooks such
as Streamline English (Hartley and Viney 1979) was designed
following the SLT approach principles.
The Oral Approach or Situational Language Teaching is based on a
structural view of language. Speech, structures and a focus on a set of
basic vocabulary items are seen as the basis of language teaching.
This was a view similar to that held by American structuralists, such
as Fries. However, what distinguishes the Situational Language
Teaching approach is its emphasis on the presentation of structures in
situations.
The objectives of Situational Language Teaching involve accurate
use of vocabulary items and grammar rules in order to achieve a
practical mastery of the four basic skills. Learners must be able to
produce accurate pronunciation and use of grammar. The ultimate aim
is to be able to respond quickly and accurately in speech situations
with an automatic control of basic structures and sentence patterns.
2. Focusing on spoken language/ oral skills
Oral approach focuses on the development of pronunciation
skills and increases knowledge about vocabularies. After learning is
complete the student is expected to have good and perfect
prononciation.

3. Accuracy on both pronounciation and grammar

Oral Approach or Situational Language Teaching is characterized by

two major features:

a. Focus on both vocabulary and reading is the most salient trait of

SLT. In fact, mastery of a set of high-frequency vocabulary items
is believed to lead to good reading skills.
b. An analysis of English and a classification of its prominent
grammatical structures into sentence patterns (also called
situational tables) is believed to help learners internalize
grammatical rules.

Vocabulary control: Vocabulary was seen as an essential

component for reading proficiency. The second emphasis was on
reading skills.
Grammar control: Also the interest was focus on the grammatical
content of a language course. It has been believed that an analysis
of English and a classification of its principal grammatical
structures into sentence patterns (or situational tables) could be
used to assist learners to internalize the rules and sentence
structures
.
4. Teacher-oriented learning
Oral approach use teacher talk time (TTT) method. Teacher talk time
(TTT) refers to how much the teacher talks during a lesson. However,
 this will vary according to the stage of the lesson. For example, the
teacher needs to speak more when providing explanations of and
examples for the target language early in the lesson. Elsewhere he
may speak less as students need ample opportunity to practice the new
material. Overall, however, the teacher should roughly limit his
speaking to 20% to 30% of the class time, with the remainder devoted
to speaking/use of the language by the students.

5. Classroom activity
The technique used in presenting new language items is oral drilling
to create the situation (Nunan, 2003). Teaching procedures (activity)
to be used with Situational Language Teaching consist of:
a. Listening Practice.
The teacher obtains his student’s attention and repeats an
example of the patterns or a word in isolation clearly, several
times, probably saying it slowly at least once.
b. Choral imitation.
All students together or in large groups repeat what the teacher
said.
c. Individual Imitation.
The teacher asks several individual students to repeat the
model he has given in order to check their pronouncation.
d. Isolation.
Teacher isolates sounds. Words or groups of words which
cause trouuble and goes through techniques 1-3 with them
before replacing them in context.
e. Building up to a new model.
Teacher gets students to ask and answer questions using
patterns they already know in order to bring about the
information necessary to introduce the new model.
f. Elicitation
 The teacher using mime, prompt words, gestures, etc, gets
student to ask question, make statements or give new examples
of the pattern.
g. Substitution drilling.
The teacher uses cue words to get individual students to mix
the examples of the new pattern.
h. Question-answer drilling.
The teacher gets one student to ask a question and another to
answer until most students in the class have practiced asking
and answering the new question form.
i. Correction.
The teacher indicates by shaking his head, repeating the error,
etc., that there is a mistake and invites the student or a different
student to correct it.

6. Drilling Methods
a. The Repetition Drill
The teacher says models (the word or phrases) and the students
repeat it.
Example:
Teacher : It didn’t rain, so I needn’t have taken my umbrella
Students : It didn’t rain, so I needn’t have taken my umbrella

b. The Substitution Drill

Substitution drill can used to practice different structures or
vocabulary items (i. e one word or more word change during the
drill)
Example:
Teacher : I go to school. He?
Students : He goes to school.
Teacher : They?
 Students : They go to school.

c. The Question and Answer Drill

The teacher gives students practice with answering questions. The

students should answer the teacher’s questions very quickly. It is
also possible for the teacher to let the students practice to ask
question as well. This gives students practice with the question
pattern.

Example:

Teacher : Does he go to school? Yes?

Students : Yes, he does.

Teacher : No?

Students : No, he does not.

d. The Transformation Drill

The teacher gives students a certain kind of sentence pattern, an

affirmation sentence for example. Students are asked to transform
this sentence into a negative sentence. Other examples of
transformations to ask of students are changing a statement into a
question, an active sentence into a passive one, or direct speech
into a reported speech.

Example: (positive into negative)

Teacher : I clean the house.

Students : I don’t clean the house.

 Teacher : She sings a song.

Students : She doesn’t sing a song.

e. The Chain Drill

The teacher begins the chain by greeting a particular student, or

asking him a question. That student respond, then turns to the
students sitting next to him. The first student greets or asks a
question of the second student and the chain continues. A chain
drill allows some controlled communication, even though it is
limited. A chain drill also gives the teacher an opportunity to
check each student’s speech.

Teacher : What is the color of sky?

Student A :The color of sky is blue.

Teacher :What the color of banana?

Student B : The color of banana is yellow

Teacher : What is the color of leaf?

Student C : The color of leaf is green

Teacher : What is the color of our eyes?

Student D : The color of our eyes is black and white.

f. The Expansion Drill

This drill is used when a long line dialog is giving students trouble.
The teacher breaks down the line into several parts. The students
repeat a part of the sentence, usually the last phrase of the line. Then
following the teacher’s cue, the students expand what they are
repeating part at the end of the sentence (and works backward from
there) to keep the intonation of the line as natural as possible. This
also directs more student attention to the end of the sentence, where
new information typically occurs.

Example:

Teacher : My mother is a doctor.

Students : My mother is a doctor

Teacher : She works in the hospital.

Students : She works in the hospital

Teacher : My mother is a doctor. She works in the hospital.

Students : My mother is a doctor. She works in the hospital

Teacher : She take cares the patient.

Students : She take cares the patient

Teacher : My mother is a doctor. She works in the hospital. She take

cares the patient

Students : My mother is a doctor. She works in the hospital. She take

cares the patient
g. Communicative drills

This kind of drills is quite different from the so-called

meaningless and mechanical drills used in a traditional grammar
oriented class by some teachers, in which the primary focus is on the
form of the language being used rather than its communicative
content. Children do not blindly mimic adults’ speech in a parrot
fashion, without really needing to understand or communicate
anything, but make selective use of simulation to construct the
grammar and make sense of the expressions according to the
grammar. This kind of drills has meanings and connotes information
accordingly in a certain situation and at a certain time. It has an
information gap and does involve communicative process. The child
has access to language data and opportunities to interact with the
inputs (meaningful inputs). When processing the language they hear,
children construct the grammar and make sense of the expression
according to the grammar. When producing utterance, they follow the
internalized grammatical rules. This kind of drilling can be formed by
using the other drilling types. But the emphasis is that the student
involving something real as well as communicative value and the
practice creates an information gap.

Example :
Guessing game:

Teacher has something in mind (things, job, event, etc) and the
students must guess that thing by using yes no question:

Students : Is it in the class?

Teacher : Yes, it is.

 Students : Is it blue?

Teacher : No, it is not.

Students : Is it black?

Teacher : Yes, it is.

Students : Is it in the front of the class?

Teacher : Yes, it is.

Students : Is it black board?

Teacher : Yes, it is.

With the basis of the communicative drills, teachers may design more
advanced communicative activities so that learners can have more
opportunities to produce sustained speech with more variations in
possible responses.

C. Advantages and Disadvantages

1. Advantages
Situational Language Teaching is still attractive to many teachers who
still believe in structural practice on language. Its practicality in the
teaching or grammar patterns has contributed to the survival on the
approach until recently. Besides, its emphasis on oral practice still
attracts support among language teachers.
2. Disadvantages
The views of language and language learning underlying Situational
Language Teaching were called into question. Chomsky (1957 in
Brown, 2001) showed that the structural and the behaviouristic
approaches to language were erroneous and do not account for the
fundamental characteristic of the language namely the creativity and
uniqueness of individual sentences. Children do not acquire their mother
tongue through repetition and habit formation. The must be, however, an
innate predisposition that leads them to a certain kind of linguistic
competence.
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