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Unit 3. Foreign Language Teaching Methods (English).
The Grammar Translation Method.
This method derives from the traditional approach for the teaching of Latin and Greek.
It involves two components:
- Explicit study of grammatical rules and vocabulary
- Use of translation
The principal characteristics of the grammar-translation method were:
1.- The study of the LITERATURE of the second language
2.- The student’s NATIVE LANGUAGE was the medium of instruction
3.- READING and WRITING were the major focuses, little or no systematic attention was paid to speaking or listening
4.- VOCABULARY selection was based on the reading texts used, and words were taught through bilingual WORDS LISTS
5.- The SENTENCE was the basic unit of teaching and language practice
6.- ACCURACY was emphasized. Students were expected to attain high standards in translation
7.- Grammar was taught DEDUCTIVELY, that is, by presentation and study of grammar rules, which were then practiced through translation exercises.
The grammar-translation method was widely used in European academic institutions from the 1840’s to the 1940’s and in a modified way it continues to be used in some parts of the world today.
In the mid and late 19th^ century opposition to the grammar-translation method arose. In Germany, England, France and other parts of Europe new approaches to language teaching were developed by individual language teaching specialists, each with a specific method for reforming the teaching of modern languages. The ideas put forward by the members of the Reform Movement led to what have been called Natural Methods and the Direct Method.
The Natural Method.
This method developed as a reaction to grammar-translation, mainly in France.
Its name comes from what was considered to be the natural way to learn a language:
exposure to the language used in everyday communicative interactions.
As its model was first language acquisition, grammar was not taught and translation was irrelevant. Rather than using analytical procedures that focus on the explanation of grammar in classroom teaching, teachers must encourage direct and spontaneous use of the foreign language in the classroom. Learners would then be able to introduce rules of grammar. The teacher replaced the textbook in the early stages of learning and speaking started with systematic attention to pronunciation.
These natural language learning principles provided the foundation for what came to be known as the Direct Method, which is the most widely known of the natural methods.
The Direct Method.
It was introduced in France and Germany and its main aim was to emphasize the
learning of speech, acquiring meaning in context and learning grammar through
induction.
The main characteristics were:
1.- Classroom instruction was conducted exclusively in the target language
2.- Grammar was taught INDUCTIVELY
3.- New teaching points were introduced orally
4.- Vocabulary was taught through demonstration objects and pictures
5.- Correct pronunciation and grammar were emphasized
6.- Only everyday vocabulary and sentences were taught
7.- Oral communication skills were built up in a carefully graded progression organized around question and answer exchanges between teachers and students.
But, on the other hand, this method has some drawbacks:
- This method requires teachers with a high level of proficiency in the foreign language, nearly native speakers
2.- Language skills are learned more effectively if the items to be learned in the target language are presented in SPOKEN FORM before they are seen in written form. The language skills are taught in the order of listening, speaking, reading and writing.
3.- Language is acquired by analogy not by analysis. Drills can enable learners to form correct analogies.
The use of drills and pattern practice is a distinctive feature of the Audiolingual Method. Various kinds of drills are used (repetition, substitution, transformation...) Memorizing was one of its main techniques along with the use of structural drills. It was widely used during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Nowadays it is less popular because of its reliance on drills which students found boring as they wished for a wide range of linguistic experience.
Chomsky rejected the structuralism approach to language description as well as the behaviorist theory of language learning. Suddenly the whole Audiolingual paradigm was called into question: pattern, practice, drilling, memorization. This created a crisis in American language teaching circles
New methods have been developed independently of current linguistic and second language acquisition theory (e.g. TPR). There are approaches that are derived from contemporary theories of language and second language acquisition Natural Approach, Communicative Language Teaching).
Other approaches
Total Physical Response
TPR is a language teaching method built around the coordination of speech and
action; it attempts to teach language through physical activity. It was developed by
James Asher and it consists of obeying commands given by the teacher that involve
physical response. Commands become more complex as the class progresses.
The use of TPR ensures the active participation of students and helps the teacher to know when utterances are understood, as well as provide contexts to help students understand the language they hear.
This method advocates that second language learning process is the same as the first language learning process: comprehension precedes production.
The Silent Way
It was developed by Gattegno in 1972 and takes its name from the fact that the
teacher doesn’t say anything but points to individual letters, which, in combination,
indicate to the student how a word might be pronounced. A relation between color-
phoneme is established and then the vocabulary is set up (charts containing vocabulary
and color-coded guides to pronunciation are made available to enable the teacher to
guide the student’s learning while saying as little as possible).
The program of a “silent way” course consists of basically structural lessons that are planned on the basis of certain items and related vocabulary. The items are introduced according to their grammatical complexity.
Suggestopedia
Suggestopedia is a method developed by the Bulgarian psychiatrist educator Georgi Lozanov. The main characteristics of the method are:
- It is based on the view that the brain has great unused potential, which can be exploited through the power of suggestion.
- Presentation of new material: it is introduced in the form of written dialogues based on situations familiar to students.
- The dialogue is read by the teacher and students with eyes closed repeat the text while classical music is played.
- First written, then in spoken forms.
Communicative Language Teaching.
The origins of this method are found in the reactions against the Audiolingual and
situational methods dating from the late 1960’s.
The major distinctive features of the Communicative Approach are:
- Language learning is learning to communicate. Communicative competence is the desired goal. In this method the essential issue is the transmission of information in which the pronunciation isn’t necessarily perfect, that’s to say, the content of the message is more relevant than the way it has been expressed.
- In this method the students are considered the central point of the teaching-learning process and the teacher is the organizer of the same. This method is centered on real
In the last twenty years, another trait of new Communicative Approaches is the attention devoted to grammar, absolutely different from the structural view and the tendency of early communicative courses to discard it. “Focus on form” (“form”, and not “forms” as a way to distinguish it from structural methods) emphasizes the importance of grammar in the learning process within a communicative framework, considering grammar as a vehicle and part of meaning.
Some may claim that the actual classroom remained quite unaffected by the new scope. Up to the present, well into the 21st^ century, a great many of ESL/EFL teachers find it difficult
to include a communicative approach on their teaching. Particularly so when syllabuses and school curricula continue to focus on what the student is supposed to “know about” the language and not what he/she is able to do with/through the language. Not to mention the great range of ESL resources on the Web which remain instances of sheer structuralism, however interactive they might claim to be. With those problems in mind –and a great deal of evidences of successful models of language immersion- the European Union has undertaken a series of projects and commitments (the active promotion of CLIL and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages –CEFR-being the two outstanding ones) that can really make a difference in the way additional languages are approached to in our schools. It is our responsibility, therefore, to take those principles promoted by the CEFR into our primary school classroom. We can summarize our goal, what we consider language learning and teaching to be, with the following:
We want our students to develop their ability to learn and to relate to the world, improving their communicative competence in English. We want them to do so with all the skills involved in language speaking and learning, and we are aware that to achieve that goal they need to participate in communicative processes, they need to have an interest and will to do so (and that is why we consider of the outmost importance intercultural competence and every single affective factor) and an ability to use two basic kinds of strategies, those allowing them to successfully communicate and those helping them to learn. Furthermore, we know that to improve communicative competence and the ability to learn and relate to the world students need not only as many opportunities as possible to engage in communicative processes, but also to have explicit meaningful formal work (that is to say, an appropriate teaching of grammar within the communicative framework), collaborative learning and the reinforcement of autonomy and awareness in the learning process.
