Teaching Methods

O For centuries, people have attempted to learnforeign/second languages through formaleducation.

O The methods and approaches employed havechanged through the years, having beenimpacted by advancements in the theoriesand psychology of learning.

O Basic assumptions about why and how peoplelearn, shape the way in which languages havebeen taught.

WHAT IS A TEACHING METHOD?

We define the term "TEACHING METHOD" asbeing comprised of:

An ORIENTATION/APPROACH based on apedagogical philosophy and/or learning theoryabout how students learn language best. Thisestablishes the goals of language instruction.

Learning objectives, kinds of tasks learners are toperform, and perception of learner/teacher roles;

The interaction style of teacher/learner, attitudetoward corrections, and the desired classroomatmosphere.

• Some methods focus on communication skillsand place the greatest emphasis on being ableto express oneself; others focus on grammaticalaccuracy. Some methods suggest that readingand writing should be secondary to spokenlanguage emphasis, others suggest thatvocabulary and grammar instruction shouldbe emphasized.

•

ORIENTATIONS/APPROACHES TO TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGNLANGUAGE: A set of assumptions about language and learningforms the basis for each orientation/approach.

• 1. Grammar-Based Orientation/Approach

• 2. Communication Orientation/Approach

• 3. Empiricist Orientation/Approach

• 4. The Rationalist Orientation/Approach

• 5. The Affective-Humanistic Approach

• 6. Comprehension-Based/Natural Approach

• 7. The Communicative Approach

Teaching MethodsWhat are the teaching methods? The types of principles used for instruction are called teachingmethods.

There are many teaching methods depending on what information orskill the teacher is trying to convey.

The teacher may be flexible and willing to adjust their style accordingto their students.

Effective teaching is the base in the success of a student. Here we aregoing to discuss four teaching methods:• Grammar Translation Method• Direct Method• Audio Lingual Method• Communicative Approach

The GTM is not new one.

Language teachers have used it for many years. Itwas first used in the teaching of the ClassicalLanguage, Latin and Greek. So, it was calledClassical Method. In the earlier centuries thismethod was used for the purpose of helpingstudents in reading foreign language literature.

It was also hoped that through the study ofgrammar, students would become more familiar withthe grammar of their native language.

The purpose of G.T.M. was to know everything

about some thing rather than the thing itself. According

to Stern (1983) “The first language is maintained as the

reference system in the acquisition of the second

language.”

In Grammar Translation Method the structure of the foreignlanguage are taught by comparing and contrasting with thoseof the mother tongue.

Reading and writing are the major focus; little or nosystematic attention is paid to listening or speaking.

Vocabulary selection is based solely on the reading text used,and words are taught through bilingual word lists, dictionarystudy, and memorization. Vocabulary terms are presentedwith their translation equivalents, and translation exercisesare prescribed.

The student’s native language is the medium of

instruction. New items are explained by comparing and

contrasting with those of native tongue and target

language.

GTM is a very easy method. It proceeds from known to

unknown. As a child already known his mother tongue

and now he learns the equivalents in the target

language.

As the difficult and lengthy definitions are avoided in

GTM the vocabulary is acquired economically and

effectively. Students can easily get the exact meaning of

the words.

More stress is on the sentence structure, because thesentence is the basic unit of teaching and languagepractice. According to Howatt (1984:131) “The centralfeature was the replacement of the traditional texts byexamplifactory sentence.”

As the students are taught each and everything bytranslating in the mother tongue, so the teachers raisetheir expectations high about the students. Howatt(1984:132).

GTM is the deductive way of teaching a language,means that language is taught trough rules rather thanuse.

The teacher feels at ease while teaching through GTM

because they need not to labor for preparing their lesson

and to find out new ways for explaining the words. They

also need to collect different A.V. aids for the preparation

of their lesson.

In GTM at the early stages the teacher can easily

evaluate the students by asking questions in their native

language.

In GTM much attention is not paid to oral activities or drillwork, through out the class the students are focused onreading and writing. Nothing type of conversationalsession is held.

The students become use to of thinking every thing intheir native language first instead of the target language.

It becomes much difficult to translation each and everything in the native language or in the target language fore.g. the idiomatic expressions can not be translatedexactly.

GTM teaches the language by rules rather than by use.

Teaching through GTM makes students passive listeners

because they are not motivated to speak in the class,

most of the time the teacher be the active person in the

class.

As nothing type of A.V. aids are used in GTM to make

lesson interesting so it seems very dull and boring.

Direct Method

When GTM lost its popularity in Americatowards middle of the 19th century, teachersset themselves for inventing some bettermethod exactly on the lines on which a childlearns his mother tongue. The minister ofpublic instruction of France was the first to usethe name the “Direct Method”. This methodoriginated in France in 1901.

Direct Method

Definition:

“Direct Method is a method of teaching a foreignlanguage especially a modern language throughconversations, discussion and reading in thelanguage itself, without the use of the pupil’slanguage, without translation and without thestudy of formal grammar. The words are taught bypointing to objects or pictures or by performingactions.” (Webster’s New English Dictionary).

Characteristics of Direct Method

Direct method is a natural method as it follows the natural principleof learning, listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

DM. is an inductive method as it teaches the language by use ratherthan by rule.

Being a natural method DM. lays emphasis on oral teaching. Thelearners are strictly motivated to speak in the target language.

As there is much emphasis on oral training so the pronunciation ofthe learners improves a lot. For this purpose a model from a nativespeaker of the target language may be presented in the class.

The target language is taught through the real life examples anddifferent objects.

Draw backs of Direct Method

Some drawbacks of DM. are as under:

DM. mostly emphasizes on oral training (listening, speaking) so theother activities (reading, writing) are left behind.

All the teachers can teach through this method, only the teacherswho are competent in conversational skills can adopt this method.

As different A.V. aids are used in this method, and mostly areexpensive so every teacher or institution can not afford theexpenditures.

Individual attention is very important for this method so the classeshaving the small number of students are required for this method.

Characteristics of Direct Method

In DM. teaching the learners become very active because they have toparticipate in all oral sessions.

DM. aims at the direct bond experience and expression, and learners arestrictly motivated to think in the target language. There is no intervention ofmother tongue in this method.

The sentence is the part of speech so learners are forced to answer in thefull sentence form instead of yes/ no.

Thinking in the target language improves writing skills as well. If someonecan express oneself in speaking he can do in writing too.

Different types of A.V. aids are used in DM. which make the lessoninteresting. It a fact the things learnt through images are remembered for along time.

The term ALM was coined byNelson Brookes. The ALM wasdeveloped in the United Statesduring 2nd world war. At thetime there was a need forpeople to learn foreignlanguage rapidly for militarypurposes.

According to Audio-Lingual Method it becomesmore effective for the learner if the items to belearned in the target language are presented inform before they are presented in spoken formbefore they are seen in written form.

Explanations of rules are therefore not given untilstudents have practiced a pattern in a variety ofcontext.

Audio-lingual method emphasis on certainpractice techniques, mimicry, memorization andpattern drills.

The use of dialogues as the chief means ofpresenting the language. Through dialogueexchange the learners can easily memorize thesentence structure.

The purpose of the language learning is to learnhow to use the language to communicate.

To seek out the native like pronunciation thenative speaker as a model is represented in theclass and the learners learn the nativepronunciation by mimicry.

The learners are motivated to set a habit ofanswering in the target language with out anyinterference of the mother tongue.

Correct pronunciation, stress, rhythm, and intonationare emphasizedthe use of drills and pattern practiceis a distinctive feature of the Audio-Lingual Method.

Various kinds of drills such as repetition, inflection,replacement, restatement, completion etc. are usedin this method.

Correction of mistakes of pronunciation or grammaris direct and immediate.

H. H. Stern (1983) has summed up the majorcontribution of Audio-Lingualism tolanguage teaching thus:

1.Theory based on linguistic andpsychological principles.

2. Stressed syntactical progression. 3. Simple techniques. 4. Auditory and oral practice.

Albert Valdman (1964) has questioned the excessive emphasis on oral drilling in Audio-Lingual teaching. Drills are inherently unnatural and contrived examples of the use of language. Audio-Lingual Method is based on the techniques of memorization and drilling can be tedious and boring.

The practitioners found that the practical result fell short of expectations. The students were often found to be unable to transfer skills acquired through to Audio-Lingualism to real communication out side the classroom.

Noam Chomsky rejected the structuralist approach to language description as well as the behaviorist theory of language learning. According to Chomsky sentences are not learned by imitation and repetition but “generated” from the learner’s underlying “competence.”

In a typical ALM lesson, students begin with a dialogue designed toinclude a particular structural pattern.

The exercises and drills that follow are all based on the dialogue.

They give students more practice with the structure being studied.Emphasis is on development of oral language and most of the class timeis spent repeating the dialogue or doing drills.

ALM teachers lead the whole class, groups within the class or individualstudents, providing a model to be emulated.

Substitution drills and dialogues form the core of teaching techniques inthe Audiolingual Method.

A good deal of attention is paid to correct pronunciation. Errors arecorrected immediately to avoid the formation of bad habits.

This method has generally not produced fluent communicators but eventhough its efficacy has been brought into question, this methodcontinues to be used widely today in both ESL and EFL settings.

This method was developed by a Bulgarian psychiatrist-educatorin 1962 to eliminate the psychological barriers that people have to learning.

Suggestopedia uses drama, art, physical exercise and de-suggestive/suggestive communicative psychotherapy with greatestemphasis on spoken language, though reading and writing are alsotaught.

The physical setting for Suggestopedia is very important. Classes aresmall and students sit in comfortable armchairs in a semicircle. On thewalls of the room hang posters from countries where the targetlanguage is spoken as well as posters with grammatical information.

Lessons begin with the teacher speaking in the students' ’first languagetelling the students about the successful and enjoyable experience theyare going to have.

Suggestopedia

Students are told they will choose a new identity and anew name in the language they are learning.

Music is played and deep breathing exercises are used toinduce relaxation. Students do role-playing, sing songsand use vocabulary as their fears of speaking a foreignlanguage dissipate. The teacher decides what material topresent, leads all activities and is the center of instruction.

Suggestopedia

The Silent Way makes students responsible for this

own learning and encourages learners to become

independent of the teacher.

The method gets its name from the fact that the

teacher is silent much of the time.

During Silent Way lessons, teachers model and

expression only once and then students are

responsible for working together to try to reproduce

what the teacher modeled.

THE SILENT WAY

In this method teachers should give

students only what is absolutely

necessary to promote learning and it is

believed that students will naturally

develop their own internal understanding

of the language they are studying as they

work with their classmates.

THE SILENT WAY

Communicative Approach

•The origins of this approach are to befound in the changes in the Britishlanguage teaching. The primary goal ofthis approach is to enable the students tocommunicate using the target language.

Salient Features of Communicative Approach

• The major purpose of communicative approach is to make the learner effective speakers.

• Language acquisition is desired rather than to learn the language and interaction is encouraged.

• All the four skills are given due importance to raise the confidence of the learner.

• A speaker is given the choice not only about what to say, but how to say.

• The students become active because they are engaged to different activities.

• This approach pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language.

• Noting type of books is used to teach the language. Mostly the learning is through the games.

• Translation may be used where students need or benefit from it.

• *

The Communicative Method• It assumes that students are able to acquire written

or oral language when they are motivated and arenot nervous.

• The Communicative Method values teachingstructures and vocabulary but suggests that thisinstruction is inadequate for communication ifstudents only memorize the rules of usage but areunable to actually use the language. Immediateapplication of vocabulary knowledge and grammarstructures to authentic, real-life situations is key tothe Communicative Method.

The Communicative Method• The needs of the learner are at the center of instruction and theteacher’s role is that of facilitator helping students to apply whatthey’ve learned and to “make the language their own.”

• Dialogues are not pre-arranged and memorized by students, butrather are initiated by students based on authentic languagescenarios.

• The Communicative Method assumes that the content ofinstruction should be meaningful and relevant to the students tomeet the students’ needs and maintain a high level of interest andstudent motivation.

• Of all of the methods in use today, the Communicative Method isthe most inclusive – that is to say that it draws from all of the othermethods to tailor activities that are best suited to the learners inquestion.

Community Language Learning (CLL)

Community Language Learning (CLL)was based on Rogers’ principles ofhumanistic psychology.

Teachers serve as counselors facilitatinglearning. They join together withstudents to form a learning communitycharacterized by an acceptingatmosphere.

The goal is to lower students’ defensesand encourage open communication.

Community Language Learning (CLL)

In a typical CLL lesson, students sit in asmall circle and the teacher standsbehind one of the students.

The student makes a statement or asksa question in his or her native language.

In a gentle, supportive voice the teachertranslates what the student said to thenew language.

The student repeats what the teachersays until he is comfortable enough torecord the new phrase on a taperecorder.

Community Language Learning (CLL)

The procedure is repeated with all students in thegroup until a short conversation has beenrecorded.

Then students listen to their conversation andthe teacher writes it on the board.

The textbook actually becomes what thestudents say in their recorded conversation.Students copy the written conversation from theboard.

These sentences are then analyzed forvocabulary or grammar study.

TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE (TPR)

Total Physical Response (TPR) is a method thatwas developed by Asher in 1979 based on researchthat suggests that we learn better when ourmuscles are involved as well as our minds.

In TPR students listen and respond to a series ofcommands. At the beginning, students respond tosimple command such as “raise your hand”, as theyprogress, students respond to complex demandssuch as “raise your left hand and scratch your noseif you are wearing a blue shirt.” Ultimately, studentsbegin giving commands to their teacher and fellowstudents.

TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE (TPR)

Reading and writing come after

students have developed oral

language proficiency.

For most teachers, TPR is used as

one technique with beginning students

rather than as a complete method to

teach all aspects of language

instruction.

Thank You!