A “METHODICAL” HISTORY OF LANGUAGE TEACHING

A “METHODICAL” HISTORY OF LANGUAGE TEACHING

·         APPROACH, METHOD, AND TECHNIQUE

Approach is was a set of assumptions dealing with the nature of language, learning, and teaching.

Method is an overall plan for the orderly presentation of language material, no part of which contradicts, and all of which is based upon, the selected approach.

Technique is implementational that which actually takes place in a classroom. It is particular trick, stratagem, or contrivance used to accomplish an immediate objective.

·         CHANGING WINDS AND SHIFTING SANDS

Changing winds and shifting sands is a cyclical pattern in which a new method emerged about every quarter of a century. Each new method broke from the old but took with it some of the positive aspects of the previous practices. A good example of this cyclical nature of methods is found in the “revolutionary” Audiolingual Method (ALM) (a description Follows) of the mid-twentieth century.

·         THE GRAMMAR TRANSLATION METHOD

The Grammar Translation Method, which offered very little beyond an insight into the grammatical rules attending the process of translating from the second to the native language.

·         GOUIN AND THE SERIES METHOD

The history of “modern” foreign language teaching may be said to have begun in the late 1800s with Francois Gouin, a French teacher of Latin with remarkable insights. because, at the time, his influence was overshadowed by that of Charles Berlitz, the popular German founder of the Direct Method. Nevertheless, some attention to Gouin’s unusually perceptive observations about language teaching helps us to set the stage for the development of language-teaching methods for the century following the publication of his book, The Art of Learning and Studying Foreign Languages in 1880. And Gouin had to go through a very painful set of experiences in order derive his insights. Having decided in mid-life to learn German, he took up residency in Hamburg for one year. “But alas …” the result was the same as before. In the course of the year in Germany, Gouin in memorized books, translated Goethe and Schiller, and even memorized 30.000 words in a German dictionary, all in the isolation of his room, only to be crushed by his failure to understand German afterward. Gouin was forced to return home last, After returning home, Gouin discovered that his three-year-old nephew had, during that year, gone through the wonderful stage of child language acquisition in which we went from saying virtually nothing at all to becoming a veritable chatterbox of French. So Gouin set about devising a teaching method that would follow from this insights. And thus the series Method was created, a method that taught learners directly (without translation) and conceptually (without grammatical rules and explanations) a “series” of connected sentences that are easy to perceive

·         THE DIRECT METHOD

The Direct Method enjoyed great popularity at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth but it was difficult to use, mainly because of the constraints of budget, time, and classroom size. Yet, after a period of decline, this method has been revived, leading to the emergence of the Audiolingual Method.

·         THE AUDIOLINGUAL METHOD

The Audiolingual Method was based on linguistic and psychological theory and one of its main premises was the scientific descriptive analysis of a wide assortment of languages. On the other hand, conditioning and habit-formation models of learning put forward by behaviouristic phychologists were married with the pattern practices of the Audiolingual Method.

·         COGNITIVE CODE LEARNING

Cognitive code learning was not so much a method as it was an approach that emphasized a conscious awareness of rules and their applications to second language learning.

·         DESIGNER” METHODS OF THE SPIRITED 1970S

1.      Community Lenguage Learning

Community Language Learning is sometimes cited as an example of a "humanistic approach." Links can also be made between CLL procedures and those of bilingual education, particularly the set of bilingual procedures referred to as "language alternation" or "code switching." Let us discuss briefly the debt of Community Language Learning to these traditions.

2.      Suggestopedia

Suggestopedia promised great results if we use our brain power and inner capacities. Of course, suggestopedia offered valuable insights into the "superlearning" powers of our brain but it was demolished on several fronts. For instance, what happens if our classrooms are bereft of such amenities as comfortable seats and Compact Disk players? Certainly, this method is insightful and constructive and can be practised from time to time, without necessarily having to adhere to all its premises. A relaxed mind is an open mind and it can help a student to feel more confident and, in a sense, pliable.

3.      The Silent Way

The Silent Way is venture into the field of foreign language teaching. It is based on the premise that the teacher should be silent as much as possible in the classroom and the learner should be encouraged to produce as much language as possible.

The Silent Way belongs to the latter tradition, which views learning as a problem-solving, creative, di scovering activity, in which thlearner is a principal actor rather than a bench-bound listener.

4.      Total Physical Response

Total physical response is the one we will examine in detail here in order to see how the principles of the comprehension approach are put into practice.

5.      The Natural Approach

The Natural Approach with what they call "traditional" approaches to language teaching. Traditional approaches are defined as " based on the use of language in communicative situations without recourse to the nati ve language" and, perhaps, needless to say, without reference to grammatical analysis, grammatical drilling, or to a particular theory of grammar.

REFERENCES

Richards, Jack C., & Rodgers, Theodore S  (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge language teaching library, UK: Cambridge

University Press.

Bron H.Douglas (2007). Teaching by principles an interactive approach to language pedagogy. Person: Longman, San Francisco State University.

Anthony Edward M. (1963). ELT journal volume XVII issue 2, University of Michigan.

Freeman Diane Larsen (2000). Techniques and principles in language teaching. OXFORD University Press.