Techniques and principles in language teaching

1iowcvcr;as we have seen withStevick'sexamp le of teaching a dialog, the way teachers think abo ut language teachin gand learn ing willstillshapeho w theyworkat alllevels.After we have i

Diane Larsen-Freeman

SECOND EDITION

Techniques and Principles

in Language Teaching

Second Edition

OXFORD

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Series Editors' Preface

It is always a feeling ofgreat pride for general editors of a peda gogicalseries when the resounding success of one of its books leads to thedemand for publicationof a second, expandededition We arcthereforeextremely pleased that Diane Larsen-Freeman has underta ken to con-

tribut e to the field of language-teaching professionals a newly revised,updated, and enlarged version of her original and immensely valuable

Techn iques and Principles in Language Teaching Thewaysin which thesecond edition differs fromthe first- from theaddition of new methods,

throughmoreattentio n to thelearnin gprocess,toalitt le self-ind ulgence

in methodological choice-arcamply documentedin Diane's ownsage 'TotheTeacher Educato r', and these arc departures that are bothappr opr iate and illuminating What has not changed, however- andmodesty wouldprevent her from sayingso-a re theinta ngiblequalitiesthat madethefirst edition so special:enlightenment withoutcondescen-sio n,comprehensiveness without tedium,engagement without oversim-plification Stillevident as before is Diane'sgift for beingablegently toleadone toexamine one'sown professional behavior forpossibleincon-gruities betweenone's view of language and thewayone teachesit.Andstillthere, even intensified,is evidence of her serious and deeplypersonalthought devoted to complex pedagogical issues and her incomparableabilityto make these matters come alive with greatclarity for the widestprofessional readership.It is no mean accomplishment

mes-RussellN.CampbellWilliamE.Rutherford

To m y par e nts, El a i ne a nd R andolph L a rsen,

w ith h eartfelt gr at it ude fo r t heir l ov e a n d

107

10 Conrenr-bascd,Task-based, and Participatory

11 Lea rning Stra tegy Training, CooperativeLearning,

and MultipleIntelligences 159

Imustbeginb thankingthe readersof thefirst editionof this book.Yourreceptivenesshas enabled me to publish thisupdated second edition.In

add ition,i has beena jo yto interact with you

Theapproach Iha veused in this book is based on my experience inteachingthe methods/approachescourseat theSchool forInternational

Training.This book would not ha vebeen written inthe first plac i fiwere not for theinfluenc eof my colleaguesand st udentsther e.Iamverygra teful tothemall.In particular.forthis second editio n,ImustsingleoutCarolyn Nims, who went out of her way to give me comments basedupo n her experience in usingthe book ina reachered ucation program Debra Blake andBillConleywere also kindenough to read port ions ofthis manuscript and offercomments

Thisbookhas alsobenefitte dfromthe fact ha tleading methodologistshave generouslyrespo ndedtomyrequ est fo r feed backon portionsof thisman uscript I am indebted to Earl Stev ick (To the Teacher Ed ucato r],Shakti Gattegno of Educational Solutio ns Inc (S ent Way ), Geo rgiLozanov,Alison Miller,and Tctsuo Nishizaw a (Desuggestopcdia}, Jenny-belleRardin and Pat Tiro ne ofCounseling- Le arnin lnstirurcs(Comm u-nit y Lang uage Learning ), James Asher (Total Physical Response],

MarjorieWesche (co ntent- basedinstruction),an Elsa Auerbachiparoryapproach) Their comments made me feel more confident that Ihave inrcrp rcred the met hod ologists' intent Iam also gratefu l for thecomments of Ruth Wajnryb of LARA Consultancy in Australia, andJoan n Cranda ll.Any remainin g errors of interpr eta tion are, of co urse,fullymy responsibili ty,

(partie-For the initialfait h they sho wed and for theircontinu ed enco ment andhelpfulsuggesrions.!ackno wledge withgra titudethe editorsof

urage-thisseries, Russell Campbell and William Rut herfo rd

Ithas also been apleasure workingwiththe ed itors at Oxford Univesit)'Press firstAnne Conybea reand then Julia Sallabank

r-Finally,I must expressmy Jeep appreciation to my spouse Elliott, whohas as always.givenme his support throughout this project

Dia neLarsen-Freeman

To the Teacher Educator

ON LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODS AND THEIR USE

IN TEACHER EDUCATION

A study of methodsisinvaluable in teachereducation in at leastfiveways:

1 Methodsserveasafoilfor reflection that can aidteachersin bringing

to conscious awareness the thinking that underliestheir actions We

know that teachers come to teacher training with ideas about the

teaching/learn ing process for medfro mthe yea rs theyhave spentas st u

-dent s thems elves(I.ortie1975) A majorpurposeof teachereduca tion

is to h elpteachers make the tacit explicit (Shulman 1987; Freem an

1991 ).When teachersarcexposed to methodsandask ed to reflecton

their principles and actively engage with their tech n iq es, they can

becomeclearerabout whythey do what theydo They becomeaware

of theirown fundamental assumpt ions, values,and beliefs

theyareattractedtocertain meth ods andrepelled byoth ers.They arc

ableto makech oices that arcinformed, not cond itioned.They may be

able to resist, or at leastargue against, the imposition of a particular

method by authorities In other situations , where a meth o d is notimposed, met hods offer teachers alte rnatives to wha t they currently

thin k and do.Itdoes not necessarilyfollow thatteachers will chooseto

und erst andi ngtodo so, if theyare abletoand wan tto

With it,teachersjoin a communityof practic e(Freeman 1( 92).Beinga

communitymemberentailslearn ing theprofessiona ldiscoursethatco rn

-munity membersuse so thatprofessionaldialog ca n takeplace.Being

pa rt of a discoursecommunityconfersa professionalidentity andco n

-nects tea cherswith others so theyare not so isola ted in their practice

4 A professionaldiscourse communitymay alsochallenge teachers'con

-ceptions of how teachin g leads to learning Interact ng with oth ers'

X To th e Teacher Edu cat or

conceptio nsofpracticehelps keep teachers' teachingalive-helps

pre-ventitfrom becoming staleandoverlyroutinized(Prabhu1990),

5 Aknowledge ofmethods helps expand a teacher'srepertoire oft

ech-niques This in itself providesan addition al avenue for professional

growth as some teachers find their way to new philosophical posi

-tions noth first entertainingnewprinciples butrather by tryingout

new techniques Moreover effective teachers who arc more ex

peri-enced and expert have a large, diverse repertoire of best practices

(Arends 1998), which presumably helps them deal more effectively

,v-irh the unique qua lities andidiosyncras iesof theirstudents

Despitethese potentialgain sfrom a study of methods,it is Importantto

acknowledgethat sincethepublcationof the first editionof this hookin

1986, a numberof writersin our field have criticizedtheconcept of

lan-guage teachingmethods Some say rhar methods are prescriptions for

classroom behavior,and that teachers arcencouraged b textbook pub

-lshersandacademics toimplement them whether or not the methods are

appropriate for a particular context (Pcr mycook 1989; Richards 1990;

Holliday 1994).Othersha venoted thatthesea rchforthe best metho d is

ill-advised (Prabhu 1990; Ba rtolome 1994), that teachersdo not thin k

about methods when planning their lessons (Lon 1991), and that

methodologicallabelsrclluslittle abou twhat reallyoccursin classrooms

(Allwright 1988;Katz 1 96)

These criicisms havemade mesto p and think.1supposei is true,I

tho ught, thata particular methodcall beimposed onteachersby others

However, these othersarclikelyto bedisappointed if theyhope that

man-dating a particular method willlead to standardization For we know

that teaching ismore than followinga recipe.Anymethod isgoingtobe

shapedbya teacher's own understanding.beliefs, style,and level ofexp

e-rience Teachers arenot mere conveyorbeltsdeliveringlanguagethrough

inflexible prescribed and proscribed behaviors (Larsen-Freeman 1991);

theyare professionals whocan, in the bestof allworlds,ma ke their own

decisions They arcinformed bytheirown experience.the find ings fro m

research,and the wisdom of practice accumulatedby theprofession (sec,

forexa mple, Kumaruvadivc!u1994)

Furthermore.a method isdeconrcxrualizcd Howa method is

imple-mented in the classroom is going to he affected not onlyby who the

reacher is.butalsoby whothestude nts are,theirand the teacher's cxpcc

-rations of appropriate social roles the instit utional constra ints and

dema nds and factors connected to the wider sociocultural context in

which the instruction takesplace.Eventhe 'right' method willnot com

-T oth e Teacher Ed ucator X I

pensare forinadequate conditions of learning or overcome sociopoliticalinequities Inaddition,decisions that teachers make areoften affectedbyexigencies in the classroom rather than b meth odological considera-tions,Sayingthat apart icular methodispracticed cert ainlydocs not give

us thewhole pictureof whatis happenin in theclassroom Then,too,

since a method ismore abstractthan a teachingactivit y it isnot sur ingthat teachers think in terms ofactvities rather than methodologicalchoices when theyplan theirlessons

pris-Thus whileIundersta nd the criticisms, Ido not believethatastudyoflangua ge teaching method s shou ld be excluded from language teachereducation It is not meth ods, but how they are used that isat issue Astudy ofmethodsneed not lead to the de-skillingof eachersbut rather

canserve avariety of useful functionswhen usedappropriatelyinteachereducation Itcan help teachersarticulate, and perhaps transform, their

understa nding of the teaching/learning process Method s can serve asmodels of the integrationoftheory (the principles)and practice (the tech-

niques).Their studycanencouragecon tinuin g educationin thelifelongprocess of learning to teach (Larsen-Freeman 1998) Teachers andteachereducators shouldnot be blindedbythe criticismsof methodsandthus fait to see their invaluable contribution to teacher education and

cont inuing development Key to doing so, though is moving beyondideology to inquiry, a movement to which I hope this book willcon-tribute

CHANGES IN THE SECOND EDITION

Inadditiontosome modestupdatingof allthemethod spresented inthefirstedition, Cha pter 6 has undergoneasubstantial revisio torefle ttheevolutionof Suggesropedia(first edition)toDesuggestopedia in this edi-tion Further, the Introduction (Chapter 1)has beenexpanded Contr ary

to those who fear that a method will beimposed on practitioners, myexperience as a teachereduca toris rharthechallenge liesingetti ng teach-ersto leave behind teaching as theywere taught and become aware of,

and opento , alterna tives.Ithereforewelcome the opportunity thattheexpanded chapter has given me toelaborateon one waythatopenness

canbe encouraged

Another change isthe inclusion ofmethodsthat have come intoprominence since thefirst editionof this book.Inordertokeepthis bookfrombecomingroolong,Ihave groupedanumber ofmethodsin twochapters

-In addition to considerations of length , I have justified this decisionbecause i seems these metho ds have in common the views that first,

XII T o th e Teac he r E d uca to r To t h e Teac her E du cat or Xlll

Allwright, Dick 19 88 O bservation illth e Classroo m London: Lon

g-nun

Anthony, Edward 196 3 'Approach, metho d, and technique.' E llglish

L anguage T eaching J ailmal 17: 6]-7 reprinted in Allen, H and R.Campbell(cds.):T eachi ng ~llglish as,1Second Language (2nd edn.)

1972.New York:~ 1cGraw·Hi ll.

withmany faces' bot h to mak e(he casefor corircnr-bascd inst ruction as a

method oflan uage teaching, and (0capture thegreat varietyof forms

andsett ings in whichitrakes place.Kuma ravadivelu(1993)observesthat

thererm'(ask' is oftenused withreference (Qbothcontentand mogy oflanguage(cachin g Indeed, within thestrong version of a commu-

crhodol-nicati veappro ach (Howatt 1984), (he traditiona lseparatio n ofsyllabus

design and meth od ology isblurred If students learn(Qcommun icate by

com municating(Breen 1984) (hen (he destina tion and the routebecom e

oneandthe same (Nuna n 19 89) fina lly.if we applythe definition of a

met hod we are using inthis book,'A method is a coherent set ofthou

ght-in-act ion links,' then thethreerightfu llybelong

Some mightalso question whet herthe three arc distinctive enoughto

betreated separately For example Skehan(1998) makes the pointth at

one could regard much content-based instruction (as well as projectwork, which we will also briefly consider in Chapter 10) as particularexamples of a task-based approach And others have suggestedthat task-based and participatory approachesare a form of content-basedinstruc-

tion.ln any case, althoughit shouldbe acknowledgedthat these methods

arc unified by (he assumption rhat students learn (Q communicate by

communica ting, (heir scope and their particular foci seem distin cti ve

eno ugh( 0 warrantindependen t treatm ent

Fina lly,althou gh I ha ve made every effort toward a faith fulrender ing

of each meth od and meth od ological innova tion, (here will undo ubtedl y

bethose whowould not totally accept myrendition Thisisunder stan d

-able and pro bab ly inevitable.My description is, as i must be,aproduct

of my ownexperience

It smy since re hope(hat this book willbothinforman stim ula te itsreaders and that it willenco urage them to reflect, inq uire, and experi-ment If it meet sthese goals,thenirmayhelptorestore faith in the app ro-priateuseof reachi ngmet hod sin lan guagereacher ed ucat ion

langua ge can best belearn ed wheniristaughtthrou gh com muni cation,

rat her than fori (Chapte r to ,on content- base d,task-based, and p

artici-parory approaches), and second , that language acq uisitio n can be

enhanced hy worki ng nor onlyon language, bur also on the process of

learning (Chapter It, on learning stra tegies, cooperative learn ing, and

multiple int elligences)

Afurth er substantial mod ificati on isthat theepilogueof the firste

di-tio n ha s growninroa fullcha pte rofits own (Chapter 12)in(his second

ed ition Readersofthefirst editionhave rold methat they wished thatJ

had concluded with a mo re explicit evalua tion and comparison of the

methods Ichosenottodo sointhefirstedition of thisboo k.as Iam not

of the opinionthat (he purposeof learni ng about methods is soonecan

adopt the right one, or that I could choose for oth ers which one that

would be.However, in this second edition, Ihave respo nded toreaders'

requests by provid inga summary chan ofthemethod s discussed in this

book, and by so doing, highlighting their major differences I have also

usedthe op portu nitytha ta fullfinal chapterpresentsto indulgemyself in

sharing with reader s my views o making informed metho do logica l

cho ices

A wo rd abo ut nomenclature is also in order I am using (he term

'meth od ' herenortomean aformula ic presc ription, hutrathera coheren t

set of links between principles and certa in techniques and procedu res

Anth o ny(1963)has madethecase foratripartitehier archy Ashe putit:

, techniques carryouta meth od whichis co nsistentwithanapproac h'

(p 64).Fo llowing Am ho ny,incertainofthechapters,Jwill introd ucea

partcular method by sho wing h w it isan exa mpleofa more genera l

approach ro language teaching However, not all methodsdiscussed in

this book conveniently follo w from a general approach They all do,

though, have both a concep tual and an operational co mpo nent, fining

thedefinition in Richardset a (1992):Dictionary o f L anguage T eaching

& Appli ed L inguistics (amethod is'a way of teaching a langua gewhich

is based onsystema tic principlesand procedures' ), and justifyingmyuse

of theterm.Admittedly,Iso metimes havefoundit difficulttousetheterm

'method' with more recent innovations, such as co nrenr-based in

srruc-tion and coo perative learning At times, I have resorted to the term

'methodological innovation s.'

Even so,so me langua ge ed ucato rs mightobjectto theinclu sion of

con-rent -ba sed,task-based, and participatory ap proac hes inamethodsbook ,

for theymight bemore com forta blecalling these sylla bus types.Never

-rhclcss, others feci thata method designation is ver yappropriate Snow

(199 1),forinstan ce, cha racterizesconten t- ba sedinstr uction asa'metho d

B rattlebo ro, V erm ollt

REFERENCES

Dian eLar sen-Freeman

X IV T oth e T e a c h e r E d uc a t o r

Arends,Richard.1 998 I e a m i n t o T each (4thcdn.)NewYork:Mctiraw

-tlill

Bartolo me,Lilia 1994.'Beyo ndthe method s fetish:Towarda hum

an! -in pedagogy.' H a rvard Ed ucatio nal R eview 64/2: 173 - 9

Breen,Michael 19 84 'Process syllabusesforthelan guageclassroom' in

Brumfit,C (cd.): G eneral E nglish Syll abus D esign- Curriculum an d

Sy llabus D esignfor t he Ge neral E nglisb C lassroom(Ef L Documents

118) Oxford: Pergamo nPressfor theBritish Council

Freem an , Don ald 1991 'To make the tacitexplicit:Teachereducatio n,

emerg ing disco urse and co nceptio ns of teaching.' T eaching and

T eacher E ducation7:439- 54

Freeman, Donald 1 92 'Language teacher education , emerging

dis-course,andchange in classroo m practic e' inFlo,v-erdcvv,j.,M Brock,

and S. Hsia (cds.): P erspectives o n Second Lang uage T each er Ed

uca-t ion.Ho g Kong:CityPo lytechni c of Hon gKon g

Holliday,Adrian 1994.A pp ro priat e M etbo doi ogy and Social Con tex t.

New York : CambridgeUniversityPress

Howatt,A.P.R.1984.AJ-li story o f e nglish Lang uage Teach ing Oxfor d:

Oxford UniversiryPress

Katz,Anne.1996.'Teaching style:a waytounder stand instr uctio inlan

-guagecla ssrooms' in Bailey,K.an D.Nunan (eds.): V oices from the

La ngu age C lassroom. Cambridge:Ca mbridge UniversityPress

Kumaravadivclu ,B 1 93 'The name ofthetaskandthetaskofnaming:

Methodological aspectsoftask -based pedagogy' in Croo kes, G.andS

Gass (cds.):T as k s in a P e dag o gi ca l Cont ext. Clcvcdon: Multilingual

Matters

Kuma rava divclu, H 19 94.'T heposrmerhod co nd ition:[Ejmcrgingstra

te-gies for second/foreig lan gu age teaching.' T ES OL Q ua r t er/)' 2 / 1 :

27-48

Larse n-Freema n, Diane 1991 'Resea rchon language reaching meth od

-ologies:A reviewofrhcpast andanagendafo r the fut ure'in deBot ,K

R.B.Ginsberg,and C.Kramsch(cds.):F or e ign l an g na gc R ese ar c h i n

C ro ss-cul tura l t' ers ne ct i oe Amsterda m/Phila del phia :Jo nBcniamins

Publishin

Lorscn-Frccman, Diane 199 H.'Learning reachin gisa lifelo ngprocess.'

Pe rs pe c uuc e XX IV/ 2:5-1I

Lon g,Micha l 1991.' FO Cll Son fo rm:I\.design featu reinlan uageteach

-ingmethodology'in deBot, K.,R.B.Ginsberg.andC.Kramsch(eds.):

F or eign La n ua ge R esea rch i n C roes-cutturo l Pe rspoctiue,Amsterdam/

Philadelphia:John Bcnjami nsPublish ing

T o th e Tea ch e r Educa tor x

Lortie,Dan 1975 Sc hoolteacher: A Socio logical S tud)'.Chicago :Un iver

-sityof Chicago Press

Nunan, David 1989 D esiglling Tas ks {or the Com mu nicative C room Cam bridge:Cambridge University Press

lass-Pcnnycook , Alastair 19 89 'T he concept of method, interested knowl

-edge, and the politics(If languageteaching.' T ESOL Q uarterly 2 3/4 :

591-615

Prabhu,N.S.1990 'There isn best method-w hy?' TF.SOLQ uarterl)'

24 /2, 1 1 - 7 6

Richards.jack.1990 Th e Language Teaching M atrix Cambridge:C

am-bridge UniversityPress

Sh ulman, Lee.1 87 'Knowledge-baseand teac hing: Foundations ofthe

new reform.' H arvard Ed ucational R eview 57/ 1 : 1 - 22

Skehan,Peter 199 8 'Tas k- basedinstruction.'A nnual R eview of Ap plied Lin guistics: F ou ndationsofSecond La nguage Teac h ing.Volume 18.Snow, Margu erit e Ann 1991 'Content-based in stru ct ion: A met hod

with many faces' in Alaris,j E.(ed.) Georgetow n Univers ity R ou nd

T able 0 11 Lang uages and linguistics Washington, DC: Georgetown

Univer sityPress

1 Introduction

GOALS OF THIS BOOK

Oneof the goa ls of thisbook is for youtolearnaboutmany different l

an-gu age teaching metho ds I will use theterm 'la ngua geteac hing meth od '

tomean a coherentsetoflinks between actionsand thoug hts in language

teaching.The actions are the techniques and the thought s are thepr

inci-ples in the title of this book: T echniq ues a nd Pr inciples in Langu age

T eachin g.

Asecondgoalis to help yo u uncover thethoughtsthatguide yo urown

actions as a teache r They may not be ones of which you arc aware

Seeking to deter mine which princi p les of the methods you read abo ut

here are most [dis jha rm onious with your ownthink ingwill help yo uto

uncoversome of yourimplicitthoug hts andbeliefs about reaching

A thirdgoal is to introduce you to a varietyoftechniques, some ofwhichwillbe new Althoughcertain techniquesmay require furthe rtrain-

ing, orherscanbe immediatelyimplemented Feel free to experiment and

adapt thosetechniques to your teachingcon text

THOUGHT-iN-ACTION LINKS

It is import ant to recogni ze that methods link thoughts and actions

beca useteachi ngis notent irelyabou t one or theother.Ofco ursethis isas

tru e abou t your own teachin g asi isabout any meth od you will read

abo ut in thisbook As a teache rof langua ge, you have rhoughts ' about

yoursubject matter-what la nguage is, whatcultureis- and about yourstudents-whothey are as learners andhow it is they learn Yo u also have

thoughts nbour yourself as a teacherand what yo ucan do to help yourstudents learn lt is very important for you to become aware of thethoughts that guide your actions in the classroom.With this awareness,you willbe able to examinewhy you do whatyou do and perhaps choose

to think about or dothingsdifferentl y

I will usc the term lllOlIghl> for the sake of simplicity; howl'vrr, I mean for thoughtsto inrllll.le helief" ;ltt ;tllde" v.,I1,es, and awarene" as well.

2 lntr odnc tion I ntrodu ction 3

As anexam ple-,lcrmerelate ananecdoteabo uta teacher withwhom I

wasworkinga fewyearsago Iwillcallher Heather, althoughthat isno t

her real name h om her study of method " in Stevick (1980), I leather

becamevery iureresred inhow ro work withteachercontrolandstuden t

initiative in her teaching Heather determined tha t during her stude nt

reaching internshipshe would exerciseless controlof the-lessonin orde r

ro enco urage her students to rak e moreinit iative.She-decided ronarro w

the goaldowntohaving stu dentstakeinitiativeinposing thequest io ns in

the classroom, recognizingthatso oftenit isthereach er who asks all the

questions,notthe st ude nts

rwas Heath er's teaching supe rviso r.When Icametoobserve her, she

was very discou raged She felttha t the stu dents werenottakingthe ini

-tia tivethat she was trying to get themtotake,bur shedid nor know what

was wrong

WhenIvisited her class,Iobse-rve-d the following:

This pattern cont inued fo r so met me It was dea r toseethat Heather

hadsuccessfullyavoided the commonproblem ofthe teacher asking all

the quest ionsin theclass.The teacherdid not ask thequestions- theS Ul

-dentsdid Ho wever,Heath er hadnotrealzedher asp ira tionofenco

urag-ing studentinitative sincei was shewhotookthein itiative by promp ting

the students rc askthequestions He ther and Idiscussed the mat ter in

thepost-observation conference

Heather came to se cthatifshetrulywantedstudent stotakemor e

ini-tiat ive, then she wou ld ha vetoset upthesituationina way that her par

-ticipato ninanactivitywasn t essen tia l Wetalked aboutseveralwa ys

of herdo ingthis.Du ring thisdiscussion, Heat hercametoano the r impor

-runt awa reness She realized t hat since she was a fairly inexp erienced

reacher; she felt insecu re about havingthe stude nts make rhc decisions

abou twhosays what to whomwhen Wha tif the studentswere rouskher

man q estions that she co uld not answe r? Wh ilehaving students ta ke

initiativein theclassroom was consonant with her values, Heathe r real

-ized tha tsheshouldthink furtherabou trhclevel ofstudent initiative with

whichshecouldbe comfortableatth is point inhercareeras ateacher.Wt'

talkedabo utoth eroptions shecouldpursu easwell The poi ntwas that it

Juan, ask Annawhat she is wearing

What areyouwearing?

Iamwearing,1dress

Anna,ask Muriel wha tshe is writing

Wha tareyouwriting?

Iam writingaletter;

was not necessar ilysim plyamatt er ofHeatherimprovinghertech niqu e;

she could secthat that W,}S one possibility.Another was to ret hink the

wa yinwhichshethou ht abo ut her teac hing(Larsen-freeman 199 3 )

The lin ks bet ween thought an action were very import ant in

Heather's teaching She came to realize that when somet hing was notgoing as shehadintended, shecouldchange oneor she couldcha ngethe

other.Heather had an idea ofwhat she wanted toacco mplish- but theaction she chose to carry out her idea did not accomplish her purpose

Whensheexa minedher intentionsmoreclearly,shesaw that shewas not

yet read ytohaw her stu de nts'takecompleteinitiativeinthelesson

A COH EREN T SET

Returning to the met hods in this hook, we will see th at it is the link

between tho ught s and actions that is commonto them all But there is

anot he rway in whichlinks arc made in methods, and that is thecon tion between one thought-in-action link and another A met hod is acoherent setof suchlnksin the sense that he reshouldbe some theoren-

nec-calor philosophicalcompa tibilityamong the ln s.Ifa teache r believes

tha t lang ageis madeupof3set offixedpatrc ms,it mak eslittle sensefor

him or her to use techniqu eswhich help lea rner s discover the abstract

rules underlyingalan guagetoenable themtocreateno velpatterns

To sa)'thereis a coherence amo ng the lnksdoes not mean, h wever,

that hetechniquesofonemet hodcannot beusedwihano ther.The t

ech-niqu esmay lookverydifferent inpracticetho gh, ifthe tho ughtsbehin

themdiffer For example,Stevick(1993)has sho wnthat thesimpletech

-niqueof teaching student s a dialog usin a pictureto provide a context

c n lead to very diferent conclusions about teaching and learni ng

depend ingon how thetechnique ismanaged I the student s firstlookat

the pictu re,dosetheireyes whiletheteach er readsthedialog, and then

rep eat the dialog hit by bit after the teach er, repeating until they have

learn ed i fluently and flawl essly,the st ude nts could infer that it is the

teacherwho is the providerofall languageand its mean inginthe cla

ss-room They could further infer that theyshould use that 'part of their

bra ins thatcopiesbur not thepan that creates'(1993:432),

If, on theothe r hand,beforetheylsten toorrend thedialog, hey look

at the pict ureand describeit using wo rd san phrases theyc nsupply,

an then theyg esswha ttill'peopleinthepictu remightbesayin toeac h

other befo retheyhear the dialog,theymightinfer that their init iat iveis

welcomed, an that it is all righttobe wrong.If they the npracticethe die

-lo inpairs without str ivingforper ect recall,theymight also in fer that

4 Introdu ction

theyshould 'usc the part of their bra insthat creates' and that guessing

and app rox imatio n arc acceptable (1993 : 432 ) We can see from this

example howapa rticular techniquernigbrlook verydifferent (and might

lead students tovery differentconclusions abou tthe irlearning),depend

-ingon how itis managed.This may,inturn,be a prod uctof the tho ughts

and beliefs of thereacher whois puttingthetechn iq ue into practice

It is not my pur poseto have you sift throughthe methods presented

here in orderto choosetheonewith which yo ufeel the mostphilos op

hi-callv in rune Instead, I hop e that you will use what is hereas a fo il to

make explicit yo ur own beliefs about the teaching/learning process,

beliefs based upon your experience and your professiona l tra ining, the

research you know about, and even your social values.Itis not a question

of choosing between intact methods; nor should the presence of any

method in thisbookbe construed as anendorsement by me Further,this

book is not a substitute for actual trainin g in a particularmethod, and

specifictrainingis advised forsome of them.Finally,Tdidnot setouttobe

comprehensive and deal with allla ngu age teaching methods Therncrh

-ods- included in this book represent methodswhich are pract iced tod ay

and which reflect a diversity of views on the reaching and learn ing

processes Byconfro nt ingsuch diversity, and by viewingthethought

-in-action link sthat others have made , Ihope that yo u will arriveat your

own perso nalcon ceptual izatio ns of how tho ughts leadtoactionsinyour

teaching and how, in turn , yourteaching leads to learn ing in yourst

u-dents (Prabhu 1992).Ultimately, the choice amon g techniques and prin

-ciples depends on learningoutcom es,atheme to which I will returninthe

finalchapterof this book

DOUBTING GAME AND BELIEVING GAME

Some of what yo u encounterherewill no doubt confirmwhat you do or

believe alread y;other things you read abou tmay challengeyour notions

When our fundamenta l beliefs are cha llenged,wearc often quicktodis

-miss the idea.Itistoothrea tenin gtoam well-estab lished beliefs

Iwill neverfo rget one ofthe first timesIheard Caleb Catregno discuss

the Silent Way, amethod presented in thishook (sec Chapter5) Itwas at

alanguage reachingconvention in NewYork Cityin 19 76 Several things

Garrcgno talked abo ut that day were contrary to Illy own beliefs at the

l t ,hOI ,ld be acknowledged rh.ir not \11 01 rhc or igin'lwr, "I the tlIeth, ,,ls presented i n thi, book

would cal l their contribution 'I 'method' bn :au se t hey not e that the term isson"'li"", >ass,.><.: iilled

wi th form ulaic practice I hope t hnr I h,we made it clear that fur me a mcrhod is a way of con·

nccnng partic ular pri nciples w ith particu lar l~chni4ue s into a ""herem pa ckage, n Ola f ormula.

I ntroduction 5

time 1found myself listening to himand at the same time hearing this

doubtfu lvoicein my head saying'Wait a minute 'Gancguo said that day that a teachershou ldnever praisea student, noteven sav 'Go od' or smile.'Wait a minute,' I heard thevoice in my head

echoing, 'Everyone knows that being a good teacher means giving posi

-tive feedback tostudents and being concernedabout their affective side

ortheir feelings Besides,howwill thestudentsknow when they areright

if theteacherdoesn'ttell themso?'

Later,thou gh ,Tfoun dmyselfthinking, 'Ontheotherhan d, Cattcgno, Ican see why you arereluctant to give feedb ack.You havemade me thin kabout the power of silence Without having theteacherto rely on, stu-dents haveto assume responsibility for the work-just as you so oftensay, "only the learner can do the learn ing." 1can see how this silence is inkeeping with yo ur belief that the students must do without the overtapproval ofthe teacher They must co ncent rate on developing and then

satisfying their own "inner criter ia." Lea rnin g to listen to themselves

is part of lessening their reliance on the teacher The teacher will not

nlwa vs be (here, Also, they will be encouraged co form crite ria fo r

correct ingtheir ownmisrakes-c-for monito ringtheirown progress Jalsosee how you think rhnrif the teachermakesa bigdeal out of stude nts'suc-cess, heimplies that wha t the stu dent is doingis outoftheordinary-a ndthat thejo b of learning a language must be difficult Also, 1see that in

your viewstudents' security ispro videdfor by theirjust being acceptedwithout regar d for any linguisticsuccesses or diffi cu lties they might be

having.'Whatare thedifferencesbetw eenthe two voicesIhea rd in my head-c-

betweenthe'Waita minute' and the'On the other hand' responses? Well,perhaps icwould be dear er if we reflected for a moment on what it

requirescouph oldeach posit ion.What I have attempted to do is play two

game s described in an art icle, 'The Doubting Game and the Believing

Gam e,'which appea rsinanappend ix toa boo kauthored byPeterElbow(1973) Elbow believes that do ub ting and believing are games becau se

they are rule-govern ed, rit ua lized processes,which arenot reallife The

doubtinggame,Elbo w says, req uires logicand evidence.'It emphas izesa

mod el of knowing as an act of discriminat ion:putting somethingon trial

to sec whet herit is wanting or not' (Larsen-Freeman 19S.t 15).I thinkits

practice is someth ing far more common to theacademic worl d than its

counrc rpa rr-c-rhc believinggame 'O ur contempora ry educatio n, then,indoctrinates us in the glorification of doubt , has created in faa whatcouldalmost be calleda religion ortheology ofdo ub t,in whichtoheseen

to he intelligent we haveto be seentodoubt everything, toalways po int

6 Int roduction

[0 what's wrong and rarelyto ask what isright orgood ' (Rinpcc hc

1993:123-4).Many of usarc ver ygood at playing the doubtinggam e

then, bur wed so at a COSt.Wema yfind fault with a new ideabeforegiv

-ingit a properchance

What docs playing the believing game req uire, the n? The believing

game 'emphasizesa modelofknowingasan act ofconstr uct ing,anactof

invesrm enr, an act ofinvo lveme nt' (Elbo w 1 73: 163 ) It isnor justthe

withho lding of doubt Rat her, u asks us to put on the eyeglasses of

another person-e-re adopt his or her perspecrive-c-rosec the method as

theoriginator seesit.Fur t her,itreq uiresawillingn esstoexplorewhat is

new

While it may appea r thatthetraitsamiburedto thebelieving game arc

moredesirabl etopossess,Elbo wisnot arguing that we should allowthe

doubtingmuscle to atrophy,noram 1.Iam not advocating an abandon

-ment of the doubtinggame, bur ra ther that you attempt to understand

first beforeyou judge.Therefore,do not be quickto dismiss a princip leor

techniq ue sim plybecause, at first glance, itappea rs to be at odds with

your own beliefs or impo ssibl e to apply in your own situatio n For

inst ance, inone of the met hods wewillconside r,thestudents themselves

decid e what they want to sayand rherea ch er then translates it into the

target language(the lan uage rhat rheyare studyi ng ) If y nre ject rhis

te hnique asimpracticalbecau se yo u do not know your stude nts' native

languageor because yourstudentsspeakanumberof different nat ivelan

-guages,thenyOll ma ybemissing out o somethingvalu able.Youshou ld

first askwhat thepurposeof tra ns lat ing is:Isthere a principlebehind is

use inwh ichyou believe?Ifso,canyo u apply it anothe rway, say byinvit

-inga bilingual speakertocometoyour class now and again orbyhaving

you r stu dentsact om or paraph rase what they wantto be abletosay in

thelanguage they are studying?

LAYOUT OF CHAPTERS

We will learn about the meth od s byentering a classroom where each

method is being practiced In mostchapters in this book, one lan uage

teachingmethodispresen ted However,inafewcha pters.amore general

approac hto langua geteachin gisdescr ibed and what arcdep icted in the

chapter arcone or mo rt' method s that areexam plesoftheapproac h.j I

ha veassu med that observinga class willgiveyou agreater under stan d ing

J F o lI"wi ng Anth nn,,' ( 1 'h',l) uSC' of t he' te rmoJppro lchTo m m a \.('1 "f a~.umplion~ de lling

with Th e' natur e o f lanjl.u oljl.C' lear ning , a nd l a.'hing.

Introduction 7

ofa particular method and willgiveyo u more ofan opportunitytoreflect

on you rown practicethanif)'O Uweretosimply read adescriptionof it.It

sho uld be ackno wledge d,however.that theseclassroom encounters arc

ideal ized Anyone whois or hasbeen, a language teache rorst udent wilt

im med iately recognize that lessons seldo m go so smo othlyas the ones

you will sec hen,' In rhe rea l world students do not always catch onquickly and teachersha veto contend with manyother social andclass-room man agem entmattersthanwhatarcdepi ctedhere.AsIhave already

acknowledged, amet hoddocsnot reflecteverythingthatistranspiringin

theclassroom

We will obser ve the techniqu es the teacher is using and his or her

behav ior In the even-num bered chapters, the teache r is fema le;in theodd-numberedcha pters, theteacheris male.Afterobserv inga lesson, wewill infer the principleson which the teacher'sbehavior and techniques

arebased Although in most cases, we willobserveonly theone beginning

orintermediate-levelclass for each method,once theprinciplesareclear

theycan heapp liedtoothersitua t ions.Toillust ratethe applcationof the

principlcs armore tha n onelevel ofproficiency,in two instances,withthe

Silent Way and Desuggcsropcdia, we willfirst visita beginning- level classand thenlaterbrieflyvisit aclass atahigh-inter media televel Itsho uld he

noted that when learnersarcat the advan ced level, thedistinctive techniquesassociated witha method may be less visible becau se advanced

-lea rne rs ma y have special, w ell -d efin ed needs, suc h as learnin g how to

read and write acade mictexts 1iowcvcr;as we have seen withStevick'sexamp le of teaching a dialog, the way teachers think abo ut language

teachin gand learn ing willstillshapeho w theyworkat alllevels.After we have ident ified the principles, wewillanswerthe followingten questions:

1 Wha tarcthegoalsofteacherswhouse thismethod?

2 Wha tis therole oftheteach er?Whatistherole of thestude nts?

3 What aresomechcracrerisrics of the reaching/learn ing process?

4 Whar isthenature of stu dent-reache r int eracti on ?What is thenature

ofsrudcn t-s tudcn r intera ct ion?

S How arcri ll'feelingsofthe studentsdea lt wirh?

6 Ho wislan gua ge viewed?Ho wis cultureviewed?

7 What areas of language are emphasized? \X'hat language skills arc

emphasized?

8 Whatis the roleofthe students'native language?

8 Introduction

9 How is evaluat ionaccomplished?

10 How docstheteacher respond tosrudcnrerrors?

The answersto these questions willadd to our understa nding of each

met hod andallo w us to see somesalientdifferencesamong themethods

presente d here.Befo reread ing theanswers tothese questions in thebook ,

you migh t try to answerthem first yourself after goingthro ugh thefirst

partofthe chapter.Thismigh tincr easeyour understan dingof a method

and give you practicewith reflectingonanexperience

Followingthese questions, we will review thetechniqueswe observed

in thelesso n In some casesthe techniques willbeexpanded so that yo u

can tryto putthem into practiceifyo u wish Indeed, as we mentioned

ear-lier,another purpose of this book is to present a variety of techniques,

some ofwhich may be new to you,and to encourage you to experiment

with them.Weknowthat the moreexperienced teachers are, the broader

theirrepertoire oftechniques is(Arend s 1998).Presumably,such

versatil-ity allowsteachers to deal moreeffecti velywith theuniqueconstellation

ofstude nts with whom they arewo rkingat any on etime

In the co nclus ion toeachchapte r,youwill be askedtothink abo ut how

all of thisinformati on can beofusetoyouinyourteaching It is yo u who

havetoview thesemethod sthroughthe filter of your own beliefs,need s,

knowledge, andexperience Byplayingthebelievinggame, it is my hope

tha t no matterwhat yo urassessment ofa particularmethod, you will nor

have reached it without first, so to speak, gettinginside themethod and

looking out

At the end of each chapter are two types of exercises The first type

allows you to check yourinitialunderstanding of the method presented

The second type of exercise asks you to make the connection between

what you understand about a method and your own teaching situ ation

Wherever possible, I encourage yOlI to work withsomeoneelseas you

consider these Teaching can be a solitary act, but colla bo ra ting with

oth erteacher s can help enr ichourexper ience and nurt ureour grow th

R EFE RENCES AND ADDITIONAL RES OURCES

Anthony, Ed ward 1963 'App roach, meth od , and techn ique.' English

Camp bell(eds.): Teaching Eng/ish as a Second Language (2nd cdn.)

Richard s, Jack, John Platt , and Heidi Platt 1992 Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics(secondedition ) London:

Stevick, Earl W 1993 'Social meanin gs for how weteach' in Alaris,J.

(ed.) Georgetown University Roun d Tahle all La nguages and Linguistics Washin gto n, DC: Georgetown UniversityPress

Stevick, EarlW.1998 Working with Teaching Methods: W hat 's at Stake?

(Revised version of Stevick 1980 )Bosto n,MA: Heinle& Hein le

2 The Grammar-Translation Method

INTRODUCTION

TheGrammar-Tra nsl ati onMethod is notnew It hashaddifferentnames,buti has been used b languageteachersformany years.At one tme it

was calledtheClassical Methodsince i wasfirst used in theteachingof

theclassical lan guages,Latin and Greek (C hastain 1988) Earlierinthis

cent ury, this method was used forthe purpose of help ing students read

andapp reciate foreignlangua ge literature.Itwasalso ho pedthat, through

the st udyof the gramma r of the target lan guage, stude nts wo uld become

mo re familiar wit h the grammar of their native language and that this

familiaritywouldhelpthemspeak and writetheirnati ve language better

Finall y,i wasthou ghtthatforeig nlanguagelearn ingwould help studentsgrowintellectu all y; it was recog nizedthat studentswouldprobablynever

usetheta rget lan guage, but themeu m! exercise oflea rn ing i would he

benefi cial anyway

Let us try to understand the Grammar-TranslationMethod byobservingaclass wheretheteach er isusing ir The classisa hig -inter med iatelevel English class at a universityin Colo mbi a There arc forry-rwo stu-

-dentsin theclass.Two -hourclasses areconducted threetimes aweek

EXPERIENCE

Asweenter the classroom,the class isinthemiddleofreadinga passa ge

intheirtextbook.Thepassag eisan excerpt enti tled'TheBoys'Ambition'

from Mark Twai n'sUf e0 11th e Mi ssissippi. Each stude nt is calledon toreada few linesfrom the passage.Afterthey havefinished read ing, theyarc askedto translate into Span ishthefewlines they ha ve just read The

teac he rhelpsthem with new vocabularyiems When the student shawfinished read ing and translat ing the passage, rhc reac he r asks them inSpanish ifthey have anyquestions Onegirl rai ses her hand and says,'W ha t is paddlewheel ?' Theteacher replies,' Fs un a m eda d e p aletas.:

Then she contin ues inSpa nish to exp lain ho witlooked and workedon

the srcarnboa rs whic h moved up and down theMississipp i Rivet duri ng

12 The Grammar -Trans lation M ethod T he Grammar -Trans la tion Method 1

These word s arc taken from the passage youhave just

read Someof them arc reviewword sand othersarcnew

Give the Span ish tran slation fo reac h of them You may

refer back to thereadingpassage

Exercise 2B

Findthe antony m foreach:

excerpt.Hands goup; a hoy answers,'Obscurity.' 'Bien ,' sa ys thereacher

Whenall of thesecognatesfrom thepassage havebeenidentified, thestudents arc told to turn tothe nextexercise inthe chapterand to answerthe

-question,'What do these cognates mean? 'There is a lung list of English

words ('curiosity,' 'opportunity,' 'liberty,'crc.], which the studentstranslate into Spanish

-The next section of the chap terdeals withgram mar The stude nts fo

l-low in their books as the teacher read s a descript ion of two-wo rd orphrasalverbs Thisis a reviewfor them as theyhave encount ered phrasa l

verb s befo re Nevertheless, there are some new two-w ord verbsin the

passage rhe students haven't learned yet.These arc listed followingthe

description,and the studentsarc askedtotranslatetheminto Spanish.Then

they arc giventherulefor use of a directobjectwith two-wordverbs:

Ifrhctwo-wordverb is sepa rable, thedirectobjectmay comebetw een

the verb and itspanicle Ho wever, separa tio n is necessary when the

directobjectisa pronoun If theverb isinseparable, then there isn

scpn rarion of theverb and particle bytheobject Fo r example:

0'

r-geous." ,Theteacher translates,' Primorosc:'

Since the stude nts have11 0 mo re questio ns, the reacher asks them to

write theanswersW thecomp rehensio n questions whichappear at the

end of the excerpt The question s are in English, and the stude nts are

instructed to writethe answers to them in Englishas well.Theydo the

first one together as an example Astudent read s out loud,'W hen did

Mar kTwainlive?'Another student replies,'MarkTw ainlivedfrom1835

-erly bythemselves

In additionto questionsthat ask for informationcontained withinthe

the first type, they have to make inferences basedon their understanding

ambitio us? Whyor whynot?'Theother type of question requiresthestu

-dents to relate thepassage to their own experience For example, oneof

the questions based on thisexcerpt asks them , 'Haveyo u ever though t

Afterone-halfhour, theteacher,speaki ng inSpa nish, asksthe stude nts

tosto p and "heck theirwork Oneby one eac hstudent readsaquestion

and then read s hisor her respo nse If it is correct, the teacher callso

ano ther student to read thenext question If the answer isincorrect, the

teacherherselfgivesthe rightanswer

Announcingthe nextactivity,the teacherasks the students to turn the

page intheir text There IS a list ofwords there.Theintroduction to the

exercise tells the stude ntsthat these arc wo rds taken from the passage

'wharf,' 'tran q uil,' 'gorgeous,' 'lo athe,' 'envy,' and 'hum bly.' They are

toldtha t some oftheseare review words andthatothersare new to them

The student sarc instructed to give the Spanishword fo reachof them

This exercise the classdoes toget her.Ifno oneknows the Spanish cquiva

-lent,the teachergives it.InPart2of this exercise, the students are given

Englishwordslike 'love,''nois y,' 'ugly; and 'proudly,'andare directedto

find theopposites of thesewordsin thepassage

Whentheyhave finished this exercise, theteacher remind sthemthat

English wo rds that look like Spani sh words arc called 'cogna tes.' The

English vty,"shesaysfor example, often correspondstotheSpanis hend

-~ n~s.- dadand- tad.She callsthest lldent~ 'atten tion tothewo rd'p

ossibil-tty In thepassageandtellsthem that tim word is the same as the Spanish

posib ilidad The teacherasks thestudents to find other examples inthe

ambitioncareer

4 Writea compos itionintheta rget languageaboutanambitionthey ha ve.

S Memorize the remain ing vocabulary items and write sentences foreach

6 Take a quiz on the gra mmarand vocabularyof thischapter.Theywill

be asked to tra nslat e a Spanish paragraph abou t steamboa ts into

English

14 Th e Grammar - Tran slation Method

hil t n ot

Johnputawayi

(because'putaway' is a sepa rab letwo- wordverb)

The teacher went over the homework

b nt no !

The teacherwent thehom ewo rkover

(beca use'go over' is an inseparabletw o -word verb)

Afterread ing overthe ruleandtheexamples, the studentsareaskedtotell

whichof the fo llow ing two-wordverbs, taken from the passage,arese

p-arableand which insepar a ble.Theyrefer tothepassage for clues.If they

cannot tell from the passage, they use their dictionar ies or ask their

Finally,they are askedtoputoneofthesephrasal verbsin the blank of

each ofthetensente ncestheyarcgiven They dothe first twotogeth er

1 Mar kTwain decided to _ _ because hisparent s would n' tlet him

getajob ontheriver,

2 The sreamboa tmen _ _ anddischa rge freight at eachpo rt on the

Mississip piRiver

Whenthe stu dentsarcfinishedwit hthisexerc ise,theyread theiranswer s

aloud

At the end of the chapter there is a list of voca bulary items that

appeared in the passage.The list is divided intotwo parts:thefirst con

-tains words,and the second, idiomslike 'to givesomeone the coldsho

ul-der.' Next ro each is a Spanish word or phrase Fo r homework , the

teacherasksthestudents to memorizethe Spa nishtranslat ionfor thefirst

twent ywo rdsand to writea sentencein Englishusing each word

Inthetwo remaininglesson s this week, thestudents will beaskedto:

I Writeout thetranslation of the read ing passageinto Spanish

2 State the rulefor theuscof a directobject with two-word verb s,and

applyit to otherphrasal verbs

3 Do the remaining exercises in the chapter that include practice with

one setofirregular pastparticiple fo rms The student swill beaskedto

memorizethe present tense,pasttense, and past participle fo rms ofthis

irregularparadigm:

THI NK I NG ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE

This has been just a brief introduction to the Grammar-Translation

Method , but i is prohahly true that this method is not new to many of

you Yo umay havestu d iedalangu age in this way,or you may heteach

-ingwith this method rightnow Whetherthis is trueornot,letus see what

wehavelearnedabouttheGra mmar- Tra nslat ionMet hod.We arc able to

make a num ber ofobservationsabou t theclass we atten ded Ouro

bser-vat ion swillbelistedin the left colum n;from them we willtry toident ify

the principlesofthe Gramma r-Tra nslatio nMeth od The principles will

be listedintherightcolumn.We will makeour observa tions inorder,

fol-lowingthelesson plan oftheclass we observed

Afund amenta l purposeof

le rninga foreignlanguage is to be

abletoreadliterat ure writtenin it

Literar ylanguage issuperiorto

spoken language.Students'study

of thetarget cult ure is limit edtoitsliteratu re andnne arts

An important goal sforst udents

tobeableto translat e each

langua geinto the other.Ifstu dents

canrm nsla rc from one langua geintoanother,theyare considered

success ful anguagelearners

16 The Grammar- Translation Method Th e Grammar-Translation Method 17

2 What is the role of the teacher? What is the role of the students?

REVIEWING THE PRINCIPLES

1 What are the goals of teachers who use the Grammar-TranslationMethod?

Thero les arcv ery traditiona l.Theteacher is the authorityintheclass

-room Thestudentsdo as she says so theycan learn what sheknows

Wherever possible, verbconjuga tionsand othergra mm atica lpara digmssho uld be

co mmitte dto memory

Principles

Students shouldbe conscio usofthe grammatical rulesof thetargetlanguage

3 What are some characteristics of the teaching/learningprocess?

St udents arc taught totra nslat efrom onelanguageto another.Oftenwhat they translate are rea dings in the target language about some

There were other activitiesplanned for the rema inderofthe week, butinthis book we will follow the practiceof not listingan observationunlessitleadstoour discovering adifferentprincipleof the method

Accordingtotheteacherswhouscthe Gramm ar-Tran slationMethod,

a fundamental purpose of learn ing a foreign language is to be able

to read literature writ ten in the target language To do this,studentsneed to learn about the grammar rules and vocabulary of the targetlanguage In additio n , i is believed that studyinga foreign languageprovidesstudent swith good menta lexercise whichhelps develop theirminds

The principles oftheGrammar-Tran sla tionMet hod arc organi zed belo w

by answe ring the ten quest ions posed in Chapter 1(pages 7-8).Notall

the questions are addressed by the Gram ma r-Translation Method ; wewill listall the quest ions, however, so tha ta com pa risonamongthe mcth -

odswewill study will be easierfor you tomake

3 Theteacherasksstudents in The abilityto communicate inthe

theirnativelanguage ifthey target lan guageis nota goal of

have anyquestions A student fo reignlanguageinstr uction

asksone and is answe redin

hernati velan uage

4 Stude nts writeoutthe answers Theprimary skills to be developed

to readingcomprehension are reading and writing.Little

questions attention is given to speaking and

listen ing, and almostnonetopro nun ciation

S Theteacherdecides whether Theteacheris the aut horit yin the

an answeris correct ornot.If cla ssro o m.Itis veryimportant

theanswe r is incorrect,the that studentsgetthecorrect

teacherselects adifferent answer

student tosupp ly the correct

answeror thereacher herself

gives theright answer

(, Studentstranslat enewwords Itispossible to find native

from Englishinto Spanish lan uageequivalentsfor all target

languagewords

7 Students learn that English Learningis facilirarcdthro ugh

'vty'corresponds to- dadand attentiontosimilar itiesbetween

-tadin Spanish thetargetlan guage and the native

language

8 Studentsarc givena gra mmar Itisimportan tfor students to

ruleforthe liseof adirect learn about the form oftheta rget

object withtwo-wordverbs langua ge

9 Stude ntsapp lya ru leto Ded uctive ap plicationof an

examplestheyarc given explicitgrammarruleis a useful

peda gog ical technique

10 Students memori ze Languagelear n ing providesgood

vocabula ry menta lexerc ise

1 The Grammar- Translation Method

aspectof theculture ofthetargetlanguagecommunity.Students stu dy

gra m mar deductively; that is, theyarcgiven the gra mmar rules and

examples,aretoldco memorizethem,and then arc askedto apply the

rulesto other exa mples Theyalsolearn grammatical paradi gms such

asverb co njugations Theymemorizenative-langu age equivalents for

target -langu age voca bulary words

4 What is the natureof student-teacherinteraction?What isthenature

of student-student interaction?

Mostof the interaction intheclassroom is from theteacher to thest

u-dents.Thereis little student initiat ionand littlestudent-student inter

-action

5 How are the feeLings of the students deaLtwith?

There arc no principlesof themethod which relate to thisarea

6 How is the languageviewed? How iscuLture viewed?

Litera ry lan guage is co nsidered superio r to spoken langua ge and is

therefore the language that students stud y Cultureis viewed ascon

-sistingoflirernture and the fine arts

7 What areas of language are emphasized? Whatlanguageskills are

emphasized?

Vocabular y aod gramma rare emphasized Readin g andwriting arethe

primar y skillsthat the students work on There ismuchless attention

given to spea king and listening Pronunci at ion receives little, if any,

attention

8 What is the roleof the students'native language?

Themeaningof thetargetlan guageis made clear by translatingit into

the students' native language The lan uage that is used in class is

mostlythestudents' native language

9 How is eval uationaccompli shed?

Writt entestsinwhichstu dents are asked co tran slatefrom theirnative

langu ageto the targetlanguageor viceversaarcoften used Question s

ubour the ta rget cultureor questions that ask students TOapplygram

-mar rules are also common

The Grammar - Tra nslation Method 1

10 Howdoesthe teacherrespondto studenterrors?

Havin gthe stude ntsget the correctanswer is considered veryimpo

r-tant Ifstudents makeerrorsor do not knowananswer,the teach er

sup plies themwiththe correct answer

REVIE W I NG T HE TE CHN IQUES

Ask yourself if any of the answers to the above questionsmake sense to

you Ifso, you may choose to try someof the techniq ues of the Grammar

-Translation Method from the reviewthat follows.On the other hand,

you may find that you agree verylittle withthe answers to thesequestions,but that there arc still som eusefultechniquesassociated with the

-Gram mar-Tra nslation Metho d Below is an expanded description of

some of these techniques

Translation of a literarypassageStudentstranslate a reading passage from the target lan uage inro theirnativelan uage Thereadingpassagethenprovidesthefocus fo rseveral

classes:vocabularyandgra m matica lstruct uresinthepassageare stud ied

in subseq uent lessons.The passagemay he excerpted from some work

from the targetlan guage lite ra t ure, orateachermay writea passage care

-fullydesigned to include particular grammar rulesand vocabulary The

translationmay hewrittenorspokenor both Studentsshou ldnot

trans-late idioms andthe likeliterally, butratherin a way tha tshows that they

understan dtheir meaning

Reading comprehension questions

Student s answer questions in the target langu age basedon their unstanding of thereadingpassage Oftenthequestionsarc sequencedso that

der-thefirst group of questionsasks forinfo rmation contained withinthe read

-ing passage In orderto answerthe secondgroup of questions,students wiI

haveto makeinferencesbasedontheirunderstanding of the passage.This

mean sthey\ ill haveTOanswerquestion sabout thepassageeventhough

theanswers arc nor conta ined in the passageitself The third gro up of

question s req uiresstude ntsto rela re thepassagecotheir own exper ience.Antonyms/ syn onym s

Studentsarc given one set of wordsand arc askedtofind antonyms in the

reading passage A similar exercisecould be done by askingSTUdents TO

20 The Gramma r- Translation Method

findsyno nyms for a pa rticular setof word s.Or students might beasked

to define a set of words based on their understandin g of them as they

occur inthereadi ngpassage.Other exercisestha taskstudentsto work

with thevocabular yof the passage arc also possible

Cognates

Students arc taught to recognize cognat es by learning the spelling or

soundpatterns thatcorrespondbetween the languages Students arc also

asked to memor ize words that loo k like cognates but have mean ings in

the rar gcr languagethat aredifferent from those in the native language

Thistechniq ue, of course,wouldonlybe useful n langua ges thatshare

cognates

Deductive application of rule

Grammar rules arc presented withexamples.Exceptionsto eachrulearc

also noted Oncestudentsunderstandarule,they are asked toapply itto

somedifferent examples

Fill-in ·the-bla nks

Students arcgiven a series of sentences withwordsmissing.They fill in

the blanks with new vocabularyitems or withitemsof a particular gra

m-mar type, suchas prepositionsor verbswith different tenses

Memorization

Students are given lists of target language vocabulary words and their

native langu age eq uiva lents and areasked to memorize them Students

are also required to memorizegrammatica lrules andgrammaticalpara

-digmssuchas verbconjugations

Use words insent ences

In order toshow thatstudents understand the meanin gand useofa new

vocabularyitem,theynukeupsentencesinwhichtheyuse thenew words

Composit ion

The teacher gives the students ;1 topicto write "hour in the ta rget lan

-guage Thetopicisbaseduponso measpect of thereadingpassageof the

lesson Sometimes,instead of creat inga composition, studen ts arcasked

topreparea precis of thereading passage

The Grammar -Translation Meth od 2 1

CONCLUSIONYou havenow hadan opportunitytoexamine theprinciplesandso meof

the techniques of the Gramma r-Tra nslat ion Method Tryro makeaco n

-nection betweenwhatyou haveunderstood andyour own teaching sit u

-atio n and beliefs

Do you believethat a fundamental reason for learning a foreign l

an-guage is to be ablero readtheliteraturewritten in thetargetlanguage? Do

yo uthi nkit is importantto learnaboutthetarget language?Shouldcul

-ture be viewedas consisting of literature and the fine arts? Do youagree

with any of the oth er principles underlying the Grammar-Translation

Meth od?Whichones?

Is trans lationa valuab le exercise ? Isansweringreadingcomprehension

question s of the type described here helpful? Should gramma r be pre

-sented deductiv ely? Are these or an y of the other techniques of the

Gra mmar-Tran sla tion Methodones whichwill be useful ro you in yourown teaching?Which ones?

ACTIVITIES

A Check your understandingof theGrammar-TranslationMethod

1 It has been said that the Grammar-Translat ion Method teaches stu

-dent s abo utthetargetlanguage, butnothowtouse it Explainthe

dif-ference inyourown words

2 Wbat are the clues that this methodhaditsoriginin the teaching oftheclassica l lan guages,Latin and Greek?

B Apply what you have understood about the Grammar-TranslationMethod

1 Think of a particular group of students youhave recently taught orarccurrentlyteaching Choose a reading passage from aliterary work or a

textbookorwriteoneyo urself.Makesurei is at a level your students

can understan d, yet notat a level that would betoo simplefor them

Trytranslatingit yourself asa testofitsdifficulty.Identifythevocabu

-lary you would choo se to work on Plan vocabulary exercises you

would usc to help your st ude nts associat ethe new words with their

nativelang uageequivalents

2 Pick a grammatical point or two contained in the same passage

Pro vide the explicit grammar rulethat relat es to each one and give

As with the Gra mmar-Tr anslation Method, the Direct Method is notnew Its principles have been applied by language teachers for manyvears.Most recently, it wasrevived as amethod when the goal ofinst ruc-

~ion became learning how to use a foreign language to communicate

Since the Grammar-Translati onMethodwasnotveryeffecrive in ing st udents to use the target language comm un icatively, the DirectMethod becamepopular

prepar-The DirectMeth od hasonevery basicrule:No tran slati on isallowed

In fact, the DirectMethodreceivesitsname from the factthat meanin gis

tobeconveyeddir ectlyin thetarget language throughthe useof demon

-st ratio and visualaids,withno recou rsetothestu dents' nativelanguage(Diller 1978)

We will nowtrytocom etoan understandingof theDirectMethod byobservingan Englishteacher usingitinase noia m edia(lowersecondaryschool)class in Ital y.Theclass has thirty students who attend English

classforone hour,threetimesa week.Theclass we observe is at heend

ofits first yearofEnglish lan guageinstr uctionin ascucta med ia.

22 Th e G rammar -Trans lation M ethod

some examples Design exercises that requireyour st ude nts to apply

theruletosome differentexa mples

REFERENCES AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Chas ta in,Kenneth.1988.D eveloping Seco nd Langua ge Sk ills.(3rdcdn.]

San Diego , CA: Harco urt Bracejo vano vich

Colema n, A 1929 Th e T eaching of M odem f oreign Lan guages i ll t he

Unit ed Sta tes. Vol 1 American and Canadian Co mm ittees o

Modern Languages

Howatt ,A P.R 1984.AHi story ofEllgJish La nguage T eaching.Oxford:

Oxford Univer sityPress

Kelly, loui s G 1969 Tui enty-iive Centuries of L ngu age T eaching.

Rowley,MA: NewburyHouse

Plotz , Karl 18 87 Pl ementarbuch d er F ranz csiscben S prache. Berlin: E

A Herbig

Stern, H H 1983 Fund amental Co ncepts o f LAn guage T eaching.

Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress

Thomas, C (ed.) J901 R eport of th e Co m mittee of Twel t!e uf th e

Mo dem Langu age A ssociation of Am erica.Boston :D.C.Heat h

EXPERIENCE

The teacher is callingthe class to order as we findscatstoward thehack of

theroom He has placed a big map of theUnitedStates in the front ofthe

classroo m He asks the students to open their book s to a certai n pagenumber.The lesson is entitled 'Looking at a Ma p.' As the students arccalled on one by one,theyread a sentencefro mthereadi ng passage at the

beginni ng ofthe lesson.Thereacherpo intstothe par tof themap thesen

-tence describesafter each has read his sentence, The passagebegins:

We are loo king at amap of theUnitedScates.Canad a is rhccount ryto

theno rth of the UnitedStares, and Mexico is the country to the south

of theUnited Stares Between Canada and the United States arc theGreatLak es.Betw een Mexicoand rhe United States is the Rio Grande

24 The Direct M eth od

River.On the East Coast is theAtlantic Ocean, and on the West Coast

is the Pacific Ocean I n the East is a mountain range called the

Appalachian Mountains.In the West arc rhcRocky Mountains

Afterthe students finish reading thepassage, they arc asked if they have

any questions A student asks what a mountain range is.The teacher

turnstothe blackboardand draws a seriesof inverted conestoillustra tea

mountain range

The student nods and says, 'Junderst and ' Another stud en t asks what

'bet ween' means.The teacher replies, 'You are sitt ing betw eenMaria Pia

and Giovan ni Paolo is sitting between Gabriella andCettina.Now do

you understa ndthe meaningof "between"?' The student answers,'Yes,J

understand.'

After allof the questions have been answered,the reacher asks some of

hisown.'Class,arc welo oki ng at a 111;l pof Italy?'

The class repliesin chorus, 'No!'

The teacherreminds the classtoanswer in a fullsentence

'No, we aren't loo king ar a map ofItaly,' they respo nd

The teacher asks,'Arcwelook ing at a map of the United States?'

'Yes.We arc loo king atamap of the UnitedSta tes '

T he Di rect M ethod 25

'IsCanada the countrytothe south of the United Stares?''No Canada isn't the country south of the United States.''Arc theGreat Lakesin the North of the United States?''Yes The Great l.akcs are in the North.'

'IstheRio Grandeariver or a lake?''The RioGrande is a river.'

'It'sariver Where isit?''It's betweenMexico andthe United States.''Wha t color is the Rio Grandeo the map?''It's blue.'

'Point to amountain rangeinthe West Whatmountains are they?''They arethe RockyMount ains.'

The question and answer session continues for a few mere minutes.Finally, the teacher in vitesthe student s to ask questions Handsg up,

and rhcteacher callso stu dems topose question s one ata timetowhich

theclass replies.After several questio ns havebeen posed, one girl asks,'Whereare the Appalachian Mo unt ain s?'Befor e the class has a chancetorespond, the teacher works with the student on the pronunciation of'Appalachia n.' Then he includes the rest of the class in this practice as

well,expecting that theywill havethe same prob lemwiththislo ng word.After insuring that the students' pro nunciation is correct, the teacher

allowsthe classtoanswer the question.Later another stu dent asks,'W hat is theoceaninthe West Coast?'The

teacher again interrupts before the class has a chance to reply, saying,'Whatistheocean in the West Coast? oro theWest Coa st ?' The stu-denthesita tes,then says,'On the West Coast.'

'Correct,'saystheteacher 'Now, repea t yourquestion ''What isthe ocean onthe WestCoast?'

The class repl iesincho rus, 'The ocean on the West Coastisthe Pacific.'

Afte r the students have asked abo ut ten questions, the reacher begins

asking question s and making sta teme nts again This rime, how ever, thequestio nsand statements are about the st udents in the classroom, and

contain one of the prepositions 'on,' 'at,' ' to,''in,' or 'between,' such ,1S,'Anronclla, is your bookon your desk?' 'Antonio, who is sitting between

Luisa and Teresa ?' 'Emanuc!a, point to the clock.' The students thenmake up their ownquestions and srarcmcnrs,1nd direct them tootherSTlI -dents

Thereacher next instructsthe students to (Urn to an exercise in the lson which asks them to fillin theblanks They read a sentence out loudand supp lythe missing word as theyarc reading,for example:

es-26 Th e Direct Method Th e Dir ect Method 2

THINKING ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE

Let us make some observations on our experience These will be in

the column on the left The principles of the Direct Method that can

be inferred from our observations will be listed in the column o the

right

TheAtlantic Ocean is_ _theEast Coas t

TheRio Grandeis_ _Mexico and theUnited States

Hdoardo isloo king _ _the map

Finally,thereacherasksthe stu dents to tak eOUt their notebooks,and

he gives thema dictation The passagebedictatesisoneparagra ph long

andis abo ut the geography of theUn ited States

Duringthe remaining two classes thisweek, theclass will:

1 Review the features of UnitedStates geography

2 Followin g theteacher's direct ions, label blan k maps with th eseg eo~

graphical feat ures Afrer this, the students will give directions to the

teacher, who will complete a mapon the blackboard

3 Practicethe pronunciationof 'river,' paying particu larattent ion to the

/1/ in the firstsyllable(andcontrastingitwithl iy/)andtothepronu

nci-ation ofI r/.

4 Writeaparagraph about themajorgeographica lfeaturesof the United

States

5 Discuss theproverb'Time ismoney.' Studentswilltalk abo utth isisin

ordertounderstandthat peoplein theUnitedStat esvaluepunctuality

Theywillcompare thisattitude with theirown view of time

Observations

The students read aloud a

passage abo ut United States

geogra phy

Principles

Read ing inthe targetlan guageshouldhe taughtfrom thebeginningoflangua geinstruction;

however,thereadingskill will bedevelopedthrough prac tice withspeak ing La nguageisprimarilyspeech.Cultureco nsists of morethan thefine arts (e.g.the studentsstudy geograph yandcult ura lattitudes)

O bse rvations

2 The teacher pointstoapa rtof

themap aftereachsentenceisread

3 Theteacher uses thetarget

language to ask the studentsif

theyhave aquestion.The

stud ents use thetargetlangua ge toask their

questions

4 The teacheranswersthe

students'questionsby drawing

on the blackboard or givingexa mples

5 Theteacher asks questionsabout themap inthe rarger

lan guage,towhichthestudentsreply inacompletesentenceinthetargetlanguage

6 Students askquest ions about

P rin ci ples

Objects (c.g rcalia orpictures)present in theimmediateclassroom environ mentsho uld heusedtohelpstude nts understan dthe meanin g

Thenativelanguage sho uld not beused in theclassro om

The teacher shoulddemonstrate,not explain or translate.Itisdesirablethatstu dents make a

directassociation betw eenthetarget lan uageand meaning.Studentsshouldlearnto think in

thetarget language as so on,1Spossible Vocabulary isacquired

morenaturally if students use it infullsente nces, rat her tha n

memor izing word lists

The purpose oflan gua ge lear ning

is com mun ica tion (thereforestudentsneed to learnhowtoask questions as well as answerthem)

Pronunciation sho uld beworked

on righ tfrom thebeginningoflan guage instr uct ion

Self-co rrect ion facilita tes languagelearning

2 8 T he Di rect M ethod

Observations

9 The reacher asks questio ns

abo ut thestudents;students

askeachother questions

lesson

paragraphabout United Stat es

12 AII of the lessons ofthe week

language in real contexts Students

muchas possible

Gramma rshould betaught

Writingis animportant skill, to be

developed from thebeginningof

or topics, nor usuallyonlinguisticstructures

involveslearn ingho w speakers of

thatlanguage live

The Direct Method 29

3 What aresome characteristics of theteaching/learningprocess?

Teachers who usc the Direcr Method believe students need ro associate meaningandrhe targetla nguage directly In ordertodo this, whenthe reacher introduces a new target language word or phrase, he

-demonstrates irs meaning through the usc of rcalia, pictures, or

pan-tomime; he never translates it into the students' native language

asif theywerein realsituations.In fact, the syllabusused in the Direct

Metho disbased uponsituatio ns(forexample,one unitwouldconsist

generalization from the examples An explicit grammar rule may

never be given Stu dents practicevocabular y byusingnewwo rdsin

4 What is the nature of student-teacherinteraction? Whatisthe nature

of student-student interaction?

-dents andfrom studentto teacher, although thelatter is often

teacher-directed Studentsco nversewithone another aswell

REVIEWING THE PRINCIPLES

1 What are the goals of teachers who use the Direct Method?

Teachers whouse the DirectMethod intend that students learnhow

to communicate in the target language In orderto do this success

-fully,students shouldlea rntothinkin the targetlanguage

2 What is the role of the teacher?What isthe role of the students?

less passive than in the Grammar-Translation Method The teacher

and the students are more like par tners in the teaching/lea rn ing

process

5 How are the feelings of the students dealt with?

6 How is language viewed? How is culture viewed?

Language isprimar ily spoke n,not written Therefore,student s study

l-ture consisting of the history ofthe peoplewho speak thetarget

is spoken,and information about thedailylives of the speakers of the

language

emphasized?

30 Th e Di rect M ethod

oralcom m un ication is seen as basic.Thu s the reading and writing

exercises arc based upo n what the students practice orall y first

Pron unciation also receivesattention right from the beginning of a

cou rse

8 What is the role of the students' native language?

The students' nativelanguageshould not beused in the classroo m

9 Howis evaluation accomplished?

We did not actually sec any formal evaluation in the class we

observed; however,in the Direct Method, students are asked to use

the langu age, not to demonstrate their know ledge abou t the lan

-guage.They are asked to do so using both oraland writt enskills For

example, thestudents might heinterviewed orally bythe teacheror

migh tbe askedtowritea pa rag ra p haboutsomet hing theyhave srud

-ied

10 How does the teacher respond to student errors?

The teacher, employing various techn iques , tries to get students to

self-co rrect whenever possible

REVIEWING THE TECHNIQUES

Arc thereanswers to the ten questionswith which you agreed ? Thenthe

followingtechniq ues mayalso be useful Of course, evenif youdid not

agree with all theanswers, there may be some techniques of the Direct

Method you can adapttoyour ownapproach to teaching.The following

exp anded review of techni q uesprovides you with some details which will

help you do this

Reading aloud

Studen tstake [Urns read ingsections ofapassage, play,or dialogoutloud

At the end of each student's turn, the teacher uses gestures, pictures,

rcalia,examples, or othermeanstomake the meaning of thesectionclca r

Question and answer exercise

Thisexercise is con d ucted on lyinthe targetlan gua ge Studentsare asked

questio ns and answe rin fullsentences so tha t they practice new wo rds

Th e D irect M ethod 3 1

andgrammatical structures They have the opportun itytoask questions

aswell asanswer them

Getting students to self-correct

Theteacherof th isclass has the students self-correctby askingthem to

makea choice betweenwhat theysaidand an alternati veanswer he su

p-plied There are, however,otherwaysof getting studentstoself-correct

For example, a tea chermight simply repeat what a student hasjust said,using a questioning voice to signal to the student tha t something waswrong with it Another possibility is fo r the teacher to repea t what thestudent said,stopping just before the error Thestudent knows that thenext word was wrong

Conversation practice

Theteacher asks students anumb er of questionsin the targetlanguage,which the st udentsha veto under stan d to be ableto answer cor rectly In

theclassobserved, theteacher asked indi vidu al stude ntsquest ions about

themselves The question s contai ned a particular gra mmar structu re

Lat er, thestudents were able to ask each oth er theirownquestionsusing

thesame grammaticalstr uct ure

Hll-ln-the-blankexerciseThistechniq ue has alread y been discussed in the Grammar-TranslationMethod,but differsin itsapplicationinthe Direct Method.Alltheitems arc

in the target language;furthermore, no explicit grammar rule would beapplied Thestudents would haveinduced the grammar rule they need tofill inthe blanks fromexam plesand practice with earlierparts of the lesson.Dictation

Theteacherread s thepassagethreetimes Thefirsttimethe teac herreads

it at a nor mal speed, while thestudents just listen The second time he

read s the passage phrase b phrase,pau sin g long enough to allow stu

-dent stowrite down what they ha vehear d.The last tunc the teacher againreadsatano rmal speed, and studentscheck their work

Map drawing

The classinclud ed one exampleof a technique used to givestudents lis

-tenin g comprehension practice.The stude nts were givena mapwith the

32 The Dire ct M e t h od

geogra phica l featuresunnam ed Then theteach er gavethest ude nts direc

-tionssuchasthe following, 'Fino themountainrangein theWest.Write

the words "Roc ky Mountain s" across the mountain range.' He gave

instruct ion s for allthe geog raph ical features ofthe Un ited States sotha t

stu dents would have a completely labeled map if they followed his

instruct ion s co rrec tly The rudenrsthen instruct ed theteach e rtodothe

sa me thin g with a ma p he had dra w n on the blac kboar d Each student

could have a turn givingthe reach er instruct ions for findingand labeling

one geographicalfeature

Paragraph writing

Theteach er inth isclass asked the st ude nts to write a paragra ph in thei r

o w n wo rd s onthe majorgeographica l featu res of the United States.They

could have done th is from memory,or theycould have used the reading

passageinthelesson as a model,

Now tha t yo u ha veconsidered the principles and the techn iq ues of the

Direct Method somew ha t, sec what yo u can find of usc for your ow n

teachi ng situ a t io n

Do you agrl'l' tha t the goalof target langu age instr uction should heto

teac hstude nts ho wtoco mmunica teinthetarget lan uage?Docsit make

sensetoyo uthat the stu de nts' nativelanguageshouldno tbeusedtogive

mea nin g to the target la nguage Do yo u agree that the cu ure tha t is

taug ht sho uld he about peo ple's daily li es in addition to thefine art s ?

Sho uldstudents he encouraged toself-correct? Are there an otherprin

-ciplesof the DirectMethodwhichyou believein? Which ones?

Is dictationa worthwhile activity?Haveyou used question -and-an swer

exercises and co nve rsation practice as described here before? If not,

sho uld you? Ispar agraph writing a useful thing ro ask students to do?

Shouldgrammar hepresentedinductively? Are thereall)' other techniques

of theDirect Method which yOll would consideradopting? Which ones?

ACTIVITIES

A Check your understanding of the Direct Method,

In the previous chapter on the Grurnmar-Trunslaricn Method, we

learned thatgrammar was treated deductively,In theDirect Method,

Th e D irect M eth od 33

betweended uctive an ind ct iverrcarmcnr s ofgra mmar?

2 Whatarc someof thecharacter isticsofthe DirectMethod that make it

so distinct ive fro m the Grarnmar-TranslarionMethod?

3 It has been said that it ma y be advantageous (0 a teache r using the

Direct Method not to know his students' native lan uage Do yo u

agree?Why?

B Applywhatyou have understoodaboutthe Direct Method

Choosea particularsitu a tion(suc h as at thebank , at the railroad tion, or atthe doctor'soffice)ora particul ar topic (suc h as articles ofclothing, holidays,orthe weathe r)and writeashort passage or a dia-log on the theme you have cho sen Now thinkabourhow you will con-veyits meaningtostudentswithoutusingtheir nativelanguage

sta-2 Select a grammar point from thepas sage Plan how yo u will get dentsto practi cethe gra mma r point.What examples can yo u providethem withso that the y can inducetherulethemsel ves?

stu-J Pract ice writingandgiving a dicta tio nasit isdesc ribedinthis chapter

Berlitz,M.D 1887.M eth ode B erlitz, New York: Berl itz

de Sauze, Em il B 1929.The Cl eveland Pl an for th e Tea ching of Modem Languages wi th Sp ecial R eference to Fr ench, (rev, edn.) 19S 9.

Philadel phi a : Winston

Diller,KarlC 197 8.T h e Language T eaching Con troversy Ro wl ey,MA :

New bur yHo use

Garcnby, E.V.195 8.A Dir ect Method Engli sh Course. (3rd edn.)Lond on :Longm an

Gouin, Francois IHHO The A rt of Teaching and S tudying L anguages.

Tra nslated by Swan, 1-1 and V.Betts IH92.Lon do n:Philip

Krause, CarlA 191 6 The D irect M eth od ill M odem Languages New

Yor k: Cha rlesScr ibne r

4 The Audio-Lingual Method

INTRODUCTION

The Audio-Lingu al Method, liketheDirect Method we have just exam

-ined, is alsoan oral-ba sedapproach However, itis very differen t inthat

ra therthanemphasizingvocabularyacquisitonth ro ugh exposureto itsusc in situa tions, theAudio-Li ngualMet hod drillsstude nts in the use of

grammatical sentence patterns.Italso, unlike the Direct Meth od , has astrongtheo retical base inlingui stics and psych ology CharlesFries (1945)

of the University of Michigan led the way inapplying principles from

sr ucrura llinguisricsindevelopingthe met hod.andforthis rca son, tbas

sometimes been referred toasthe 'Michigan Method ' Later initsde

vel-opment, principles from beha vioral psychology (Skinner 1957 ) were

incor po rated.It was thou ht that the wa yto a qu ire rhe sente nce pa r

-ternsof thetarget language wasthrou gh cond ition ing- helpinglearners

to respo nd correctly to stimuli thro ugh shaping and reinforc ement

Learn ers co uldovercomethehabitsof theirnat ivelang age and form the

newhabits requiredrc betarget ang age spe kers

Inordertocome toanunderstand in ofthismerhod Icrusn w enrera

classr oo mwherethe Audio-Lingual Methodis being used.We willsitin

on a beginning level Engl ishclass inMali There arcthirty-fourstu dents,

th irt eento fifteen yearsof age The class meets for one hour a day, five

days a \ ·eek

EXPERIE NCE

Aswe enterthe classroom, thefirstthingwenoticeisthatthe stude ntsarc

attent ivelylstening astheteacherispresentinganewdialo , a conver

sa-ton between two peopl e.The st udents know they will be expected toeventua lly memorize the dialog the teache r is introducing All of the

teacher 's instructionsarein English.Somet imesshe uses actionstoveymeaning, butn tonewordof the stude nts' nativelanguageisuttered After sheacts out the dialog, shesays:

con-'Allright, class Iam going torepeat thedialogno w Listen caref ully,

but notalkin g please

36 Th e Audi o-Lingual M ethod T he Aud io-Lingual Metho d 37

Two peopl e arc walki ng along a sidewalk in town They kno weach

ocher, andas theymeet, they stopto talk.One of themis namedSallyand

the othe roneisnam edBilLIwill ralk for Sallyand for Bill Listen totheir

co nve rsatio n:

Listen one more time This timetry to understand all that I am saying.'

Now she has the wholeclass repear each of the lines of the dialogafter

her model They rep eat eachlinesevera ltimes before movingon tothe

nex t line.When the classcom estothe line,'I'mgoingtothepostoffice,'

they stumb le a bitintheir repet ition.The teache r,at thispoint,sto ps the

repet itio nand usesa backwa rd build -updrill(expa nsion drill).Thepu

r-poseoft his drill isto break dow nthetroublesom e sentence into sma ller

parts The reacher starts with the end of the sentence and has the class

repea t just the last two words Since they can do this, the teacher adds a

fewmoreword s,and the classrep ea tsthis expan ded phrase Littleb li

t-tle the teacher builds up the phrases until the entire sentence is bein g

repeated

TEACHER Repeat afterme: post office

C LAS S Post office

TEACHER To the post office

CI.ASS To the posroffice

T E AC I J EH Goingtothe post office

C I A Ss Goingtothepostoffice

T E A C II E R I'm goingtothepost office

C l.ASS I'm goingto the post offi ce

Throu gh thisstep-by-step proced ur e, rhe teacher is abletogive rhcstu

-dent shelp in produc ingthe troubl eso melne.I lavingworked on the line

insmall pieces,rbe stu dentsarcalsoableto ta kenote ofwhere eachword

or phrasebeginsand endsillthe sentence

Aft er the stude nts have repeatedthe dia log several times, the teach er

gives them a chancetoado pt the role of Billwhile she says Sally's lines

Befor e the class actua llysayseac h line, thetea ch ermodel sit lneffect;the

Good morn ing, Hill

Goodmorn ing,Sally

Howare you?

Fine,thanks Andyou?

Pine.Where arcyou going?

I'm goingtothe post office

Iam too Shall we go together?

Sure Let's go

class is experiencinga repetitiondrill where the task istolistencarcful!v

andattemptto mimictheteacher's mo de las accuratelyas possible 'Next the class and theteacherswitc h rolesinorder topracticealittl e

more, the teacher saying Bill's lines and the class saying Sally's Then thereacherdivides the class inhalf so that each halfgets to tryto sayon their

own either Bill's or Sally'slines.Theteache rstopsthe studentsfromtime

to time when shefeels theyarc strayingtoo fa r from the model, and once

aga in provides a mode l, whic h she hasthem atte m pt to copy To furth erpractice the linesof thisdialo g, thereacher hasallthe boys in the clas stake Bi11's part and all thegirls takeSally's

She then initiates a chaindrill with four of the linesfrom the dialog Achain drill gives students anopportunity to say the lines individually.Theteacher listens and can tell which students arc srruggling and willneedmorepractice.A chain drillalso lets students use the expressions inco m-munication with someone else, even thou gh theco mm unic ation is verylimited.Theteach eraddressesthe st udent near estherwith,'Goodmorn-

ing,jose 'He,in turn ,responds, 'Good morning,teac he r.'Shesays, 'How

are you ?' Jose answers , 'Fine, thanks And you ?' The reacher repli es,'Fine.' Heunderstand sthrou ghthe reache r'sgestures tharheistoturn to

thestude ntsitting besidehimandgreet her.That student,in ru m ,says herlinesin reply to him.When shehasfinish ed, she greetsthe stude nt0 11the

ot her side of her Thischain co nt in ues until all of the stude nts have,1

chance toask andanswe r thequestion s.Thelastst ude nt direct sthe gree t

-ing to theteacher

finally,the teacherselects twostudent s to perform the ent ire dialogforthe rest of theclass When theyarc finished, two othersdo the same Noreveryone has a chance to say the dialogin a pair today, butperhaps theywill some time this week

Theteacher moves next to thesecond major phase of the lesson Shecontin ues to drill thestu dents with language from the dialog, but these

drillsrequ iremorethan simple repe tit ion.Thefirstdrill the reacherlead s

is asingle-slot subsr iturion drillin which the st udents will repe at ase

n-tence fro m the dialog andrep lace awordOt phrase in the scnre nce with

the word orphrase the teacher givesthem.Thiswo rdor phraseis called

38 The Audio -Lingual Meth od

Nowshegives them theirfirsrcuephrase, 'Thedrugstore.' Togetherthe

studentsrespond,'Iamgoing tothe drugsto re.'The teacher smiles.'Very

good!'she exclaims.Theteacher cues,'T he par k.' The studentschorus,'I

am goingtothe park.'

Other cuesshe offers in turn arc'thecafe,' 'thesupermarket: 'the bus

station,''thefootball field,' and 'thelibrar y.' Each cue is accompaniedby

a pictu re as before After the students have gone through the drill

sequence threetimes, the teacher no longerprovidesa spo kencue phrase

Instead she simplyshows thepictures one at a time, and the students

repeat the entire sentence, puttingthe name of the placein thepictu rein

theappropriateslot inthesentence

A similarprocedureisfollowedfor anothersentenceinthedialog,'How

a rcyou?'The subicctpronouns'he,' 'she,''they,' and'you' arcusedas cue

words This substinni on drill isslightly more difficult for the students

since they have tocha nge theformof theverb'be' to 'is' or 'arc,'d

epend-ing on which subject pronoullthe reacher gives them.The studentsiH C

appa rentl y fam iliar withthe subject pronouns since the teacher is not

usingany pictures.Instead, after goingthro ug the drill a few times

sup-plyingoralcues, theteacher points to a hoyintheclassand the students

understandtheyareto lISCthepronoun 'he' inthe sentence They chorus,

Th e Audi o-Lingual Method 39

'How ishe?' 'Good !'saysthe teacher.She pointstoa girlan waitsfor theclass'srespon se,then poin tstoothe rstudentstoelicit the use of'they,'

Finally, the teacherincreasesthe complexityof the taskby leadingthestudents in a multiple-slotsubsnrurion drill This is essentiallythe sametype of drill as the single-slot the teacher just used However with thisdrill, students must recognize what part of speech the cue word is andwhere it fits into the sentence The studentsstilllisten to only one cue

from theteacher Thenthey mustmake a decisionconcern ingwherethe

cuewor d orphrase belongs ina sente nce also suppliedby theteacher.The

teacher inthisclass startsoff by havingthestudentsrepeat theoriginalsentence from thedialog,'Iam going to the post office.' Thenshegives

them thecue'she.' The students understandand produce, 'She is goingtothe post office.' The next cue theteacheroffersis 'to the park.' The stu-

dent shesita te at first; then they respond bycorrectly produ cing,'She is

goingtothe park.' She continuesinthismanner, sometimes providing a

subject pro noun, other timesnaminga location ,

Thesubstitutio ndrillsarc followedb a transformationdrill.Thistype

of drillasks students to change one typeof sentence into another-anaffirma tivesentence into a negat iveoran activesentence intoi1passive,

forexample.In thisclass,theteacherusesasubstit ution drilltha trequires

thesrudenrstochange a statement into a yes/no-question The teacher

offers an example,'Isay, "She is going tothe postoffice." You makeilquestion by saying,"Isshe goingtothepostofficc>'"

Theteacher models two moreexamplesof this transformation, then

asks,'Docseveryoneunderstand?OK,let's begin."Theyarc goingto the

bank."'The classreplies inturn, 'Arethey going tothe bank?' They formapprox imatelyfifteen ofthesepatterns, and thentheteacher decides

trans-theyare readytomoveontoaquestion -and -answerdrill

The teacher holdsuponeof the pictu ressheused ea rlier, thepictu re of

a foorballfield,and asksthe class, 'Are )'OUgoingtothe footballfield?'

Sheanswers her ownquestion,'Yes, I'mgoing to thefootballfield.' She

posesthenextquestion while holding IIp ;1picture of a park, 'Arcyougoing to the park?' And again answers herself, 'Yes, I'mgoing to thepark.' She holdsup a thirdpicture,theoneof a library.She posesa ques-

tion to theclass, 'Arc yougoingto the library?' Theyrespond together,'Yes,1;1 111going to thelibrary.'

'Very good: the reacher says, Through heractions and examples.the

students havelearned thatthey arc to answer the questionsfollowingthe

patte rnshe hasmodeled Thereacherdrillsthem withthispatternfor the

nextfewminutes Sincethestudentscan handl eit, sheposes the question

40 Th e A udio-Lingual M ethod

to selected individuals rapidly one after another The studen ts are

expected ro respondveryquickly.withoutpausing

The students arc able to keep up thepace, so the teachermoveson ro

the next step.She again showsthe classoneof thepictures,asupermarket

this time She asks,'Areyougoingto the bus station?' She answers her

own question, 'No,Iam goingtothe supermarke t.'

The students understandthatthey are required (0lookatthepicture

and listen(0thequestionandanswernegativelyif the place illthe

ques-tion isnot the same as what theysee in the pictu re 'Are you goingtothe

busstation ?' The teacher asks whileholdingupapictureofa cafe.'No, I

amgoing(Qthe cafe,'theclassanswers

'Verygood!' exclaims the teacher.After posinga few more questions

which require negativeanswers,the teacher produces the pictures of the

post office and asks, 'Areyougoing10thepost office ?'The students

hesi-tate amoment and thenchorus, 'Yes, I amgoingto thepostoffice.'

'Good,'comments the teacher.She worksa little longeron thisque

s-tion-and-answer drill,sometimesprovidingher srudcnrswith situations

that require a negative answer and sometimesencouragement 10 each

student She holds up pictures and poses questions one right after

another,hut the students seemrc haven t oublekeeping up withher,

The onlytime shechangesthe rhythmis whena studentseriouslymispro

-nouncesa word.When thisoccurs she restatesthewordand worksbriefly

with the student until hispronunciation is closertoher own

Forthe finalfewminutesof heclass, the teacher returns(Qthedialog

with whichshe beganthelesson She repeats it once,thenhasthe half of

the classto herleft do Bill's lines and thehalf of theclassto herrightd

Sally's.Thistime there isno hesitationatall.The students move through

the dialog briskly.Theytraderoles and do thesame.The teacher smiles,

'Verygood Class dismissed.'

The lesson ends for the day Both the reacher and the students have

workedhard The students havelistenedto and spokenonlyEnglish for

the period The teacher istired fro m all her action, but she is pleasedfor

shefeels the lesson hasgone well.The students havelearn ed thelinesof

the dialog andtorespond without hesitationtoher cues in the drillpattern

In lessonslaterthis week theteacher willdo the following:

t Review the dialog

2 Expand upon thedialogb adding a fewmorelines,suchas 'Iamgoing

tothe post office.I need a few stamps.'

3 Drill thenewlinesand introdu ce somenew vocabular y itemsthro ugh

thenewlines, for exampl e:

'Iamgoingtothesuper market Ineedalinle butter.'

,drugstor e littlemedicine.'

4 Workonthe differencebetweenmassand count noun s, cont rasting'alittle/afew' withmass andcountnounsrespectively,No grammar rulewilleverbe given to the students The students\villbeled10figure outtherules from theirwork withthe examples the teacherprovides

5 A contrastive analysis (rhccomparison of two langua ges,in this case,the students' nativela nguageand thetarget an uage,English)has ledthe teacherto expect that the students will have special trouble with

the pronunciation of words such as 'litt le,'which contain11/ The

stu-dents do indeed say theword as if i containedl iy /. As a result, the

teacher works on thecontrastbetweenl iyland 11/several times duringthe week.She usesminimal-pair \vords, suchas 'sheep,''ship' ;'leave,''live'; and 'he's,' 'his'toget her students firstto hear thedifference inpronunciation between the words ineach pair.Then, when she feelstheyarcready, shedrillstheminsaying the twosounds-fi rst by them-selves,and laterinwords,phrases, and sentences.

6 Sometimetowards theendof the week theteacher writes thedialogonthe blackhoard She asks the students to give her the lines and she

writesthem out asthestudentssaythem.Theycopy thedialogin theirnot ebook s.They also do some limitedwrittenwork with thedialog.I n

one exercise the teacher has erased fifteen selected words from theexpanded dialog Thestudents haveto rewritethedialogintheirnote-books, supplyingthemissingwords wirhour lookingat the complete

dialog theycopi ed earlier In another exercise,thestudents aregivensequences ofwords such asJ , go , supermar ke tandhe , ne ed, b utterand

theyarcasked to writecomplete sentenceslike theones the)'ha vebeen

drilling orally

7 On Friday the teacher leads the class in the 'super market alphabet

game.' The game starts with a studentwho needs a fooditembegin

-ning with the lcrrcr'A.'The stude ntsays,'Iamgoingtothesuper mar

-ket I need a few apples.' The next student says, 'Iam going to thesupermarket Heneedsa few apples Jneed a little bread (or "a fewbananas" or anyother food item)'OU could findin the supermarketbeginning with the letter "8").' The third student continues, 'Iamgoing 10 the supermar ket He ne ds a fewapples.She needs a littlebread I need a little cheese.' The game continues with each playeraddinganitemthat beginswith thenext letterinthe alphabet.Beforeadding hisownitem,however, each playermustmentiontheitems of

42 Th e Audi o-ling nai M ethod Th e Audio-Lit/glial Method 4

THINKING AB OUT THE EXPERI ENCE

Although it is true that this was a very briefexperience with the Aud

io-Lingual Method, let's sec if we can mak e someobservations about the

behaviorof the teacherandthe tech niques she used Fromthesewe shou ld

he ableto figure outtheprinciples underlying the method We will make our

observation s inorder, following the lesson plan oftheclass weobserved

theother stude nts beforehim.I thestudent hasdiffi cult ythinking of

anitem,theotherstude nts ortheteacherhelps

8 Apresentat io nb theteacheronsuper marketsin theUnited States fol

-lo wsthe game The teacher tries very hard to get meaning across in

English.Theteacher answers the stude nt's questions abo ut the differ

-encesbetweensupermnrkers intheUnitedSta tes and open-a ir mar kets

in Mali They also discuss brieflythe differences between American

and Malian foot ball The students seemvery interested in thediscus

-sio n The teacher promises to continue the discussion of popular

Amer icansportsnextweek

Observations

Thete cher introd ucesa new

dialog

2 The languageteacher uses only

the targetlangua geinthe

classroom.Actions, pictu res, or

realia areusedtogive meaning:

otherwise

3 Thelanguagere ch erintro

-d cesthe dialog bymodelingit

two times; she introducesthe

drillsby modelingthe co rrect

answers; atothertimes, she

co rrects mispronun ciation b

modelingtheprop er sounds ill

thetargetlanguage

PrinciplesLanguageforms do not occurbthemselves;theyoccu rmostnaturallywithinacontext.Thenativelan uage and the targetlanguage haveseparatelinguisticsvsrcms Thev should be keptapart so that'thestudent s'nativelanguage interferes aslitt le aspossiblewith thestudents'attempt s

TOacquire theta rget language

One of thelanguage teacher's

ma jo r rolesis thnrof u modelof(hetarget language Teachers

sho uld providestudents with a

good model.Bylsteningtoh wit

is supposed tosound,stude nts

should beablero mimicthemo el

Observations

4 The students repeat eachline

ofthenewdialogsevera ltimes

5 The studentsstumbleover one

of the lines of thedialog,The

teacherusesabackward bu

ild-up drillwith this line

6 Theteacherinitiates a chai n

drillin whicheach studentgreetsanot her

7 Theteacheruses single-slot

and multiple-slot substitut io n

drills

8 Theteachersays,'Verygood,'

when thestudents answer

co rrectly

9 Thereacher uses spokencuesand picture cues"

Io Theteacherco ductstransformat ionandquestion-

and-answerdrills

11 When thestudent s can handle

it,(hereacher posesthe

question sto them ra pidly

PrinciplesLangua gelearning isa process of

hab it formatio n.Themoreoften

so methingisrepeated thestro nger

thehabitand the grea ter the

lea rning

Itisimpo rta nttopreventlearners

fro m making errors Errors leadto

the forma tio n ofbadhab its.When

errorsdo occur, they sho uldbei

m-mediately corrected bytheteach er

The purposeoflan guagelearning

istolearnhowtousethelanguage

tocommun icate

Part icularpar ts of speechoccupy

part icular 'slots'in sente nces.Inordertocreate new sente nces

students mustlearn which partof

speech occupies whichslot

Positivereinforcement helpsthe

stu dents10developcor rect habits

Studentsshould learntorespond

tohoth verbaland nonverba l

st muli

Each languagehas a finite number

of patterns.Patte rn practicehelps

studentstoform habitswhichenable thestudents touscthe

patterns

Studen tsshould 'overlearn:i.e

learn toanswe rauto maticallywithoutsto pping to think

REVIEWING THE PRINCIPLES

44 Th e Andi o-lingnal t vie tbod

Observations

1 The teacher providesthe

stude ntswithcues;shecalls on

individuals; shesmiles

cncouragcrncnr: she holdsu

picturesoneafterano ther

1 Newvocubuluryisintroduced

thro ughlinesofthedialog;

voca bularyislimited

Principles

The teacher should be likean

orchestralead cr-c-cond ucring,

g id ing,andcontrolling the

students' behaviorinthetarget

language

The ma jor objectiveof language

reachingsho uld befor studentsto

a qu irethestructural patterns;

students willlearnvoca bularyafterward

Observations

17 Thesuperma rke talphabetgame andadiscussion ofAmericansupermar kets and

footballarc included

of theteacher'sresponsibilities is

to present information abo utthat

culture

14 Students aregiven no grammar

rules; gramma tical points arc

taughtthroug hexamplesand

sentencedrills

Thelearning of a foreign langua ge

shoul dberhe same as the

acq uisition of thenativelanguage

We do not needto memorizerules

inorderto useournative

lang uage.Therulesnecessaryto

lisethe target lan guagewill be

figu redoutorinducedfrom

examp les

Themajorchallengeof foreign

language reaching is getting

students to overcom e thehabits

oftheirnativelangu age.A

comparisonbetwee n thenative

andtar getlanguagewill telltheteacherin what areas herstudents

will probably experience

difficulty

Speechismore basictolanguage

than thewrittenfonn.The'uaru ralorder'- theorder childrenfollov ·whenlearning theirnative

language- of skillacq uisition is:

listening,speaking, reading.an

writing

At thispoint we should tu rn to thetenquestion swehave answered for

each methodwehave consideredso far,

1 What are thegoals of teacherswhousetheAudio-Lingual Method?

Teachers want their students to he able to use the target language

co mm unicatively, In order to do this, they believe students need tooverlearn thetarget language,to learn to uscit automatically witho utstopping tothink,Theirstudent s achieve thish fo rmingnew ha bits

in the tar get languageand overcomin g the old habits of their native

language

2 Whatis the rote oftheteacher ? Whatis the role of thestudents ?

The teacher is likeanorch estra lead er, directingand controllingthe

language behavio rofhersrudenr s She isalsoresponsible fo r providing

her srudcnts with a good model forimita tion.Students arcimiato rsof

theteacher 'smod elor(he tapes shesup pliesof model speakers They

follow the reacher'sdirections an respo nd as accuratelyan asra pid ly

asp ssible

3 What are somecharacterist ics oftheteachin g/learnin gprocess?

New vocab ulary ;1I1d structura l patterns arc presented thro ugh

dialogs The dialogs arc learned through imitation an repetition

Drills (such as repet ition, backward build-up cha in, su bstitution,

r unsformarion , and question-and-answer) art'conducted based upo n

the patterns present in the dialog Students' successful responses arc

positivelyreinforced Gramma r is ind uced from the exam plesgiven;explicit gra mmar rules are not provided Cultural informat ion is

46 T h Au d io- Lin g a l M ethod

conrcxrualized in the dialogs or prese nted by the teacher Students'

read ing and written work is based upon the oral work they did

earlier

4 What isthenature ofstud ent- teacherinteracti on?Whatisthenature

of stu dent-studentinteractio n?

Thereis student- to-s t ude nt inter action in cha indrills or when stude nts

take different rolesindialogs, but th is interac tion is teacher-directed

Mostoftheinteraction is between te cherandstu dents an is initiated

by theteacher

5 How are the feelingsof the students dealt with?

Therearc no principlesofthe metho dthat relate to thisarea

6 How isthe languageviewed? Howis the cultureviewed?

The view of language in the Aud io-Lingual Method has been influ

-enccd b descriptivelinguists.Everylanguageis seenashaving itsown

u ique system The system is comprised of several different levels:

phon ological, mo rpho logical,andsyntac tic Ea chlevelhasisowndis

-tnctive patterns

Everyday speech is emphasize d in the Aud io- lingual Meth od

The level of comp lexityof the speech is graded, how ever, so that

begin-ning students are presentedwith onlysimplepatte rns Culture consists

ofthe everyday behavior and lifesty le of thetarget language speakers

7 Whatareas of languageareemphasized? What Languageskillsare

emphasized?

Vocabularyis kepttoa minimumwhile thestudent sarcmasteringthe

soundsysteman grammaticalpatterns A grammatical pattern isn t

the same as a sentence For instance, underl ying the foll owing three

sentences isthe sa megrammatical patter n:M e g ca lled, 'l1 ) C B lu e j ays

umn, Th e t eam p racticed.

The natural order of skills presentation is ad ered to: lsten in ,

speaking reading,and writin g.Theoral/auralskills receivemost ofthe

attention What st uden ts write they have first been introduced to

orally,Pron unciatio is taught fromthe beginning ,often by st udents

work ing inlan uagelaboratoriesondiscriminatin betweenmem ber s

ofminimalpairs

Th e Audi o- Lingual M ethod 4 7

8 What is theroleof h students 'native language?

The ha bits of the students' native language are thought to interferewith the students'attemptstomasterthe target language.Ther efore,the target language is used in the classroom, not the students' nativelanguage A contrastive analysis between the students' native lan-guage and the target language will revea l where a teacher should

expectthe mostint erference

9 How is evaluationaccomplished ?

Theanswertothis questionis notobvious becausewe didnoractually

observe thestudentsin thisclass takinga formaltest Ifwe had, we

wo uldhave seenthat itwasdiscrete-po intin nat ure, that s, each qu

es-tion onthetestwouldfocus on only onepointof thelanguage at at me

Studentsmight be asked to distinguish betw een words ina minima l

pair,forexample,ortosupp lyan appropria teverbformina sentence

10 How doesthe teacher respond tostudent errors?

Student errors aretobe avoidedifatallpossiblethroug the teacher'sawarenessof wherethe studentswill ha vedifficulty and restriction of

what hey are taugh ttosay

If you agree withthe above answers, you may wishtoimplement thefo

llow-ing techniques; of course,evenif you donoragree,theremaybetechniquesdescribed below thatyouare alreadyusingorcanadapttoyour ap roach Dialog memorization

Dialogs or short conversations bet ween two people are often used to

begin anew "lesson.Students memorizethedialo g throughmimicr y; st

u-dentsusu ally tak e theroleofoneperson in thedialog,and the teacherthe

other.After the students havelea rned theoneper son 'slines, theysw itchrolesand memoriz theotherperson'sparr.1\uorherwa y of practicingthetwo rolesisfor halfoftheclasstotak eone roleand theother halfcotake

theother After tilt' dialog has been memorized, pairs of in ivid ua lst

u-dent s might performthedialog for therest oftheclass

Inthe Audio- LingualMethod,certainsentence patterns andgrammar

po int sarcincluded with inthe dialog.These patternsand points arelat er

pract iced in drills base d onthelines ofthe dialog

4 8 Th e Au dio-Li ngual M ethod

Backward build -up (expans ion) d rill

Thisdrillisusedwhena longlineof a dialogis givin students trouble.The

teacherbreak sdo wn thelneint oseveral parts.Thestudents repeat apa rt

of the sentence, usually the last phrase of the line Then,follow ing the

teacher'scue, the studentsexpand whattheyarcrepeatingpartb partuntil

they are abletorepea t the enti re line.Theteacher begins with thepart at

the end of thesentence(and wo rks backwardfrom there)tokeepthe

into-nation of thelineas natural aspossible This also directs morestudent

attentiontothe en of thesentence, wherenew informationtypicallyoccurs

Repetitio n drill

Student s are asked to repeat the teacher's model as accura tely and as

quicklyas possible.Thisdrillis oftenusedtoteach thelinesofthe dialog

Chain drill

A chain drillgets its name fro m the cha in of conversation that forms

around the room as stude nts, one-by-one,ask and answer questionsof

each other.Theteacher beginsthechainbygreeting a particu lar stude nt,

or askinghim aquest o n Thatstu dentresponds, then turnstothestudent

sitting next to him.Thefirst stu dentgreets orasks a question of the

sec-ondstudent andthe chaincontinues Achain drill allowssomecontro lled

comm unicat io n,even thou gh it is limited A chain drill also gives the

teacheranoppo rtun itytocheckeachstudent'sspeech

Si ngle-slot substitut ion drill

The teachersaysaline, usuallyfrom thedialog Next, the teacher saysa

wordora phrase-s-calledthe cue.The studentsrepeat the linetheteacher

has given them, substit ut ingthe cue into theline initsproper place The

majo rpurpo se ofthisdrill is togivethestudents prac ticein find ing and

fillingin the slots of asentence

Multiple-slot substitution drill

Thisdrill is similar ro thesingle-slotsu bstit ut ion drill.Thedifference is

thatthe teacher givescue phrases, oneat at me, thatfitinto different slo ts

in thedialog line.The students must recognize what part ofspeecheach

cue is, or at least, where it fi into the sentence, and make any other

changes, suchas subject-verbagreement The)'then say theline, fitting

the cue phrase intothe linewhereit belongs

The Audio- Lingual Mct lmd 49

T ransformation d rill

The teachergives stude ntsa certain kind of sentencepattern, anative sen tenceforexam ple.St udents arc asked to transform thissent enceinto;1negati ve sente nce.Otherexamplesof transforma tionstoask of stu-

ffirma-dents arcchanging a statement into a questio n,anactivesente nceintoapassive one,ordirect speech into reportedspeech

Qu estion-and -answer d rill

This drillgives students practice withanswering questio ns.The students

shouldanswerthe teacher'squestions veryquickly.Altho ughwe did nor see

it in our lesson here,i isalsopossiblefor the teacherto cue thestudentsto

ask questionsaswell.Thisgives student spractice with rhequcsrionpattern

U se of minimal pa irs

The teacherworkswithpairs of wordswhichdifferin only one so und;for

exa mple, 'ship/sheep.' Students arefirst asked to perceive thedifference

between the two words and later to he ableto say the two words.The

teach er selects the sounds to work on after she has done a contrastive

analysis, a compa rison between the students' native language and thelanguage theyare stu dy ing

Comp lete t he dial ogSelected words are erased(roma dia log stu dents have learned Student s

completethedialo gby fillingthe blankswith themissingword s

Grammar game

Ga mes like the super ma rketalp ha betgamedescribed inthischa pterare

used in rhe Audio-Lingual Met hod The games are designedto get

stu-dentstopractice a grammarpointwithin a contex t Stud ents arcabletoexpress themselves,although it srat herlimited in this game.Noticethere

isalso alo rofrepetitio ninthis game

CONCLUSION

Wc' ve looked at bo th the techniques and the princip lesof the Audio

-Lingua lMet hod Try now ro make the bridge betweenthis hook andvnur

Doesi make sensetoyouthat languageacq uisition resul tsfrom ha bit

50 Tb e A udi o-Ling ual M etbod

formation ?Ifso will thehabitsofthenativelangu ageinterfere with tar

-get lan uagelearning ?Shouldthe co mmission oferro rs beprevented as

much asp ssible ? Shouldthemajorfocu sbe onthest ruct uralpancm sof

pedagogicalactivit ies?I ~workingon pron unciat ion thro ugh minimal-pair

drillsa worthwhileactivity?Would yo u sa)'thesetechniques(oranyothers

of the Audio-LingualMethod)arconesthat you can useas described? Co uld

you adapt any of themtoyourownteachingapproachand situation?

ACTIVITIES

A Check yourunderstandingof the Audio-lingualMethod

1 Whic hof the follow ingtechniques follows from rhe principlesof the

Audio-Lingual Met hod ,and which ones don't? Explain thereasons for

youranswer

a The teacher asks beginning-level students to write a composition

about the system oftranspo rta tion in their hom e count ries,I they

needavoca bular y wordthat theydon 'tk ow, they are toldto look

inabilingualdictio naryforatranslat io n

b Towa rdtheendof thethirdweek ofthecourse,theteacher givesst

u-dentsa read ing passage.Theteach er asks the st udents to read the

pass agean toanswe rcertai n questio nsbased upon it Thepass age

week sof the course

c Theteachertells the stu d ents that they mustadd an's'tothird per

-so nsing ularverbs in the present tensein English.She thengives the

third perso nsingular presenttenseform

2 Some peopl e believethatknow ledge of afirstand second lan gua ge can

\vould an Audio-Lingualteache rsay about this?Why?

B Apply whatyou haveunderstood about theAudio-LingualMethod

Read the follo w ing dialog What su bsenrencc pat tern is it tr ying to

teach?

Th e Audio-Lin gual Method 5 I

SA M Lou 's goingtog toco llege nextfall

B ET T Y Where ishe going ?

A [ T T Y Whatish egoingtost ud y?

Prepare aseries ofdrills(backward build- up, repetition , chain, single

-s!Otsubstitution,mul~iple-sl()tsubstit utio n,ran sfo rmanon, andq non-and-answer designed togive beginnin levelEFlstudents so me

cs-practicewith thisstructure.Ifthe target languagethat yo u teachisnotEnglish,y~u may wishto write yo ur own dialog first.It isnot easyto

preparedrills.so tocheckyo urs, you mightwanttotr ygivin them to

subsentence patternin the targetlanguageyouteach

REFERENCES AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

P ractice (2nd edn.)New York:Har court Brace

Chasrai~ ,Ken neth 1 88.D eveloping S econd Langua ge Sk ills.(3rded n.)

Finocch!aro.Ma ry.19 74 E nglish as a Se co nd Languag e : From Theory t o

.Pract lce.(2ndcdn.)62-72, 16!'!-72 New York :RegentsP blis hing

Fries, Ch arles C 1 45 Teach i ng and Learning English as a F oreign Language Ann Arbor: Universityof MichiganPress

Languag e Te ach ers.Ann Arbor;Un iversityofMichi ganPress

York:~kGraw -Hill.

Paulsron, Christina Bratt 1971 'T he sequencing of structural pattern

Prater,Clifford 196 5.'Develo pmentofa manipul ati ve-co mm un ication

Second Lallguage New Yor k :McGra w.l lill

UniversityofChicago Press

Sk inner B F 195 7 V erbal B ehavio r, New York: Appleton-

Century-Cro fts

5 The Silent Way

INTRODUCTION

in a bility to readilytransferthe habi t s they had mastered intheclassroom

couldnotposs iblytakeplacethrough ha bit forma t io nsince peop lecre a te

cognition , todisco verthe rules of the language theyarcacquiring

5 4 The Si lent Way

childrenlearn.He concluded that learnin isa process which weinitiate

aware-nes ,cognition, imagination , int uitio n, creativity,etc.]TOmeet the ch

In order to explor ethe SilentWay, wewill observe the first day ofan

English classin Brazil.Therearetwent y-fo ursecondaryschool student s

in thisclass Theclass meet sfortwohours aday, three days aweek

EXPERIENCE

Aswetakeour scats, he teacher hasjustfinished introducing the Silent

chart has a black backgro und and is covered with small rectan gula r

sound-colorchar t Eachrectanglerepresen tso eEn lsh sound.There is

a white horizontal ineapprox imatelyhalfwa ydownthechar tseparating

the line, whichrepresentconsonant sounds

five blocks of color-abovethe line.There is silence The teacher repeat s

The pattern ,pointingtothesamefive blocksofcolor.Again,_no one says

any thing The th ird timethe re cher doc s the pointing , he says la l as he

I iI, 1 0/ , luI Hebeginswiththese vowels since they arethe onesstudents

andevery Brazilianschoo lch ildlearns the m in thisordc r.l

stu-dent stolength en this vowel sound.Bymovinghispoi nter,he showsthat

there is ,1 smoot h g d ing of the tongue necessary to change this

-T he S ilent W ay 5

mates the Eng sh vowe l He work s in the same way with li yl, low l

andl uw/.

class responds wit h l a/. One-by -on e, as she point s to the next threeblocks,theclassresponds correctly with l eyl, liyl, low /.Butshe has trou-ble findingthelastblock ofcolorand po intsto <1blockin thethird row Afew students yell, 'NO!' She tries ano ther block in the sarnc row; herclassmates yell, 'NO!' again Finally a boy from the fro nt row says, A

esqu erda (Port uguesefor'to the left') Asthe girl mov esthe point er oneblock to the left,the classsho ut sl uw/ The teach er signals for the girl to

dothe seriesagain Thistime shegoes ahitmorequickly and hasno trou

the sequence ofthe sounds as he saysthem Theteach er workswit h the

st udents through gest ures, and somet imes thro ugh instr uctions in

Appa rentlysat isfied tha tthe stude ntscan producethe fiveso unds accu

-rately, (he teacher nextpointstothefiveblocksinadifferen torder A few

st udents hesit ate, bur most of the stude nts seem able to connect the

56 T he Sil ent Wa) '

severa ltimes and thestudents respon d appropriately The teacher then

points to a boy sirringin the second row Theteachermoves(0the chart

and pointstofive colored blocks.Two of the blocks areabove theline and

arc theleylandl uwltheyhavealready worked on The threeot her blocks

arcbelow the line ami arcnew to them.Two or threeof thestudentsyell,

'Ped ro.' which is the boy'sname.The other students help himashe points

tothe colored blocksthatrepresent thesoundsof hisna me:I p/./ey/.ldJ,

I rl, l uw/ Two or three other students do thesame In this way, the st

u-dentsha ve learned thatEnglish has aI pl , I dJ,and I rl and the locatio nof

these sounds on theso und-color chart The students ha ve alittleprobl em

Theteachernext pointstoa girland taps out eight colo red rectangles

that represent threeother sounds:I k/, I ll , In/.The teacher fo llows a simi

-lar proced ure with a thirdstud entwhose nam eis Gabriela The stude nts

-dentstap outthesounds for the namesoftheir three classma tes

Afterquitea few stu dentshave tappedout the three names,theteacher

ta kesthe pointe rand intro d uces a new activity He askseight studentsto

sitwith him arounda big table in the front of the room as the rest of the

class gathersbehindthem The teacher puts a pile of blue, green,and pink

wooden rods of varying lengths in themiddle of the table.He points to

one of the rods, then points to three rectangles of color on the

produ ce anewEnglish sound by sta rt ing with asound they alreadyknow

them Theteacher followsthish pointingfirst to a new blockof co lor,

different colo rs He pointstorill'words 'a'and 'rod.'andthestudents sec

tha t eac hletterisin the same co lo r as the soundthe letter signifies

Afterpointing to'a'and 'rod:theteacher sits down with the stu dents

at hetable.sayingnothi ng Everyone is silent for a minuteuntilone girl

tu-Next, theteacher pointstoa particular rod and tapsout'ablue rod.'Then

he pointstothe word'blue' on theword chart.A boypointstothe rod and

say,'A blue rod.'He goesto the word chan and findsthe three words of thisphrase there.Otherstudentsdo thesame The teacherintroduces the word

Theteacherthenpointstoapinkrod and taps outIplnkl on thechart

Themvowelis anewone for thestudent s.It docsno t exist in Po rtuguese

-nunciarion of 'pink.' He looks to the teach er and the teacher gestures

acceptsher pronunci atio n The first stu de nt tries againand thistimethe

teacher acceptswhat he says.Anotherst udentseems to have tro ub lewith

the phrase Using a finger to rep resent each word of the ph rase, the

teacher shows her ho wthe phrase is segmented.Then bytappi ng his sec

-ondfinger,he indicates thather trouble is with theseco nd word

58 The Sil ent Way

Theteacherthen mou thsthe vowelsoundand withgestur es shows the

student that the vowel is shorte r than what she is saying, She tries to

shape hermouth ashedoes and herpronunciat ion docsimprove a litt le,

although it stilldocsnot appea r as dosetothetarget languagesounds as

some of the other students are able to come With the other students

atte nding, he works with her a bit longer The studentspracticesaying

andtappingout the three colorwords andthe phrase, with theteacher

lis-tening attenti velyand occasionallyinterveningto help them tocorrect

theirpronunciation

The teacherhas anot hergro upof student s take the places of the first

eightat the ta ble.Theteacher turnstoo e of the studentsandsays,'Ta ke

agreen rod : The stude nt docsnot respond; the teacher waits.Another

student picks up a green rodandsays thesamesentence.Through

ges-turesfrom the teacher,heunderstan ds that he should directthe command

to another student The second student performs the action and then

says,'Takeablue rod,'to a third student He takesone Theother stu

-dentsthentaketurnsissuing andcomplyingwithcomman dstotakea rod

ofa certai ncolor

Next the teacher puts several blueand greenrods in the centerof the

table.l epoints to theblue rod and toone of the students ,whoresponds,

'Takea bluerod.'Theteacherthensays 'and' and pointstothe green rod

The samestudentsays,'and takeagreen rod.'Theteacherind icatestothe

student hatsheshouldsaythe wholesentence andshesays, 'Takea blue

rod and take agreenrod.' Asthegirlsa yseachword,theteacherpo intsto

oneof his fingers When shesays the second'take; he gesture sthatshe

should removethe 'take' from the sentence Shetriesagain,Take a blue

rod and agreen rod; whichtheteacheraccepts.Thestudentsnow

prac-tice forming and complying with commands with similar compound

objects

The teacherthen pointstothe word charr and to one ofthestudents,

who taps out the sentences on the chan as the other students produce

them,Later,students taketurns tapping out the sentencesof theirchoice

on the word (han.Some students tap out simplecommands and some

students tap our commandswithcompoundobjects

The students return to their desks The teacher turns to the C L1S S

and asks thedass in Port ug ese for their reactions to the lesson, One

studentrepliesrhar hehas learn edt ha t languagelearningisnotdifficult

Another says that he is finding it difficult; he feels that he needs 111on:

practice associating the sounds and colors A third studen t adds that

she feltas ifshe wereplayinga game.A fourth studentsays heisfeeling

confused

The Si lent Way 59

At this point the lessonends During the next few classes, thestudents

will:

Practicewith their new sounds and lea rn to produceaccurate tion and stresspatte rnswith the wor dsandsentences

intona-2 Learn more Englishwordsfor colors and whereany new sounds are

located on thesound-colo rchart

3 Learn tousethe followingitems:

Giveittomelherlhim/them

toorhis/tha tlthese/thoseone/ones

the/alanput here/there

is/arehislherlmy/yourlth eirlour

4 Practicemakin g sentences withmany different combinationsof theseitems

5 Practicereadin gthe sentences theyhave createdo thewall charts ,

6 Work with Fidel charts, which arccha rtssummar izing the spellings of

allthe different sou nds inEnglish

7 Practice writingthesente ncesthey havecreated

Before we analyzethelesson, let uspeekinonanothe rclass beingtaught

by theSilentWay.!Thisclass is at ahig -intermediatelevel.Thestudents

aresitting around a table on whichthete cher has usedrodstoconstruct

a floorplanof a 'typica l' house He establishesthe'front' and 'back' of

the house byhaving the students label the 'front' and 'back' doors.Hepointstoeach of fourroomsand is abletoelicit from the students: 'livingroom,' 'dining room; 'kitchen; and'bedr oom ' Then the teacherpoints

to the wallsof each room in turn,Thisintroducestheneed for 'i

nside/out-sidewall.' By simplypointingto eachwall, theteachergives the students

a lotof practice producing phrases like 'the fro ntwall of theliving room,'theoutsidewallofthediningroom,'etc.Nextthe teacher picks up a rod

andsays,'table.' I-Ie shrugshisshoulders to indicatetostudents thatthey

shouldtellhim where to putit,One studentsays,'dining room; but theteacher indicatesthatheneedsmort' specific directions.The studentsa ys,'Putthe table inthemiddleof thediningroom.' Thereacherdoes this He

I This int~rm J iat l ss"n is has J on Don,l ld F rccm.in's lesson in {he United Sates Info rmatio n

A gency's / "'g"~gf' Te,'o'hi ".!: , 'v"'lhod~ vide o.

60 T he S i lent \Va)'

then picks up another; smaller rod Anotherstudents says, 'cha ir.' The

teach er indica testhatthest ude nt should tell himwhere toputthe chair

Theteacherworkswithher,usingthechartstointro d uce newwordsuntil

shec nsay,'Put the cha irinthediningroom atthehead ofthe table.'The

lesson continues in this way, withthe teach er saying very litt le, an the

stude nts practicinga great dealwithcomplex sen tences suchas 'Putthe

table at one end of the sofa ncar the outside wall of the living room:

THINKING ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE

SincetheSilent Waymaynot befamiliar to many ofyou, let usreview in

detail ourobservat ions andexam ineisprinci ples

Observations

5 Onestude ntsays,'1\

esq uerda; tohelpan the r

6 Theteacher workswithgestures, and sornerimcs

instruc t ions inthestu dents'

nat ve langu age, tohelpthe

st udentstoprod uce thetargetlanguag eso undsasaccurately

as po ssible

T he Si lent \V a)' 6 1

Principles

Stu dentsshouldlearntorely on

each other and them selves

The teacher workswiththestudents while the students work

on thelanguage

Observations

1 The teacherpointsto five blocks

ofcolor wit houtsaying

an thi ng Theblocksof color

rep resent he soundsof five

Englishvowels doseto thefive

simple vowelsofPortuguese

2 The teacher points again to the

five blocksofcolor.When the

stude nts say n th ing,the

teache rpointstothefirstblock

ofco lor andsaysl a/ Several

stude ntssayleI , iii, 1 0/, luiasthe

teache rpoints tothe other four

blocks

3 The teacherdocsnor modelthe

new sounds, but rather uses

gesturestoshowthesmdcnrs

unknow n Languages share a

number of feat ures, soundsbein

themost basic

Languagelearn ers are intelligent

andbringwiththemthe

exper ienceof alrea dy learningalan guage.Theteach ersh uldgive

onlywhat helpis necessary

Language is not learned by

repeating aftera mod el Stu dentsneedtodeveloptheirown'inner

criteria'forcor rect ness-to tr ustand to heresp nsib le fo r thei row nproductioninthetarget language

Students' actions can tell theteache rwhether or nor they han'

wordchart

10 Theteach er sitsdown at the

tableand is silent.After a

minu te, a girlpointstoa rod

andsays,'A rod.'

Theteacher makesuseof what

stude ntsalready know Themo re

theteacher doesfor thestu dents

what hey cand forthemselves,

theles they willd for

them selves

Learn inginvolvestransfer ing

what onekno ws to newcontext s

teache rfrom thecenterofattention so hecan listen toand

workwithstudents.Theteacherspeaks,butonly when necessary

Otherwise, thereacher getsour ofthe way so that itisthe stude nts

who receive the pract iceinusing

the lan guage