Approaches in language

METHODS OF LANGUAGE TEACHING
RESOURCE PERSON:
MR.FARMAN

Applied linguistics
Applied linguistics is the branch of linguistics focusing on
the practical applications of language studies.
Linguistics
linguistics is the scientific study of the structure and
development of language in general or of particular
languages
Linguistics, as the science of language, should be of
fundamental importance for teachers of language.
2

According to Jo McDonough, a
teacher who is able to explain some
linguistic features would have a
stronger position than one who
handles the argument by using
authority – “it’s like that”, “it’s an
exception”, or “it’s less formal”.
3

Linguistics and language learning
Many language learning theories are
proposed based on certain linguistic
theories.
◦ In fact, knowledge in linguistics
lies at the root of understanding
what language learners can learn,
how they actually learn and what
they learn ultimately.
4

Prominent Theories of Linguistics
◦ Behaviourist
◦ Innateness/Mentalist
◦ Cognitive
◦ Input/Interactionist

Behaviourism
The behaviourist psychologists developed their theories while carrying
out a series of experiments on animals. They observed that rats or birds,
for example, could be taught to perform various tasks by encouraging
habit-forming. Researchers rewarded desirable behaviour. This was
known as positive reinforcement. Undesirable behaviour was punished
or simply not rewarded - negative reinforcement.

Innateness
the process is biologically determined - the human
species has evolved a brain whose neural circuits
contain linguistic information at birth. The child's
natural predisposition to learn language is triggered
by hearing speech and the child's brain is able to
interpret what s/he hears according to the
underlying principles or structures it already
contains. This natural faculty has become known as
the Language Acquisition Device (LAD).

Cognitive
‘the understanding, acquisition and processing
knowledge, or more loosely thought processes’.
Cognitive learning theories deal with the way
human being acquires and understands knowledge
through thinking.
All explanation about how human being acquires
and understands knowledge through thinking.

Input or Interactionist
the importance of the language lies on the input of the
children that they receive from their care-givers. Language
exists for the purpose of communication and can only be
learned in the context of interaction with people who want to
communicate with you. Interactionists such as Jerome Bruner
suggest that the language behaviour of adults is known as
child-directed speech or CDS) is specially adapted to support
the acquisition process. This support is often described to as
scaffolding for the child's language learning. Bruner also
coined the term Language Acquisition Support System or
LASS in response to Chomsky's LAD.

As Rod Ellis points out:
The earlier work focused on
◦ Linguistic
◦ Grammatical-properties
◦ Psycholinguistic in orientation
Later work put focus over
• Pragmatic aspects of learner language
• Sociolinguistic perspective.
10

Although certain language learners (e.g., advanced learners
and students majoring a foreign language) certainly benefit
from a knowledge of linguistics, it is not sensible to
recommend the majority of language learners to study
linguistics while they are still struggling with the task of
learning the language itself.
11

Grammar
◦ As a compromise between the “purely form-focused
approaches” and the “purely meaning-focused”
approaches, a recent movement called focus on form
seems to take a more balanced view on the role of
grammar in language learning.
12
 Do we teach grammar?
 How do we teach
grammar?

Focus on Form
Although language learning should generally be
meaning-focused and communication-oriented, it is
still necessary and beneficial to focus on form
occasionally.
13

Focus on form often consists of
an occasional shift of attention to
linguistic code features—by the
teacher and/or one or more
students—triggered by perceived
problems with comprehension or
production.
14

Amenability of Language Elements
Two variables concerning the amenability of
language elements are
◦ Focus on form that are the relevance of Universal
Grammar (UG)
◦ Complexity of language structures.
According to the advocates of focus on form, if an
L2 structure is part of UG, the amenability is high;
otherwise, the amenability is low.
15

The problem is that no one knows
for sure what exactly is part of
UG. It is here that the study of
linguistics comes into play.
The study of UG, which is often
considered as the theory for the
sake of theory, is now needed in
language learning research in the
most practical sense.
16

Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the
theory of the genetic component of the language
faculty, usually credited to Noam Chomsky. The basic
postulate of UG is that a certain set of structural rules
are innate to humans, independent of sensory
experience..
17

Structural complexity
It can be assumed that less complex structures have higher
amenability, but complexity is hard to define.
Formally simple structures can be functionally complex
and formally complex items are not necessarily
functionally complex.
Again we resort to linguistics in order to have a better
understanding of the complexity of language structures.
18

Major Approaches of Language Teaching
There are two major approaches of Language teaching
that are being supposed in every language centers or
institutions
◦ Grammar-Based-Teaching
◦ Input-Based-Teaching

Grammar-Based Teaching
Grammar-translation method
Audiolingual method
Situational language teaching
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Input
Language learning can take place when the learner has
enough access to input in the target language.
This input may come in written or spoken form.
In the case of spoken input, it may occur in the context
of interaction or in the context of non-reciprocal
discourse .
21

Input Types
Views diverge greatly as to what kind of input
should be provided for language learners.
◦ Authentic input
◦ Comprehensible input
◦ Pre-modified input
◦ Interactively modified input: tends to do a
better job
22

Input-based teaching
Direct method
Natural approach
Total physical response
Communicative approach
Community language learning (CLL)
Suggestopedia
Silent way
23

Methods of Language Teaching
1) Grammar-translation approach
2) Direct approach
3) Reading approach
4) Audiolingual method
5) Community language learning
6) Suggestopedia
7) The silent way
8) Total physical response
9) The natural way
10) Communicative language
teaching

Grammar-Translation Approach
In this method, classes are taught in the students' mother
tongue, with little active use of the target language.
Vocabulary is taught in the form of isolated word lists.
Elaborate explanations of grammar are always provided.
Grammar instruction provides the rules for putting words
together; instruction focuses on the form and inflection of
words.

Direct Approach
This approach was developed initially as a reaction to
the grammar-translation approach in an attempt to
integrate more use of the target language in
instruction.
Lessons begin with a dialogue using a modern
conversational style in the target language.
Material is first presented orally with actions or
pictures.

Questions are answered in the target language.
Grammar is taught inductively--rules are generalized
from the practice and experience with the target
language.
Verbs are used first and systematically conjugated
much later after some oral mastery of the target
language.
Advanced students read literature for comprehension
and pleasure.

Reading Approach
The approach is mostly for people who do not travel
abroad for whom reading is the one practical skill in a
foreign language.
The priority in studying the target language is first,
reading ability and second, current and/or historical
knowledge of the country where the target language
is spoken.

From the beginning, a great amount of reading is
done in L2.
The vocabulary of the early reading passages and
texts is strictly controlled for difficulty.
Vocabulary is expanded as quickly as possible, since
the acquisition of vocabulary is considered more
important that grammatical skill.
Translation reappears in this approach as a
respectable classroom procedure related to
comprehension of the written text.

Audiolingual Method
This method is based on the principles of behavior psychology.
It adapted many of the principles and procedures of the Direct Method, in
part as a reaction to the lack of speaking skills of the Reading Approach.
New material is presented in the form of a dialogue.

Based on the principle that language learning is habit
formation, the method fosters dependence on
mimicry, memorization of set phrases and over-
learning.
Structures are sequenced and taught one at a time.
Structural patterns are taught using repetitive drills.
Little or no grammatical explanations are provided;
grammar is taught inductively.

Skills are sequenced: Listening, speaking, reading and writing are
developed in order.
Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context.
Teaching points are determined by contrastive analysis between L1 and L2.
There is abundant use of language laboratories, tapes and visual aids.
There is an extended pre-reading period at the beginning of the course.

Great importance is given to precise native-like
pronunciation.
Use of the mother tongue by the teacher is permitted,
but discouraged among and by the students.
Successful responses are reinforced; great care is
taken to prevent learner errors.
There is a tendency to focus on manipulation of the
target language and to disregard content and
meaning.

Hints for Using Audio-lingual Drills in L2 Teaching
1. The teacher must be careful to insure that all of the
utterances which students will make are actually
within the practiced pattern.
2. Drills should be conducted as rapidly as possibly so
as to insure automaticity and to establish a system.
3. Ignore all but gross errors of pronunciation when
drilling for grammar practice.
4. Use of shortcuts to keep the pace of drills at a maximum. Use hand motions, signal cards,
notes, etc. to cue response.

5. Drill material should always be meaningful. If the
content words are not known, teach their meanings.
6. Intersperse short periods of drill (about 10 minutes)
with very brief alternative activities to avoid fatigue
and boredom.
7. Don’t stand in one place; move about the room
standing next to as many different students as
possible to check their production. Thus you will
know who to give more practice to during individual
drilling.

Community language learning (CLL)
This approach is patterned upon counseling
techniques and adapted to the peculiar anxiety and
threat as well as the personal and language problems
a person encounters in the learning of foreign
languages.
The learner is not thought of as a student but as a
client.
The instructors are not considered teachers but, rather are trained in
counseling skills adapted to their roles as language counselors.

The language-counseling relationship begins with the
client's linguistic confusion and conflict.
The aim of the language counselor's skill is first to
communicate an empathy for the client's threatened
inadequate state and to aid him linguistically.
Then slowly the teacher-counselor strives to enable
him to arrive at his own increasingly independent
language adequacy.

The process involves five stages of adaptation:
STAGE 1
The client is completely dependent on the language
counselor.
1. First, he expresses only to the counselor and in
English what he wishes to say to the group. Each
group member overhears this English exchange but
no other members of the group are involved in the
interaction.

2. The counselor then reflects these ideas back to the
client in the foreign language in a warm, accepting
tone, in simple language in phrases of five or six
words.
3. The client turns to the group and presents his ideas
in the foreign language. He has the counselor's aid if
he mispronounces or hesitates on a word or phrase.
This is the client's maximum security stage.

STAGE 2
1. Same as above.
2. The client turns and begins to speak the foreign language directly to
the group.
3. The counselor aids only as the client hesitates or turns for help. These
small independent steps are signs of positive confidence and hope.

STAGE 3
1. The client speaks directly to the group in the
foreign language. This presumes that the group has
now acquired the ability to understand his simple
phrases.
2. Same as 3 above. This presumes the client's greater
confidence, independence, and proportionate insight
into the relationship of phrases, grammar, and ideas.
Translation is given only when a group member
desires it.

STAGE 4
1. The client is now speaking freely and complexly in the foreign
language. Presumes group's understanding.
2. The counselor directly intervenes in grammatical error,
mispronunciation, or where aid in complex expression is needed. The
client is sufficiently secure to take correction.

STAGE 5
1. Same as stage 4.
2. The counselor intervenes not only to offer
correction but to add idioms and more elegant
constructions.
3. At this stage the client can become counselor to the
group in stages 1, 2, and 3.

Suggestopedia
-This method developed out of believe that human
brain could process great quantities of material given
the right conditions of learning like relaxation.
-music was central to this method.

-Soft music led to increase in alpha brain wave and a decrease in blood
pressure and pulse rate resulting in high intake of large quantities of
materials.
-Learners were encouraged to be as “childlike” as possible.
-Apart from soft, comfortable seats in a relaxed setting, everything else
remained the same.

The natural approach
This method emphasized development of basic
personal communication skills
Delay production until speech emerge i.e learners
don’t say anything until they are ready to do so
Learners should be as relaxed a possible
Advocate use of TPR at beginning level
Comprehensible input is essential for acquisition to
take place.

The Silent Way
This method begins by using a set of colored wooden
rods and verbal commands in order to achieve the
following:
1)To avoid the use of the vernacular.
2)To create simple linguistic situations that remain
under the complete control of the teacher .

3)To pass on to the learners the responsibility for the utterances of the
descriptions of the objects shown or the actions performed.
4)To let the teacher concentrate on what the students say and how they are
saying it, drawing their attention to the differences in pronunciation and
the flow of words.
5) To generate a serious game-like situation in which the rules are
implicitly agreed upon by giving meaning to the gestures of the teacher
and his mime.
6) To permit almost from the start a switch from the lone voice of the
teacher using the foreign language to a number of voices using it.

7) To provide the support of perception and action to
the intellectual guess of what the noises mean, thus
bring in the arsenal of the usual criteria of experience
already developed and automatic in one's use of the
mother tongue.
8) To provide a duration of spontaneous speech upon
which the teacher and the students can work to obtain
a similarity of melody to the one heard.

This is a chart containing a certain number of different coloured rectangles;
each colour corresponds to a sound in the language.
51

The Fidel is a set of charts
presenting all the possible spellings
of each sound of the language.
52

One of the 12 word charts on
which the functional words of
the language are printed in
color.
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Materials
The materials utilized as the language learning
progresses include:
1) A set of colored wooden rods
2) A set of wall charts containing words of a
"functional" vocabulary and some additional ones

3. A pointer for use with the charts in Visual Dictation
4. A color coded phonic chart(s) Tapes or discs
5. films, drawings and pictures, and
6. A set of accompanying worksheets transparencies, texts, a Book of
Stories.

Total Physical Response (TPR)
Total Physical Response (TPR) method as one that
combines information and skills through the use of the
kinesthetic sensory system.
This combination of skills allows the student to
assimilate information and skills at a rapid rate. The
basic tenets are:

1) Understanding the spoken language before developing the skills of
speaking.
2) Imperatives are the main structures to transfer or communicate
information.
3) The student is not forced to speak, but is allowed an individual
readiness period and allowed to spontaneously begin to speak when
the he/she feels comfortable and confident in understanding and
producing the utterances.

Procedure:
Step I The teacher says the commands as he himself
performs the action.
Step 2 The teacher says the command as both the
teacher and the students then perform the action.
Step 3 The teacher says the command but only
students perform the action

Step 4 The teacher tells one student at a time to do
commands
Step 5 The roles of teacher and student are reversed.
Students give commands to teacher and to other
students.
Step 6 The teacher and student allow for command
expansion or produces new sentences.

Communicative language Teaching
The method stresses a means of organizing a
language syllabus. The emphasis is on breaking down
the global concept of language into units of analysis
in terms of communicative situations in which they
are used.
There is negotiation of meaning.
A variety of language skills are involved
Material is presented in context

It pays attention to registers and styles in terms of situation and
participants.
Fluency and accuracy (different competencies)
Form and functions
development of autonomous learners

Techniques
CLASSROOM SET-UP – the challenge for the teacher is to create a
classroom enivronment which is bright and cheerful. (The teacher
should try to provide as positive environment as possible.)
PERIPHERAL LEARNING – this technique is based upon that we percieve
much more in our environment than that to which we consciously
attend. It is claimed that, by putting poster containing grammatical
information about the target language on the classroom walls, students
will absorb the necessary facts effortlessly.
POSITIVE SUGGESTION – it’s the teacher resposibility to orchestrate the
suggestive factors in a learning situation, thereby helping students
break down the barriers to learning that they bring with them. Teachers
can do this through direct and indirect means.

Techiques
BAROQUE MUSIC – it has a specific rhythm and a pattern of
60 beats per minute, and Lozanov believed it created a level
of relaxed concentration that facilitated the intake and
retention of huge quantities of material.

Approaches in language

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