An Overview of Language

Teaching Methods and

Approaches
Chapter 1
KEY QUESTIONS
What are the methods and approaches that language teachers have
used over the years to teach foreign or second languages?
What are the current methodological trends and challenges?
Where does language teaching methodology appear to be heading?
WHAT IS A METHOD OR AN APPROACH TO
LANGUAGE TEACHING?
• Distinguish the terms approach, method, and technique as they apply
to language teaching
A- Anthony’s Framework:

• Approach reflects a theoretical model or research paradigm. It

provides a broad philosophical perspective on language teaching,
such as found in the justifications for the direct method, the reading
approach, or the communicative approach
• A method, on the other hand, is a set of procedures for Anthony. It
spells out rather precisely in a step-by-step manner how to teach a
second or foreign language.
• A method is more specific than an approach but less specific than a
technique.
• A technique is a specific classroom activity; it thus represents the
most specific and concrete of the three concepts that he discusses.
Some techniques are widely used and found in many methods (e.g.,
dictation, listen and repeat drills, and read the passage and fill in the
blanks); other techniques, however, are specific to or characteristic of
a given method
B- Richards and Rodgers Model
• Richards and Rodgers use method as the most general and
overarching term
• Under method, they have the terms approach, design, and
procedure.
Conceptual Underpinnings
• Language learning has undergone many shifts throughout the years.
A- Pre-twentieth-century trends: A survey of
key approaches
• Language teaching methodology vacillated between two types of
approaches: getting learners to use a language (i.e., to speak and
understand it) and getting learners to analyze a language (i.e., to
learn its grammatical rules).
• Some techniques used at that time:
1- Use imitation instead of rules to teach a language.
2- Have your students repeat after you.
3-Use a limited vocabulary initially.
4- Help your students practice reading and speaking.
5- Teach language through pictures to make it meaningful.
• Then inductive approach to learning a foreign language was used(i.e.,
an approach based on exposure to the target language in use rather
than through rules), the goal of which was to teach the use rather
than the analysis of the language being taught
A1- The grammar-translation approach.
• By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the systematic study of
the grammar of classical Latin and of classical texts had once again
taken hold in schools and universities throughout Europe.
• The following is a synthesis of the key elements of the
grammar-translation approach:
1- Instruction is given in the native language of the students.
2- There is little use of the target language for communication.
3- The focus is on grammatical parsing, that is, the forms and
inflections of words.
4- There is early reading of difficult texts.
5- A typical exercise is to translate sentences from the target language
into the mother tongue (or vice versa).
6- The result of this approach is usually an inability on the part of the
student to use the language for communication.
7- The teacher does not have to be able to speak the target language
fluently
A2- The direct method.
• The swinging of the pendulum continued. By the end of the
nineteenth century, the direct method, which once more stressed as
its goal the ability to use rather than to analyze a language, had
begun to function as a viable alternative to grammar-translation.
• Key features of the direct method are:
❑ No use of the mother tongue is permitted (i.e., the teacher does not
need to know the students' native language).
❑ Lessons begin with dialogues and anecdotes in modern
conversational style.
❑ Actions and pictures are used to make meanings clear.
❑ Grammar is learned inductively (i.e., by repeated exposure to
language in use, not through rules about forms).
❑ Literary texts are read for pleasure and are not analyzed
grammatically. The target culture is also taught inductively.
❑ The teacher must be a native speaker or have native-like proficiency
in the target language.
A3- The reform movement.
• In 1886, during the same period that the direct method first became
popular in Europe, the International Phonetic Association was
established by scholars such as Henry Sweet, Wilhelm Vietor, and
Paul Passy. They developed the International Phonetic Alphabet-a
transcription system designed to unambiguously represent the
sounds of any language-and became part of the reform movement in
language teaching in the 1890s.
 • They advocated principles such as the following:
❑ The spoken form of a language is primary and should be taught first.
❑ The findings of phonetics should be applied to language teaching.
❑ Language teachers must have solid training in phonetics.
❑ Learners should be given basic phonetic training to establish good
speech habits.

The work of these influential phoneticians focused on the teaching of

pronunciation and oral skills, which they felt had been ignored in
grammar translation
B- Early and mid-twentieth-century
approaches
B1- The reading approach.
• In the early decades of the twentieth century, the Modern Language
Association of America, based on the Coleman Report (Coleman,
1929), endorsed the reading approach to language teaching.

• Elements of the reading approach are:

❑ Only the grammar useful for reading comprehension is taught.
❑ Vocabulary is controlled at first (based on frequency and usefulness)
and then expanded.
❑ Translation is once more a respectable classroom procedure.
❑ Reading comprehension is the only language skill emphasized.
❑ The teacher does not need to have good oral proficiency in the target
language.
❑ The first language is used to present reading material, discuss it, and
check understanding.
B2-The audiolingual approach.
• Structural linguistics begins with describing minimally distinctive
sound units (phonemes), which then form lexical and grammatical
elements (morphemes), which then form higher structures such as
phrases and clauses/ sentences.
• In behavioral psychology, learning is based on getting learners to
repeat behaviors (verbal or nonverbal) until they become fully
learned habits. The audiolingual approach became dominant in the
United States during the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.
 • Its features include:
✔ Lessons begin with dialogues.
✔ Mimicry and memorization are used, based on the assumption that
language learning is habit formation.
✔ Grammatical structures are sequenced and rules are taught inductively (
through planned exposure).
✔ Skills are sequenced: first listening and speaking are taught; reading and
writing are postponed.
✔ Accurate pronunciation is stressed from the beginning.
✔ Vocabulary is severely controlled and limited in the initial stages.
✔ A great effort is made to prevent learner errors.
✔ Language is often manipulated without regard to meaning or context.
✔ The teacher must be proficient only in the structures, vocabulary, and
other aspects of the language that he or she is teaching, since learning
activities and materials are carefully controlled.
B3- The oral-situational approach.
• It arose as a reaction to the reading approach and its lack of emphasis
on listening and speaking This approach was dominant in Britain
during the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s; it drew on the reform
movement and the direct approach but added features from Firthian
linguistics (Firth, 1957) and the emerging professional field of
language pedagogy.
• Although influenced by, but less dogmatic than, its American
counterpart ( the audiolingual approach), the oral-situational
approach advocated organizing structures around situations (e.g., "at
the pharmacy" or "at the restaurant") that provided the learner with
maximum opportunity to practice the target language.
 • However, practice often consisted of little more than pattern practice,
choral repetition, or reading of texts and memorization of dialogues.
Features of the oral-situational approach include:
✔ The spoken language is primary.
✔ All language material is practiced orally before being presented in written
form (reading and writing are taught only after an oral base in lexical and
grammatical forms has been established).
✔ Only the target language should be used in the classroom.
✔ Efforts are made to ensure that the most general and useful lexical items
are presented.
✔ Grammatical structures are graded from simple to complex.
✔ New items (lexical and grammatical) are introduced and practiced
situationally ( e.g., "at the post office," "at the bank," "at the dinner table").
C- More recent approaches to language
teaching
• There are four other discernible approaches to foreign language
teaching that developed and were widely used during the final
quarter of the twentieth century; some of them continue into the
early twenty-first century. In this section, I briefly describe key
features of the cognitive, affective humanistic, comprehension-based,
and communicative approaches.
C1- The cognitive approach.
• Cognitive psychology (Neisser, 1967) holds that people do not learn
complex systems like language or mathematics through habit
formation 'but through the acquisition of patterns and rules that they
can then extend and apply to new circumstances or problems.
• language acquisition is viewed as the learning of a system of infinitely
extendable rules based on meaningful exposure, with hypothesis
testing and rule inferencing, not habit formation, driving the learning
process.
• Features of the cognitive approach include:
Language learning is viewed as rule acquisition, not habit formation.
Instruction is often individualized; learners are responsible for their own
learning.
Grammar must be taught, but it can be taught deductively (rules first,
practice later) and/ or inductively (rules can either be stated after practice
or left as implicit information for the learners to process on their own).
Pronunciation is deemphasized; perfection is viewed as unrealistic and
unattainable.
Reading and writing are once again as important as listening and speaking.
Vocabulary learning is again stressed, especially at intermediate and
advanced levels.
Errors are viewed as inevitable, to be used constructively for enhancing
the learning process (for feedback and correction).
The teacher is expected to have good general proficiency in the target
language as well as an ability to analyze the target language.
C2- The affective-humanistic approach.
• It put emphasis on the social climate in the classroom and the
development of positive relationships between the teacher and the
learners and among the learners themselves.
• It argues that learning a language is a social and personal process and
that this has to be taken into account in the methods and materials
used
▪ Following are some of the defining characteristics of the
affective-humanistic approach:
▪ Respect for each individual (students and teachers) and for their
feelings is emphasized.
▪ Communication that is personally meaningful to the learner is given
priority.
▪ Instruction involves much work in pairs and small groups.
▪ The class atmosphere is viewed as more important than materials or
methods.
▪ Peer support and interaction are viewed as necessary for learning.
▪ Learning a second or foreign language is viewed as a self-realization
process.
▪ The teacher is a counselor or facilitator rather than the ultimate
source of knowledge.
▪ The teacher should be proficient in the target language and in the
students' native language since translation may be used heavily in the
initial stages to help students feel at ease; later, it is gradually phased
out.
C3- The comprehension-based approach.
• The characteristics of the comprehension-based approach are:
Listening comprehension is very important and is viewed as the basic skill
that will allow speaking, reading, and writing to develop spontaneously
over time, given the right conditions.
Learners should begin with a silent period by listening to meaningful
speech and by responding nonverbally in meaningful ways before they
produce language themselves.
Learners should not speak until they feel ready to do so; such delayed oral
production results in better pronunciation than if the learner is expected to
speak immediately.
Learners progress by being exposed to meaningful input that is just one
step beyond their level of proficiency.
Rule learning may help learners monitor ( or become aware of) what
they do, but it will not aid their acquisition or spontaneous use of the
target language.
Error correction is seen as unnecessary and perhaps even
counterproductive; what is important is that the learners can
understand and can make themselves understood.
If the teacher is not a native ( or near-native) speaker, appropriate
audiovisual materials must be available online and in the classroom
or lab to provide the appropriate input for the learners.
C4- The communicative approach.
Some of the salient features and manifestations of the communication
approach are:
• It is assumed that the goal of language teaching is the learners'
ability to communicate in the target language.
• It is assumed that the content of a language course will include
semantic notions and social functions and that they are as important
as linguistic structures.
• In some cases, the content is academic or job related material, which
becomes the course focus with language learning as a simultaneous
concern.
• Students regularly work in groups or pairs to transfer and negotiate
meaning in situations in which one person has information that the
other(s) lack.
• Students often engage in role play or dramatization to adjust their
use of the target language to different social contexts.
• Classroom materials and activities often consist of authentic tasks
and projects presented and practiced using segments of preexisting
meaningful discourse, not materials primarily constructed for
pedagogical purposes.
• Skills are integrated from the beginning; a given activity might involve
reading, speaking, listening, and also writing ( this assumes the
learners are educated and literate).
C+ Designer methods.
• In addition to the four approaches already discussed, several other
methods proliferated in the 1970s and 1980s; these have been
labeled designer methods by Nunan
C1+ Silent Way.
• Using an array of visuals (e.g., rods of different shapes and colors, and
charts with words or color-coded sounds), the teacher gets students
to practice and learn a new language while saying very little in the
process. The method is inductive, and only the target language is
used.
C2+ Community Language Learning
• Sitting in a circle, and with the session being recorded, students
decide what they want to say. The teacher as counselor-facilitator
then translates and gets learners to practice in the target language
the material that was elicited. Later at the board, the teacher goes
over the words and structures the class is learning and provides
explanations in the LI as needed.
C3+Total Physical Response.
• The teacher gives commands, "Stand up!" "Sit down!" and so on and
shows learners how to demonstrate comprehension by doing the
appropriate physical action as a response. New structures and
vocabulary are introduced this way for an extended time. When
learners are ready to speak, they begin to give each other commands.
Only the target language is used.
D- The post-methods era
• Building on the professional consensus that no method could claim
supremacy, Prabhu (1990) asks why there is no best method. He
suggests that there are three possible explanations: (1) different
methods are best for different teaching/learning circumstances; (2)
all methods have some truth or validity; and (3) the whole notion of
what is a good or a bad method is irrelevant.
• Brown (2002), in his cnt1que of methods, adds the following two
observations: ( 1) so-called designer methods seem distinctive at the
initial stage of learning but soon come to look like any other
learner-centered approach; and (2) it has proven impossible to
empirically (i.e., quantitatively) demonstrate the superiority of one
method over another
 • One of the early concrete proposals comes from Kumaravadivelu
(1994), who offers a framework consisting of the 10 following macro
strategies, which I summarize briefly:
1. Maximize learning opportunities. The teacher's job is not to
transmit knowledge but to create and manage as many learning
opportunities as possible.
2. Facilitate negotiated interaction. Learners should initiate classroom
talk (not just respond to the teacher's prompts) by asking for
clarification, by confirming, by reacting, and so on, as part of
teacher-student and student-student interaction
3. Minimize perceptual mismatches. Reduce or avoid mismatches
between what the teacher and the learner believe is being taught or
should be taught as well as how learner performance should be
evaluated.
4. Activate intuitive heuristics. Teachers should provide enough data
for learners to infer underlying grammatical rules, since it is impossible
to explicitly teach all rules of the L2.
5. Foster language awareness. Teachers should get learners to attend
to and learn the formal properties of the L2 and then to compare and
contrast these formal properties with those of the LI.
6. Contextualize linguistic input. Meaningful discourse-based activities
are needed to help learners see the interaction of grammar, lexicon,
and pragmatics in natural language use.
7. Integrate language skills. The separation of listening, reading,
speaking, and writing is artificial. As in the real world, learners should
integrate skills: conversation (listening and speaking), note-taking
(listening and writing), self-study (reading and writing), and so on.
8. Promote learner autonomy. Teachers should help learners to learn
on their own by raising awareness of effective learning strategies and
providing problems and tasks that encourage learners to use strategies
such as planning and self-monitoring.
9. Raise cultural consciousness. Teachers should allow learners to
become sources of cultural information so that knowledge about the
culture of the L2 and of other cultures ( especially those represented by
the students) becomes part of classroom communication.
10. Ensure social relevance: Acknowledge that language learning has
social, political, economic, and educational dimensions that shape the
motivation to learn the L2, determine the uses to which the L2 will be
put, and define the skills and proficiency level needed in the L2.
CLASSROOM APPLICATIONS
• 1. Assess student needs: Why are they learning English? For what
purpose?
• 2. Examine the instructional constraints: time (hours per week, days
per week, and weeks per term), class size (nature of enrollment),
materials (set syllabus and text, or completely open to teacher?), and
physical factors ( classroom size, available audiovisual and
technological support). Then decide what and how much can
reasonably be taught and how.
• 3. Determine the attitudes, learning styles, and cultural backgrounds
of individual students to the extent that this is possible, and develop
activities and materials consistent with the findings.
• 4. Identify the discourse genres, speech activities, and text types that
the students need to learn so that they can be incorporated into
materials and learning activities.
• 5. Determine how the students' language learning will be assessed,
and incorporate learning activities that simulate assessment practices
into classroom instruction.