Techniques and Principles

in Language Teaching

1
 Introduction

The actions are the techniques

and the thoughts are the
principles. It is important to
recognize that methods link
thoughts and actions because
teaching is not entirely about
one or the other.
2
3
You have thoughts about your subject matter--what
language is, what culture is –about your students--who
they are as learners and how it is they learn.
You have also have thoughts about yourself as a teacher
and what you can do to help your students learn.
4

It is very important for you to

become aware of the thoughts
that guide your actions in the
classroom.
5

Everyone knows that being a good teacher means giving

positive feedback to students and being concerned about
their affective side on their feelings.

Learning to listen to themselves is part of lessening their

reliance on the teacher.
The teacher will not always be there. Also, they will be
encouraged to form
criteria for correcting their mistakes--for monitoring their own
progress.
6

Observing a class will give you a greater understanding of

a particular method and will give you more of an
opportunity to reflect on your own practice
than if you were to simply read a description of it.
 Ten questions
7 - 1. What are the goals of teachers who use this method?
2. What is the role of the teacher? What is the role of the
students?
3. What are some characteristics of the teaching/learning process?
4. What is the nature of student- teacher interaction? What is the nature of
student-student interaction?
5. How are the feelings of the students dealt with?
6. How is language viewed? How is culture viewed?
7. What areas of language are
emphasized? What language
skills are emphasized?
8. What is the role of the students' native language?
9. How is evaluation accomplished?
10. How does the teacher respond to student errors?
8 The Grammar-Translation Method
- The Grammar-Translation Method was called the Classical
Method since it was first used in the teaching of the classical
languages, Latin and Greek
(Chastian, 1988).
 This method was used for the purpose of helping students
9 read and appreciate foreign language literature.
Through the study of the grammar of the target language,
students would become more familiar with the grammar of
their native language and that this familiarity with the
grammar of their native language better.
Finally, it was thought that foreign language learning would
help students grow intellectually.
10
Principles
- Learning a foreign language is to be able to read
literature written in it.
Literary language is superior to spoken language. If
students can translate from one language into another,
they are considered successful language learners.
 The ability to communicate in the target language is not a
11
goal of foreign language instruction.
" The primary skills to be developed are reading and writing.
Little attention is given to speaking and listening and
almost none to pronunciation.
 ** The teacher is the authority in the classroom. It is very
12 important that students get the correct answer.

** Learning is facilitated through attention to similarities

between the target language and the native language.

**Deductive application of an explicit grammar rule is a useful

pedagogical technique.
** Language learning provides good mental exercise.
13
Students should be conscious of the
grammatical rules of the target language.
14 There is little student initiation and little student-student interaction.
There are no principles of the method which relate to students’ feelings.

Vocabulary and grammar are emphasized. Reading and writing are the
primary skills that the students work on.
15
The role of the students’ native language
The meaning of the target language is made clear by
translating the students' native language. The language that
is used in class is mostly the students' native language.

How is evaluation accomplished?

* Written tests in which students are asked to translate from
their native language to the target language or vice versa
are often used.
16 How does the teacher respond to student errors?
Having the students get the correct answer is considered very
important.
17 The Direct Method
I The Direct Method has one very basic rule: No translation is
allowed.
Meaning is to be conveyed directly in the target language
through the use of demonstration and visual aids.
18
Principles

The reading skill will be developed through practice with

speaking. Language is primarily speech. Culture consists of
more than the fine arts(e.g. the students study geography
and cultural attitudes).
19
Objects (e.g. realia or pictures)
present in the immediate classroom environment should be
used to help students understand the meaning.
" The native language should not be used in the classroom.
20
The teacher should demonstrate, not explain or
translate. It is desirable that students make a direct
association between the target language and
meaning.
21
Students should learn to think in the target language
as soon as possible. Vocabulary is acquired more
naturally if students use it in full sentences rather than
memorizing word lists.
22
The purpose of language learning is communication.

- Pronunciation should be worked on right from the beginning

of language instruction.
23
Self-correction facilitates language learning.

Lessons should contain some conversational activity.

-some opportunity for students to use language in real
contexts.
Students should be encouraged to speak as much as possible.
24 Grammar should be taught inductively.
There may never be an explicit grammar rule
given.

Writing is an important skill, to be developed from the

beginning of language instruction.
25

The syllabus is based on situations or topics, not usually on

linguistic structures.
Learning another language also involves learning how
speakers of that language live.
26
What are the goals of teachers who use the Direct Method?
- Teachers who use the Direct Method intend that students
learn how to communicate in the target language.
In order to do this successfully, students should learn to think in
the target language.
27

What is the role of teacher?

Although the teacher directs the class activities, the student
role is less passive than in the Grammar-Translation Method.
The teacher and the students are more like partners in the
teaching/learning process.
28 What are some characteristics of the teaching/learning
process?
- Teachers believe students need to associate meaning and
the target language directly.
Students speak in the target language a great deal and
communicate as if they were in real situations. The syllabus is
based upon situations or topics.
29 What is the nature of student- teacher interaction?
The initiation of the interaction goes both ways, from
teacher to
students and from student to teacher, although the latter is
often teacher-directed.
30 How are the feelings of the students dealt with?
" There are no principles of the
methods which relate to this area.
How is language viewed?
I Language is primarily spoken, not written.
What areas of language are emphasized?
- Vocabulary is emphasized over grammar.
What is the role of the students' native language?
Students' native language should not be used in the classroom.
31 How is evaluation accomplished?
- The students might be interviewed orally by the teacher or
might be asked to write a paragraph about something
they have studied.
32

How does the teacher respond to student errors?

• The teacher, employing various techniques, tries to get
students to self-correct whenever possible.
33

The Audio-Lingual Method

34
The Audio-Lingual Method
• The Audio-Lingual Method, like the Direct Method, is also
an oral-based approach. However, it is very different in that
the Audio-Lingual Method drills students in the use of
grammatical sentence patterns.
35 It also, unlike the Direct Method, has a strong theoretical base
in linguistics and psychology. It has principles from behavioral
psychology (Skinner, 1957 )were incorporated. It was thought
that the way to acquire the sentence patterns of the target
language was through conditioning
-helping learners to respond correctly to stimuli through
shaping and reinforcement.
36

Learners could overcome the habits of their

native language and from the new habits
required to be target language speakers.
37

Principles
Language forms do not occur by themselves; they
occur most naturally within a context.

The native language and the target language have

separate linguistic systems. They should be kept apart
so that the students' native language interferes as little
as possible with the students' attempts to acquire the
target language.
38
The language teacher's role
One of the language teacher’s major roles is that of a model
of the target language.
Teachers should provide students with a good model.
By listening to how it is supposed to sound students should be
able to mimic the model.
39
Language learning is a process of habit formation.
The more often something is repeated, the stronger the
habit and the greater the learning.

It is important to prevent learners from making errors.

Errors lead to the formation of bad habits.
When errors do occur, they should be immediately
corrected by the teacher.
40

The purpose of language learning is to learn how to use

the language to communicate.

Particular parts of speech occupy particular 'slots’ in

sentences. In order to create new sentences, students must
learn which part of speech occupies which slot.
41

- Positive reinforcement helps the students to develop correct

habits.

- Students should learn to respond to both verbal and

nonverbal stimuli.

- Pattern practice helps students to form habits which enable

the students to use the patterns.
42
Students should 'overlearn’ learn to answer automatically
without stopping to think.

The teacher should be like an orchestra leader-conducting,

guiding, and controlling the students' behavior in the target
language.

The major objective of language teaching should be for

students to acquire the structural patterns; students will learn
vocabulary afterward.
43
The learning of a foreign language should be the same as
the acquisition of the native language.
The rules necessary to use the target language will be
figured out or induced from examples, The major
challenge of foreign language teaching is getting students
to overcome the habits of their native language.
44
Speech is more basic to language than the written
form.
The 'natural order' -the order children follow when
learning their native language of skill acquisition
are: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
45

Language cannot be separated from culture. Culture is

not only literature and the arts, but also the everyday
behavior of the people who use the target language.
One of the teacher’s responsibilities is to present
information about that culture.
46 The nature of student-teacher interaction
Most of the interactions is between teacher and students
and is initiated by the teacher.

How is language viewed?

Everyday speech is emphasized in the Audio-lingual Method.
The level of complexity of the speech is graded, so that
beginning students are presented with only simple patterns.
Culture consists of the everyday behavior and lifestyle of the
target language speakers.
47
What areas of language are emphasized?
- Vocabulary is kept to a minimum while the
students are mastering the wound system and
grammatical patterns.
48

The oral/aural skills receive most of the attention.

Pronunciation is taught from the beginning, often by

students working in language laboratories on discriminating
between members of minimal pairs.
49

The role of the students’ native language

- The target language is used in the classroom, not
the students’ native language.
50

How is evaluation accomplished?

Students might be asked to distinguish between
words in a minimal pair, for example, or to supply
an appropriate verb form in a sentence.
51

How does the teacher respond to student errors?

Student errors are to be avoided if at all possible through
the teacher's awareness of where the students will have
difficulty and restriction of what they are taught to say.
52 The role of instructional materials
Instructional materials in the Audiolingual Method
assist the teacher to develop language mastery in the
learner.
They are primary teacher-oriented.
- Tape recorders and audiovisual equipment often
have central roles in an audiolingual course.
53
The decline of Audioligualism
Audiolingualism reached its period of most widespread use in
the 1960s and was applied both to the teaching of foreign
language in the United States and to the teaching of English
as a second or foreign language.
54 Audiolingualism stresses the mechanistic aspects of
language learning and language use.

Total Physical Response (TPR)

TPR is a language teaching method built around
the coordination of speech and action; it attempts
to teach language through physical motor activity.
Developed by James Asher, a professor of
psychology at San Jose State University, California.
55

He claims that speech directed to young

children consists primarily of commands,
which children respond to physically before
they begin to produce verbal responses.
56 Asher shares with the school of humanistic
psychology a concern for the role of affective
factors in language learning.
57
Asher has elaborated an account of what
he feels facilitates or inhibits foreign
language learning.
For this dimension of his learning theory he
draws on three influential learning
hypotheses:
 1. There exists a specific innate bio-program for language
58 learning which defines an optimal path for first and second
language development.

- 2. Brain lateralization defines different learning functions in the

left-and-right brain hemispheres.

3. Stress intervenes between the act of learning and what is to

be learned; the lower the stress, the greater the learning.
59
Listening should be accompanied by physical movement.
Speech and other productive skills should come later.

Asher sees TPR as directed to right-brain learning, whereas

most second language teaching methods are directed to left-
brain learning. Asher hold that the child language learner
acquires language through motor movement.
60
Similarly, the adult should proceed to language
mastery through right hemisphere motor activities,
while the left hemisphere watches and learns.
61 The objective of TPR
- The objective of TPR is to teach oral proficiency at a
beginning level. Comprehension is a means to an end. The
ultimate aim is to teach basic speaking skills.

TPR requires initial attention to meaning rather than to the form

of items.
Grammar is thus taught inductively.
62
Learners in TPR have the primary roles of listener and
performer.
They listen attentively and respond physically to commands
given by the teacher.
Learners are also expected to recognize and respond to
novel combinations of previously taught items.
63 Learners monitor and evaluate their own progress.
They are encouraged to speak when they feel
ready to speak--that is, when a sufficient basis in the
language has been internalized.

The teacher plays an active and direct role in TPR.

87