Session 5: Approaches to Language Teaching

November 19th, 2022

Session 5: Approaches to Language Teaching
Teaching and Language Teaching

• Teaching is an art in its broadest sense

• Language teaching is even more
+ flexible
+ communicative-oriented
+ human-oriented (social variables)
+ spontaneous
+ instant
 Approaches to language teaching

• Teaching is a creative art in which individual

tutors interpret learners’ needs and the
demands of the learning situation in the light of
their own BELIEFS about language teaching.

• Beliefs: explicit (received knowledge) and

implicit (picked up)

• Teaching approaches and methods: central part

of this knowledge and these messages.
 Beliefs about being a good teacher

• Some of the characteristics of the GOOD language

teacher:
+ has fluent competence in S, W, L and R the languages
+ efficiently designs and executes lesson plans;
+ monitors lessons as they unfold and makes effective
mid-lesson alterations;
+ creatively adapts textbook materials and other audio,
visual, and mechanical aids;
+ values the opinions and abilities of students.

How many other characteristics can you think of ? (cf.

Brown, 2001: 430)
• Behaviourist tendencies in teacher
development suggested that learning to
teach was simply about identifying what good
teachers do and encouraging novice
teachers to copy this.

• “Teachers develop their individual

conceptions about language, language
learning and language teaching thru their
personal interpretations of experience”
(Edwards, 2003)
• When teachers are exposed to
methods and asked to reflect on their
principles and actively engage with
their techniques, they can become
clearer about why they do what they
do. They become aware of their own
fundamental assumptions, values
and beliefs. (Larsen-Freeman, 2000)
Nature of approaches & methods in ELT

• The Grammar- Translation Method reflected a time-honoured

and scholarly view of language and language study

• At times, the practical realities of the classroom determined

both goals and procedures, as with the determination of
reading as the goal in American schools and colleges in the
late 1920s
• At other times, theories derived from linguistics, psychology,
or a mixture of both were used to develop a both philosophical
and practical basis for language teaching (Richards &
Rodgers,2000)
Approach and Method

• In order to improve the quality of language

teaching, linguists and language specialists often
referred to:
+ general principles and theories concerning how
languages are learned,
+ how knowledge of language is represented and
organised in memory

+ or how language itself is structured.

• Approach: a set of correlative assumptions dealing with
the nature of language teaching and learning.
An approach is axiomatic.
• Method: an overall plan for the orderly presentation of language
material, no part of which contradicts, and all of which is based
upon, the selected approach. A method is procedural.
• Within one approach, there can be many methods.
• A technique is implementational - that which actually takes
place in a classroom. Techniques must be consistent with a
method, and therefore in harmony with an approach as well
(Anthony, 1963)
• In Anthony’s view:
+ approach is the level at which assumptions and beliefs
about language and language learning are specified

+ method is the level at which theory is put into practice and at

which choices are made about the particular skills to be
taught, the content to be taught, and the order in which the
content will be presented

+ technique is the level at which classroom procedures are

described.
 Approach
• Approach refers to theories about the nature of
language and language learning that serves as
the source of practices and principles in language
teaching ( linguistic & psycholinguistic aspects)

• Theory of language: at least 3 different theoretical

views:
+ first and most traditional: structural view
+ second view: functional view
+ third view: interactional view
 Grammar-Translation
• Models from how Latin and Greek were taught
+ Theory of language: L is a system of rules and vocabulary
+ Theory of learning: acquiring a L means learning these rules and
a vocabulary in a linear fashion

 1. The goal of FL study is to learn a language in order to read its literature.

2. Focus on R and W and little attention paid to S or L.
3. Vocabulary is taught thru bilingual word list, dictionary
study, and memorisation.
4. The sentence is the basic unit of teaching and L practice.
5. Accuracy is emphasized.
6. Grammar is taught deductively for high standards in translation.
7. Learners’ L1 is the medium of instruction
 Language-learning Reform

• In late 19th cent, reformists of language teaching

and learning believed that:

1.Spoken language is primary and language should be oral-

based.
2.Listening introduced before written form
3.Words introduced in sentences and meaningful contexts
4.Grammar presented inductively
5.Translation avoided
 Audiolingualism (AL)

• AL based on drilling, habit formation & error avoidance

• Theory of language: structuralism
• Learning a language entails mastering the elements/ building
blocks of the language and learning the rules by which these
elements are combined, from phoneme to morpheme to
word to phrase to sentence
• Language is speech, not writing…A language is a set of
habits…Teach the language, not about the language…A
language is what its native speakers say, not what someone
thinks they ought to say” (Moulton, 1961)
 Theory of Learning

Reinforcement
(behavior likely
to occur again and
become a habit)

Stimulus Organism Response

(explicitly (FL learners) Behavior
taught or No reinforcement/
presented) Negative reinforcement
(behavior likely
to occur again)

• Reinforcement: extrinsic approval/ praise of T or peers

: intrinsic self-satisfaction of target language use
(Richards & Rodgers, 2000)
 Decline of AL
• AL peaked in 1960s for EFL/ESL: English 900 or
Lado English Series

• Criticisms:

- Being unsound both in terms of language theory and learning

theory
- Practitioners found practical results fell short of expectations
- Noam Chomsky rejected both structuralist approach to
language description and the behaviorist theory of language
learning.

 “ Language is not a habit structure. Ordinary linguistic behavior

characteristically involves innovation, formation of new sentences and
patterns in accordance with rules of great abstractness and intricacy”
 Communicative Language Teaching- CLT
• Chomsky:
Language

competence performance

+ Hymes (1971): communicative competence :

appropriate language use

+ Canale and Swain (1980): 4 dimensions of

competence: grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse and
strategic.
 AL vs. CLT
• AL • CLT

1. Form more than meaning 1. Meaning is paramount

2. Language items not necessarily 2. Contextualization is a basic
contextualized premise
3. Learning is learning structures, 3. Language learning is learning to
sounds, or words communicate
4. Mastery or over-learning is 4. Effective communication is
sought sought
5. Native-like pronunciation is 5. Comprehensible pronunciation
sought is sought

6. Students’ L1 is forbidden 6. L1 is accepted where feasible

7. Linguistic competence is the 7. Communicative competence is
desired goal the desired goal
8. Teacher: controlers 8. Teachers: facilitators
9. Language is a habit. Errors must 9. Language is created through
be prevented at all cost trial and error
10. Accuracy, in terms of formal 10. Fluency and acceptable
correctness, is a primary goal language use is the primary
goal
 Theory of language
• Basic assumption: Language is for communication
• Some of the characteristics of this communicative view of
language follow:
1. Language is a system for the expression of meaning
2. The primary function of language is for interaction and
communication
3. The structure of language reflects its functional and
communicative uses.
4. The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical
and structural features, but categories of functional and
communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse
(Richards & Rodgers, 2000)
 Theory of learning

• Little has been written about learning theory

• Elements of an underlying learning theory can be discerned in
some CLT practices, however.

# Communication principle:
+ Activities that involve real communication promote learning
# Task principle:
+ Activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful
tasks promote learning
# Meaningfulness principle:
+ Language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning
process
Criticism of CLT

• Restricted view of linguistic competence, with emphasis on

transactional language
• Focus on meaning than on form
• Mistaken beliefs: doing can replace knowing  de-
emphasis of cognitive views of language learning
• Excessive concern with authenticity and simulations
 Littlewood’s (1981) transition

Structural activities

Pre-communicative activities

Quasi-communicative
activities

Functional communication
activities
Communicative activities

Social interaction activities

(Littlewood, 1981)
 Task-based instruction (TBI)

• Task requires comprehending, producing,

manipulating or interacting in authentic language.

• Meaning rather than form

• Basic pair and group work increase student interaction,

collaboration:
+ Write and edit class newspaper
+ Develop TV commercial
Which method?

“Any method is going to be shaped by a teacher’s own

understanding, beliefs, style, and level of experience.
…They are informed by their own experience, the findings
from research, and the wisdom of practice accumulated by
the profession”

(Larsen-Freeman, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, OUP,2000)

Question:

What is the difference between strong and weak

versions of CLT?

END