Language Teaching Methods & Approaches: A Comprehensive Overview
Language Teaching Methods & Approaches
Key Concepts in Language Teaching
Definitions:
Methodology: Pedagogical practices in general. All things that are engaging into “how to teach” questions are methodological, whatever the considerations take into accounts.
Approach: Theoretically well-informed positions, assumptions, thoughts, notions, and beliefs concerning the nature of language.
Method: A generalized set of specifications in the classroom for achieving linguistic objectives.
Curriculum/Syllabus: The focal concern of curriculum (commonly used in the US system) and syllabus (commonly used in the UK system) is linguistic and subject matter objectives, sequencing, and materials.
Technique: Any exercise, activities, and tasks in the classroom to meet the objectives or goal of learning.
Approach, Design, and Procedure (Richards and Rogers):
Approach was similar to Anthony’s, but their design and procedure were of broader scope than Anthony’s method and technique. Their design referred to all major practical implications in the classroom, such as syllabus design, types of activities to be used in the classroom, and student and teacher roles; procedure referred to different behaviors, practices, and techniques observed in the classroom.
Overview of Language Teaching Methods
Grammar-Translation Method:
Students learn grammatical rules and then apply those rules by translating sentences between the target language and the native language to enable students to read and translate literature. The grammar translation method instructs students in grammar and provides vocabulary with direct translations to memorize.
Audio-Lingual Method (Army Method):
Based on the theory that humans could be trained through a system of reinforcement—correct use of a trait would receive positive feedback while incorrect use of that trait would receive negative feedback. Without using the students’ native language, this method drilled students in the use of grammar (repetition).
Direct Method:
It is used for teaching foreign languages, refrains from using the learners’ native language, and uses only the target language. In general, teaching focuses on the development of oral skills. Grammar is taught inductively.
The Series Method:
A variety of the direct method. This method emphasizes teaching new vocabulary through visual aids and real-life objects, encouraging learners to associate words with their meanings directly.
Communicative Language Teaching:
Students work together to develop what aspects of a language they would like to learn. It is based on the Counseling-Approach in which the teacher acts as a counselor and a paraphraser, while the learner is seen as a client and collaborator. This approach was developed by Charles A. Curran during the 1970s.
Silent Way:
Developed by Caleb Gattegno, the teacher is largely silent, giving more space for the students to explore the language. They are responsible for their own learning and are encouraged to express themselves. The role of the teacher is not to model the language but to correct mistakes by giving sensitive feedback.
Suggestopedia:
A music-based method (baroque music) that emphasizes a relaxed environment for learning.
Natural Approach:
Developed by Stephen Krashen and Tracy D. Terrell, this method emphasizes the learner receiving large amounts of comprehensible input.
Total Physical Response (TPR):
In Total Physical Response (TPR), the instructor gives the students commands in the target language, and the students act those commands out using whole-body responses.
Learner-Centered Approaches
Learner-Centered Instruction:
Student-centered learning, also known as learner-centered education, broadly encompasses methods of teaching that shift the focus of instruction from the teacher to the student.
Collaborative Learning:
A method of teaching and learning in which students team together to explore a significant question or create a meaningful project (constructivist).
Cooperative Learning:
Students work together in small groups on a structured activity. They are individually accountable for their work, and the work of the group as a whole is also assessed. Cooperative groups work face-to-face and learn to work as a team. In small groups, students can share strengths and also develop their weaker skills.
Interactive Learning:
A pedagogical model that encourages students to be part of the lesson instead of passive observers. This teaching model is learner-centered rather than teacher-centered, encouraging imagination and strengthening the students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Whole Language Education:
Practitioners teach to develop knowledge of language, including the graphophonic, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of language. Within a whole language perspective, language is treated as a complete meaning-making system.
Content-Based Instruction (CBI):
It refers to an approach to second language acquisition that emphasizes the importance of content in contrast to other approaches or methods centered on the language itself. Content-Based Instruction is centered on the subject matter.
Task-Based Instruction (TBLL):
It focuses on the use of authentic language and on asking students to do meaningful tasks using the target language.
Communicative Approach:
It is an approach to language teaching that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of study.
Key Principles in Language Learning
Automaticity:
Subconscious process of acquiring a language. Learn a language without thinking about it. Focus on purposes instead by using language in context (CBI).
Meaningful Learning:
Will lead toward better long-term retention than rote learning. Appeals to student interests. Connects new information to old information (good schemata building).
Anticipation of Reward:
Human beings are universally driven to act, or ‘behave,’ by the anticipation of some sort of reward—tangible or intangible, short-term or long-term—that will ensue as a result of the behavior. According to Skinner, this is the most powerful factor in directing human behavior.
Intrinsic Motivation:
The most powerful rewards are those that are intrinsically motivated within the learner.
Strategic Investment:
Successful mastery of the second language will be due to a large extent to a learner’s own personal ‘investment’ of time, effort, and attention to the second language.
Language Ego:
As human beings learn to use a second language, they also develop a new way of thinking, feeling, and acting—a second identity.
Self-Confidence:
Learners’ belief that they indeed are fully capable of accomplishing a task is at least partially a factor in their eventual success in attaining the task.
Risk-Taking:
Successful language learners must be willing to become ‘gamblers’ in the game of language, to attempt to produce and interpret language that is a bit beyond their absolute certainty.
Language Culture:
Whenever you teach a language, you also teach a complex system of cultural customs, values, and ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.
Native Language Effect:
The native language of learners exerts a strong influence on the acquisition of the target language system. While that native system will exercise both facilitating and interfering effects on the production and comprehension of the new language.
Interlanguage:
Second language learners tend to go through a systematic or quasi-systematic developmental process as they progress to full competence in the target language. Successful interlanguage development is partially a result of utilizing feedback from others.
Communicative Competence:
It refers to a language user’s grammatical knowledge of syntax, morphology, phonology and the like, as well as social knowledge about how and when to use utterances appropriately.