SUMMARY
OF
APPROACHES
AND METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
(Jack C.
Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers)
Proposed
to fulfill the Comprehensive Assignment
Ovi
Sovina Ekawati
102300914
TBI C/ VIII
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS
THE STATE INSTITUTE FOR ISLAMIC STUDIES
“SULTAN MAULANA HASANUDDIN BANTEN”
1435 A.H/ 2014 A.D
I.
MAJOR
TRENDS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY LANGUAGE TEACHING
1. A brief history of language teaching
In the sixteenth
century, French, Italian, and English gained in importance as a result of
political changes in Europe, and Latin gradually became displaced as a language
of spoken and written communication. The study of classical Latin (the Latin in
which the classical works of Virgil, Ovid, and Cicero were written) and an
analysis of its grammar and rhetoric became the model for foreign language
study from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.
Toward the
mid-nineteenth century several factors contributed to a questioning and
rejection of the Grammar-Translation Method. Linguists too became interested in
the controversies that emerged about the best way to teach foreign languages,
and ideas were fiercely discussed and defended in books, articles, and
pamphlets.
Other reformers
toward the end of the century likewise turned their attention to naturalistic
principles of language learning, and for this reason they are sometimes
referred to as advocates of a "natural" method.
2. The nature of approaches and methods in language
teaching
He identified
three levels of conceptualization and organization, which he termed approach,
method, and technique:
-
An approach is a set of
correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of language teaching and
learning.
-
Method is 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 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.
3. The Oral Approach and Situational Language Teaching
-
Language teaching begins with the
spoken language. Material is taught orally before it is presented in written
form.
-
The target language is the language
of the classroom.
-
New language points are
introduced and practiced situationally.
-
Vocabulary selection procedures
are followed to ensure that an essential general service vocabulary is covered.
-
Items of grammar are graded
following the principle that simple forms should be taught before complex ones.
-
Reading and writing are
introduced once a sufficient lexical and grammatical basis is established.
4. The Audiolingual Method
The learner's
activities must at first be confined to the audiolingual and gestural-visual
bands of language behavior. Recognition and discrimination are followed by
imitation, repetition and memorization.
The use of
drills and pattern practice is a distinctive feature of the Audiolingual
Method. Various kinds of drills are used includes the following:
-
Repetition. The student repeats
an utterance aloud as soon as he has heard it.
-
Inflection. One word in an
utterance appears in another form when repeated.
-
Replacement. One word in an
utterance is replaced by another.
-
Restatement. The student
rephrases an utterance and addresses it to someone else, according to
instructions.
-
Completion. The student hears an
utterance that is complete except for one word, then repeats the utterance in
completed form.
-
Transposition. A .change in word
order is necessary when a word is added.
-
Expansion. When a word is added
it takes a certain place in the sequence.
-
Contraction. A single word stands
for a phrase or clause.
-
Transformation. A sentence is
transformed by being made negative or interrogative or through changes in
tense, mood, voice, aspect, or modality.
-
Integration. Two separate
utterances are integrated into one.
-
Rejoinder. The student makes an
appropriate rejoinder to a given utterance.
-
Restoration. The student is given
a sequence of words that have been culled from a sentence but still bear its
basic meaning.
II.
ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES AND METHODS
1. Total Physical Response
Total Physical
Response (TPR) is a language teaching method built around the coordination of
speech and action; it attempts to teach language through physical (motor)
activity.
Procedures includes :
-
Review. This was a
fast-moving warm-up in which individual students were moved with commands.
-
New commands. These verbs
were introduced.
-
Role reversal. Students readily
volunteered to utter commands that manipulated the behavior of the instructor
and other students ....
-
Reading and writing. The instructor
wrote on the chalkboard each new vocabulary item and a sentence to illustrate
the item. Then she spoke each item and acted out the sentence. The students
listened as she read the material. Some copied the information in their
notebooks.
2. The Silent Way
The Silent Way
is based on the premise that the teacher should be silent as much as possible
in the classroom but the learner should be encouraged to produce as much
language as possible.
-
Learning is
facilitated if the learner discovers or creates rather than remembers and
repeats what is to be learned.
-
Learning is
facilitated by accompanying (mediating) physical objects.
-
Learning is
facilitated by problem solving involving the material to be learned.
3. Community Language Learning
In
Curren's method, teachers consider students as “whole persons,” with intellect,
feelings, instincts, physical responses, and desire to learn. Learners become
members of a community - their fellow learners and the teacher - and learn
through interacting with the community. As with most methods, CLL combines
innovative learning tasks and activities with conventional ones. They include:
-
Translation.
-
Group work.
-
Recording.
-
Transcription.
Students transcribe utterances and conversations they have recorded for
practice and analysis of linguistic forms.
-
Analysis.
-
Reflection and
observation. Learners reflect and report on their experience of the class, as a
class or in groups.
-
Listening. Students
listen to a monologue by the teacher.
-
Free conversation.
4. Suggestopedia
Suggestopedia is
a specific set of learning recommendations derived from Suggestology, which Lozanov
describes as a "science, concerned with the systematic study of the
nonrational and/or nonconscious influences" that human beings are
constantly responding to. Lozanov lists several expected teacher behaviors that
contribute to these presentations :
- Show
absolute confidence in the method.
- Display
fastidious conduct in manners and dress.
- Organize
properly and strictly observe the initial stages of the teaching process this
includes choice and play of music, as well as punctuality.
- Maintain
a solemn attitude toward the session.
- Give
tests and respond tactfully to poor papers (if any).
- Stress
global rather than analytical attitudes toward materiaL
- Maintain
a modest enthusiasm.
5. Whole Language
The term Whole
Language was created in th 1980s by a group of U.S. educators concerned
with the teaching of language arts, that is, reading and writing in the native
language. The Whole Language movement is strongly opposed to these approaches
to teaching reading and writing and argues that language should be taught as a
"whole." "If language isn't kept whole, it isn't language
anymore".
The major
principles underlying the design of Whole Language instruction are as follows :
- The
use of authentic literature rather than artificial, specially prepared texts
and exercises designed to practice individual reading skills.
- a
focus on real and natural events rather than on specially written stories that
do not relate to the students' experience.
- the
reading of real texts of high interest, particularly literature.
- reading
for the sake of comprehension and for a real purpose.
- writing
for a real audience and not simply to practice writing skills.
- writing
as a process through which learners explore and discover meaning.
- the
use of student-produced texts rather than teacher-generated or other-generated
texts.
- integration
of reading, writing, and other skills.
- student-centered
learning: students have choice over what they read and write, giving them power
and understanding of their world.
- reading
and writing in partnership with other learners.
- encouragement
of risk taking and exploration and the acceptance of errors as signs of
learning rather than of failure.
6. Multiple Intelligences
Multiple
Intelligences (MI) refers to a learner-based philosophy that characterizes
human intelligence as having multiple dimensions that must be acknowledged and
developed in education. Gardner posits eight native "intelligences,"
which are described as follows:
-
Linguistic: the ability to
use language in special and creative ways, which is something lawyers, writers,
editors, and interpreters are strong.
-
Logical/mathematical: the ability to
think rationally, often found with doctors, engineers, programmers, and
scientists.
-
Spatial: the ability to
form mental models of the world, something architects, decorators, sculptors,
and painters are good.
-
Musical: a good ear for
music, as is strong in singers and composers.
-
Bodily/kinesthetic: having a
well-coordinated body, something found in athletes a.nd craftspersons .
-
Interpersonal: the ability to
be able to work well with people, which is strong in salespeople, politicians,
and teachers.
-
Intrapersonal: the ability to
understand oneself and apply one's talent successfully, which leads to happy
and well-adjusted people in all areas of life.
-
Naturalist: the ability to
understand and organize the patterns of nature.
There
is a basic developmental sequence that has been proposed (Lazear .l991} as an
alternative to what we have elsewhere considered as a type of
"syllabus" design. The sequence consists of four stages:
- Stage 1: Awaken the Intelligence. Through multisensory experiences
touching, smelling, tasting, seeing, and so on -learners can be sensitized to
the many-faceted properties of objects and events in the world that surrounds
them.
- Stage 2: Amplify the Intelligence. Students strengthen and improve
the intelligence by volunteering objects and events of their own choosing and
defining with others the properties and contexts of experience of these objects
and events.
- Stage 3: Teach with/for the Intelligence. At this stage the
intelligence is linked to the focus of the class, that is, to some aspect of
language learning. This is done via worksheets and small-group projects and
discussion.
- Stage 4: Transfer of the Intelligence. Students reflect on the
learning experiences of the previous three stages and relate these to issues
and challenges in the out-of-class world.
7. Neurolinguistic Programming
NLP is a
collection of techniques, patterns, and strategies for assisting effective
communication, personal growth and change, and learning. It is based on a
series of underlying assumptions about how the mind works and how people act
and interact.
Four key
principles lie at the heart of NLP (O'Connor and McDermott 1996; Revell and
Norman 1997).
-
Outcomes: the goals or
ends. NLP claims that knowing precisely what you want helps you achieve it.
This principle can be expressed as "know what you want."
-
Rapport: a factor that is
essential for effective communication maximizing similarities and minimizing
differences between people at a nonconscious level. This principle can be
expressed as "Establish rapport with yourself and then with others."
-
Sensory acuity: noticing what
another person is communicating, consciously and non verbally. This can be
expressed as "Use your senses. Look at, listen to, and feel what is
actually happening."
-
Flexibility: doing things
differently if what you are doing is not working: having a range of skills to
do something else or something different. This can be expressed as "Keep
changing what you do until you get what you want."
8. The lexical approach
A lexical
approach in language teaching refers to one derived from the belief that the
building blocks of language learning and communication are not grammar,
functions, notions, or some other unit of planning and teaching but lexis, that
is, words and word combinations.
The
role of collocation is also important in lexically based theories of language.
Collocation refers to the regular occurrence together of words. Many other
lexical units also occur in language. For example:
- binomials: clean and tidy, back to front
- trinomials: cool, calm, and collected
- idioms: dead drunk, to run up a bill
- similes: as old as the hills
- connectives: finally, to conclude
- conversational gambits: Guess what!
9. Competency-Based Language Teaching
Competencies
consist of a description of the essential skills, knowledge, attitudes, and
behaviors required for effective performance of a real-world task or activity. The
competency descriptions at each stage are divided into four domains :
- Knowledge
and learning competencies
- Oral
competencies
- Reading
competencies
- Writing
competencies
III.
CURRENT COMMUNICATIVE APPROACHES
1. Communicative Language Teaching
The
Communicative Approach in language teaching starts from a theory of language as
communication. The goal of language teaching is to develop "communicative
competence."
Linguistic
theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener in a completely
homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly and is
unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitation,
distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or
characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual
performance.
Some of the characteristics of this
communicative view of language follow:
- Language
is a system for the expression of meaning.
- The
primary function of language is to allow interaction and communication.
- The
structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses.
- The
primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural
features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified
in discourse. .
2. The Natural Approach
The
Natural Approach belongs to a tradition of language teaching methods based on
observation and interpretation of how learners acquire both first and second
languages in nonformal settings. Such methods reject the formal (grammatical)
organization of language as a prerequisite to teaching.
The Natural
Approach "is for beginners and is designed to help them become
intermediates." It has the expectation that students will be able to
function adequately in the target situation. They will understand the speaker
of the target language (perhaps with requests for clarification), and will be
able to convey (in a non-insulting manner) their requests and ideas. They need
not know every word in a particular semantic domain, nor is it necessary that
the syntax and vocabulary be flawless -but their" production does need to
be understood. They should be able to make the meaning clear but not
necessarily be accurate in all details of grammar.
3. Cooperative Language Learning
Cooperative
Learning is an approach to teaching that makes maximum use of cooperative
activities involving pairs and small groups of learners in the classroom.
Cooperative learning is group learning activity organized so that learning is
dependent on the socially structured exchange of information between learners
in groups and in which each learner is held accountable for his or her own
learning and is motivated to increase the learning of others.
Cooperative
Learning in this context sought to do the following:
- raise the achievement of all students, including those who are
gifted or academically handicapped.
- help the teacher build positive relationships among students.
- give students the experiences they need for healthy social,
psychological, and cognitive development.
- replace the competitive organizational structure of most
classrooms and schools with a team-based, high-performance organizational structure.
Johnson et aL., (1994: 4-5) describe
three types of cooperative learning groups.
1.
Formal cooperative learning
groups. These
last from one class period to several weeks. These are estqblished for a
specific task and involve students working together to achieve shared learning
goals.
2.
Informal cooperative learning
groups. These
are ad-hoc groups that last from a few minutes to a class period and are used
to focus student attention or to facilitate learning during direct teaching.
3.
Cooperative base groups. These are long
term, lasting for at least a year and consist of heterogeneous learning groups
with stable membership whose primary purpose is to allow members to give each
other the support, help, encouragement, and assistance they need to succeed
academically.
4. Content-Based Instruction
Content-Based
Instruction (CBI) refers to an approach to second language teaching in which
teaching is organized around the content or information that students will
acquire, rather than around a linguistic or other type of syllabus.
CBI It is the
teaching of content or information in the language being learned with little or
no direct or explicit effort to teach the language itself separately from the
content being taught.
The term content
refers to the substance or subject matter that we learn or communicate through
language rather than the language used to convey it. Many CBI practitioners
recommend the use of tourist guidebooks, technical journals, railway
timetables, newspaper ads, radio and TV broadcast, and so on, and at least one
cautions that “textbooks are contrary to the very concept of CBI- and good
language teaching in general”.
5. Task-Based Language Teaching
Task-Based
Language Teaching (TBLT) refers to an approach based on the use of tasks as the
core unit of planning and instruction in language teaching.
Task-Based
Language Teaching proposes the notion of "task" as a central unit of
planning and teaching. Although definitions of task vary in TBLT, there is a
commonsensical understanding that a task is an activity or goal that is carried
out using language, such as finding-a solution to a puzzle, reading a map and
giving directions, making a telephone call, writing a letter, or reading a set
of instructions and assembling a toy.
Tasks are
activities which have meaning as their primary focus. Success in tasks is
evaluated in terms of achievement of an outcome, and tasks generally bear some
resemblance to real-life language use. So task-based instruction takes a fairly
strong view of communicative language teaching.
6. The post-methods era
A method, on
the other hand, refers to a specific instructional design or system based on a
particular theory of language and of language learning. It contains detailed
specifications of content, roles of teachers and learners, and teaching
procedures and techniques. It is relatively fixed in
time and there is generally little scope for individual interpretation. Methods
are learned through training. The teacher's role is to follow the method and
apply it precisely according to the rules.
However,
methods offer some advantages over approaches, and this doubtless explains
their appeal. Because of the general nature of approaches, there is often no
clear application of their assumptions and principles in the classroom, as we
have seen with a number of the approaches described in this book. Much is left
to the individual teacher's interpretation, skill, and expertise. Consequently,
there is often no clear right or wrong way of teaching according to an approach
and no prescribed body of practice waiting to be implemented. This lack of
detail can be a source of frustration and irritation for teachers, particularly
those with little training or experience. Methods, on the other hand, solve
many of the problems beginning teachers have to struggle with because many of
the basic decisions about what to teach and how to teach it have already been
made for them. Moreover, method enthusiasts create together a professional
community with a common purpose, ideology, and vernacular.
Learners
bring different learning styles and preferences to the learning process, that
they should be consulted in the process of developing a teaching program, and
that teaching methods must be flexible and adaptive to learners’ need and
interest.
