SUMMARY OF

APPROACHES AND METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

(Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers)
Proposed to fulfill the Comprehensive Assignment

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.

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 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.

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- 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.

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 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

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 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.

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- 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).

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- 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

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 - 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

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 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

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 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.

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 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.

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