Introduction to

language history
teaching

Analyze the following questions and answer them

individually in your notebook.
Why do you think its important to know the
approaches and methods of language teaching?
How do you think this class will help you in your
future teaching practice?
Make a list of the different language teaching
methods and approaches that you remember from
previous classes. Compare them with a partner
and complement your list.

Work in teams of 3 or 4 and discuss the following

questions:
What are the reasons why language teaching
methodologies change through time?
Imagine living in the following scenarios. Discuss if
learning a L2 would be useful in that scenario and why:
oAn American soldier in WWII
oA merchant during the 1700s
oA high profile politician during the 1930s
oA scholar during the peak of the Roman Empire

Why language teaching changes

through time?
Changes in language teaching methods throughout
history have reflected:
The changes in the kind of proficiency learners
need.
The changes in theories of the nature of language
and language learning

Lingua Franca
Whereas today English is the worlds most widely

studied foreign language, 500 years ago it was

Latin.
Latin was the dominant language of education,
commerce, religion, and government in the
Western world.
In the 16th century, French, Italian and English
gained importance as a result of political changes
in Europe

How the study of classic Latin

influenced language teaching
The status of Latin diminished from being a living

language to a subject in the school curriculum, but

still it was regarded as the most ideal form of
language.
The study of classical Latin and its works (Virgil,
Ovid, Cicero) were analyzed grammatically and
rhetorically.
During 16th-18th centuries, children had to study
Latin rigorously: learning grammar rules,
conjugation and translation. Punishment for
mistakes

The same method was used to study other

languages during the 17th to 19th centuries.

There were occasional attempts to promote
alternative approaches to education:
o Roger Ascham and Montaigne in the 16 th century
o Comenius and John Locke in the 17 th century
(curriculum reform, and the way Latin was taught)

The grammar
translation method

Grammar-Translation Method
See prezi

Language teaching
innovations in the
1800s

Rejection of the G-T method

Toward the mid 1800s, a huge factor contributed to
a questioning and rejection of the G-T method:
Increased opportunities for communication among
Europeans created a demand for oral proficiency
in foreign languages.
Because of this, new approaches to language
teaching were developed by individual language
teaching specialists to reform the teaching of
modern languages.

No lasting impact
Some of these specialists, such as Marcel,

Prendergast and Gouin, didnt manage to achieve

any lasting impact.
Though, their ideas are of historical interest,

because some of them where later included or

adapted in more modern methodologies.

The Frenchman Marcel

Marcel referred to child language learning as a

model for language teaching

Emphasized the importance of meaning in learning
Proposed that reading be taught before other skills

The Englishman Prendergast

Prendergast was one of the first to record the

observation that children use contextual and

situational cues to interpret utterances and that
they use memorized phrases and routines in
speaking
He proposed the first structural syllabus,
advocating that learners be taught the most basic
structural patterns occurring in the language.

The Frenchman Gouin

Gouin is the best known of these reformers.
He developed an approach to teaching a foreign

language based of his observations of childrens

use of language.
He believed that language learning was facilitated
through using language to accomplish events
consisting of a sequence of related actions
His method was known as the Gouin Series
See prezi

The Gouin Series

The approach he advocated was to have "themes" such

as Opening doors and to have students memorize

sentences in sequence relating to the theme:
I walk toward the door
I get near the door
I get to the door
I stop at the door
I stretch out my arm
I take hold of the handle
I turn the handle
I open the door

The Gouin Series

The key points are that:
It's more important to learn sentences to speak

than words,
Verbs are the key elements in sentences, and
Sentences are more easily learned when they form
a narrative (they form a logical sequence)
Gestures and actions help understand the
meaning

The Gouin Series

The importance of Gouins

method
Gouins emphasis on the need to present new
teaching items in a context that makes their meaning
clear, and the use of gestures and actions to convey
the meanings of utterances, are practices that later
became part of important methods such as:
Situational Language Teaching
Total Physical Response
Both of which we are going to see during this course

The Reform Movement

New ideas of teachers and

linguists coincided
Specialists such as Marcel, Prendergast and

Gouin did much to promote alternative approaches

to language teaching, but their ideas failed to
receive widespread support.
From the 1880s, however, linguists such as Sweet
in England, Vietor in Germany and Passy in
France, began to provide the intellectual
leadership needed to give reformists ideas greater
credibility and acceptance.
Teachers and linguists ideas were similar.

The discipline of linguistics

revitalized
This acceptance did much for the field of linguistics
Phonetics (the scientific analysis and description of

the sound systems of languages) was established,

giving new insights into speech processes.
The International Phonetic Association was
founded in 1886, and its International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA) was designed to enable the sounds
of any language to be accurately transcribed.

The role of the International

Phonetic Association
One of the earliest goals of the International

Phonetic Association was to improve the teaching

of modern languages. It advocated:
1. The study of the spoken language
2. Phonetic training to promote good pronunciation
3. The use of conversations texts and dialogues to
introduce conversational phrases and idioms
4. An inductive approach to grammar teaching
5. Teaching new meanings through establishing
associations with the native language.

Linguists become interested in

language teaching methodologies
Linguists began to take part in the discussions

about the best way to teach foreign languages and

began writing and publishing their ideas.

Sweet
Sweet wrote in his book The Practical Study of

Languages 4 principles for the development of a

teaching method:
1. Careful selection of what to be taught
2. Imposing limits on what is to be taught
3. Arranging what is to be taught in terms of the 4
skills
4. Grading materials from simple to complex

Vietor
Vietor used linguistic theory to justify his views on

language teaching.
He argued that training in phonetics would enable
teachers to pronounce the language accurately.
For him, speech patterns and not grammar, were
the fundamental elements of language.

In general, the reformers

believed that:
The spoken language is primary and the teaching

methodology should be oral-based

The findings of phonetics should be applied to teaching
and to teacher training
Learners should hear the language first, before reading
it.
Words should be presented in sentences. And
sentences should be practiced in meaningful contexts
and not as isolated, disconnected elements.
Translation should be avoided, but the L1 can be used
in some situations.

The birth of Applied Linguistics

Those principles provided theoretical foundations

for a language teaching approach based on

science.
They reflect the beginnings of the discipline of
applied linguistics (that branch of language study
concerned with the scientific study of second and
foreign language teaching and learning)

The role of the Reform

Movement in the LTM
None of Sweets or Vietors proposals assumed

the status of a method, but they set the grounds for

the future methodologies.
Parallel to the ideas put forward by members of
the Reform Movement, was an interest in
developing naturalistic language learning, such as
are seen in L1 acquisition.
This led to what have been named natural
methods and ultimately led to the development of
what came to be known as the direct method.

Review-preview discussion
questions
How the study of classic Latin and Greek influenced

language teaching?
Describe the characteristics of the G-T method
What factor contributed towards the rejection of the
Grammar-Translation Method?
Which 2 study fields came together during the
Reform Movement to change language teaching?
Which sub-field resulted from this efforts?
If none of the ideas that surfaced during the Reform
Movement acquired a status of method, then how
this stage is important?

The Direct Method

Early stages of the Direct

Method
Gouin had been one of the first of the 19 th Century

reformers to attempt to build a methodology

around observation of child language learning.
Other reformers toward the end of the century
likewise turned their attention to naturalistic
principles of language learning.
In fact, at various times throughout the history of
language teaching, attempts have been made to
make L2 learning more like L1 learning

Early stages of the Direct

Method: the Natural Method
Among those who tried to apply natural principles

to language classes in the 19th century was

Saveour, who used intensive oral interaction in the
target language, employing questions as a way of
presenting and eliciting language.
Saveour opened a language school in Boston in

the late 1860s, and his method soon became

referred to as the Natural Method.

Early stages of the Direct

Method: the Natural Method
Saveour and other believers in the Natural Method

argued that a foreign language could be taught

without translation or the use of the learners native
language if meaning was conveyed directly
through demonstration and action.

Early stages of the Direct

Method: the Natural Method
Franke said a language could be best taught by

using it actively in the classroom.

Frank thought rather than using analytical
procedures that focus on explanation of grammar
rules in classroom teaching, teachers must
encourage direct and spontaneous use of the
foreign language in the classroom. Learners would
then be able to induce rules of grammar.

The birth of the Direct Method

These natural language learning principles

provided the foundation for what came to be

known as the Direct Method
The Direct Method refers to the most widely known
of the natural methods.
It became very popular first in Europe and then in
the US through its use by Saveour and Maximilian
Berlitz.
See Prezi

The Berlitz teaching guidelines

Never translate: demonstrate
Never explain: act
Never make a speech: ask questions
Never imitate mistakes: correct
Never speak with single words: make sentences
Never speak too much: make students speak much
Never use the book: use your lesson plan
Never go too fast: keep the pace of the student
Never speak too slowly: speak normally
Never speak to quickly: speak naturally
Never be impatient: take it easy

The rise and fall of the Direct

Method
The Direct Method was quite successful in private

language schools, such as Berlitz

But it was difficult to implement in public secondary
school education because it failed to consider the
realities of the classroom.
In addition, it lacked a rigorous basis in applied
linguistics theory.
Among other drawbacks, it was largely dependent on
the teachers skill, rather than on a textbook
By the 1920s, use of the DM in noncommercial
schools in Europe declined.

The Coleman Report

A study began in the US in 1923 that concluded that

no single method could guarantee successful

results.
The study argued that trying to teach conversational
skills was impractical because of the limited time
available to foreign language teaching in schools
and the irrelevance on conversation skills for the
average American college student.
The study was published as the Coleman Report

The Coleman Report

The Coleman Report, argued that a more

reasonable goal for a foreign language course

would be reading knowledge.
So reading the goal of most foreign language
programs in the US.
The emphasis on reading continued to characterize
foreign language teaching in the US until World
War II.

The methods era

One of the lasting legacies of the Direct Method

was the notion of method itself.

The controversy over the Direct Method was the
first of many debates over how a second and
foreign language should be taught
The history of language teaching throughout the
20th century saw the rise and fall of a variety or
approaches and methods, the major examples of
which will be covered in this course