Reviewing The Principles. The main concepts of Audiolingualism

The main concepts of Audiolingualism

THE AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD

The audio-lingual method, Army Method, or New Key, is a style of teaching used in teaching foreign languages. It is based on behaviorist theory, which professes that certain traits of living things, and in this case 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.

This approach to language learning was similar to another, earlier method called the direct method. Like the direct method, the audio-lingual method advised that students be taught a language directly, without using the students' native language to explain new words or grammar in the target language. However, unlike the direct method, the audio-lingual method didn’t focus on teaching vocabulary. Rather, the teacher drilled students in the use of grammar.

Applied to language instruction, and often within the context of the language lab, this means that the instructor would present the correct model of a sentence and the students would have to repeat it. The teacher would then continue by presenting new words for the students to sample in the same structure. In audio-lingualism, there is no explicit grammar instruction—everything is simply memorized in form. The idea is for the students to practice the particular construct until they can use it spontaneously. In this manner, the lessons are built on static drills in which the students have little or no control on their own output; the teacher is expecting a particular response and not providing that will result in a student receiving negative feedback. This type of activity, for the foundation of language learning, is in direct opposition with communicative language teaching.

1. Foreign language is the same as any other kind of learning and can be explained by the same laws and principies.

2. Learning is the result of experience and is evident in changes in behaviour.

3. Foreign language learning is different from first language learning.

4. Foreign language learning is a process of habit formation.

5. Language learning proceeds by means of analogy (habit-formation involving discrimination and generalization) rather than analysis (deductive learning of rule, as the Grammar-Translation Method).

3. Errors are the result of L1 interference and are to be avoided.

1. What are the goals of teachers who use the Audio-Lingual Method?

Teachers want their students to be able to use the target language communicatively. In order to do this, they believe students need to overlearn the target language, to learn to use it automatically without stopping to think. Their students achieve this by forming new habits in the target language and overcoming the old habits of their native language.

2. What is the role of the teacher? What is the role of the students?

The teacher is like an orchestra leader, directing and controlling the language behavior other students. She also is responsible for pro­viding her students with a good model for imitation.

Students are imitators of the teacher's model or the tapes sac supplies of model speakers. They follow the teacher's directions and respond as accurately and as rapidly as possible.

3. What are some characteristics of the teaching/learning process?

New vocabulary and structures arc presented through dialogs. The dialogs are learned through imitation and repetition. Drills (such, as repetition, backward build-up, chain, substitution, transformation, and question-and-answer) arc conducted based upon the patterns pre­sent in the dialog. Students' successful responses are positively rein­forced. Grammar is induced from the examples given, explicit grammar rules are not provided. Cultural information is contextualized in the dialogs or presented by the teacher. Students' reading and written work is based upon the oral work they did earlier.

4. What is the nature of student-teacher interaction? What is the nature of student-student interaction?There is student-to-student interaction in chain drills or when students take different roles in dialogs, but this interaction is teacher-directed. Most of the interaction is between teacher and students and is initiated by the teacher.

6. How is language viewed? How is culture viewed?The view of language in the Audio-Lingual Method has been influenced by descriptive linguists. Every language is seen as having its own unique system. The system is comprised of several different levels: phonological, morphological, and syntactic. Each level has its own distinctive patterns. Even-day speech is emphasized in the Audio-Lingual Method. The level of complexity of the speech is graded, however, so that begin­ning students are presented with only simple forms.

Culture consists of the everyday behavior and lifestyle of the target language speakers.

7. What areas of language are emphasized? What language skills arc emphasized? The structures of the language arc emphasized over all the other areas. The syllabus is typically a structural one, with the structures for any particular unit included in the new dialog. Vocabulary is also contextualized within the dialog. It is, however, limited since the em­phasis is placed on the acquisition of the patterns of the language. The natural order of skills presentation is adhered to: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The oral/aural skills receive most of the attention. Pronunciation is taught from the beginning, often by students working in language laboratories on discriminating between members of minimal pairs.

8. What is the role of the students’ native language? The habits of the students' native language are thought to in­terfere with the students' attempts to master the target language. Therefore, the target language is used in the classroom, not the students' native language. A contrastive analysis between the students' native language and the target language will reveal where a teacher should expect the most interference.

9. How is evaluation accomplished?The answer to this question is not obvious because we didn't actually observe the students in this class taking a formal test. If we had, we would have seen that it was discrete-point in nature, that is, each question on the test would focus on only one point of the language at a time. Students might be asked to distinguish between words in a minimal pair, to- example, or to-supply an appropriate verb form in a sentence.

10. How does the teacher respond to student errors?

Student errors are to be avoided if at all possible through the teacher's awareness of where the students will have difficulty and restric­tion of what they are taught to say.

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