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HISTORIA DE LA EVOLUCIN DE LA DIDCTICA DE LAS LENGUAS EXTRANJERAS: DE LOS MTODOS DE GRAMTICA- TRADUCCIN A LOS ENFOQUES ACTUALES. Tema 13

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INTRODUCTION 1. Ways of teaching English have been shaped by developments in many disciplines including linguistics, psychology and education. 2. It is important to remember that most second language learning, both in the past and today, has not been influenced by any methodology. Monolingualism is the exception rather than the norm. Most second languages are still learnt informally. Formal methodologies have tried to copy certain features of informal 2LL. 3. While the term method might be used to describe any practical procedure for teaching a language, the term methodology implies the existence of a set of procedures related by an underlying theory of teaching and learning language.

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We are going to examine each of the methods by considering three questions: - What is the desired outcome? - What model of language is it based on? - What model of learning is it based on?

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HISTORICAL/PRE-WORLD WAR II GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION METHOD By the 19th century, grammar-translation was the dominant methodology. This was because of the importance given to the study of Greek and Latin in schools. The study of Latin and Greek at this time focused on accessing their literature by consciously memorizing the grammatical rules and lexical items of the target language. The basic unit of the study was the sentence and, as the name of the methodology would suggest, learners spent a lot of time translating both into and from the target language. Such techniques were not only thought to help learning, but also to develop mental discipline.

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Reviewing the principles of Grammar-Translation Method 1. Goals. Fundamental purpose of foreign language learning is to be able to read literature written in the target language. To do this, students need to learn grammar and vocabulary. 2. Teacher's role. The teacher is the authority in the classroom. 3. Teaching/learning process Translation. Grammar is studied deductively. Memorizing grammatical paradigms and native-language equivalents. 4. Student-teacher interaction. Most of the interaction in the class is from the teacher to the students. 5. Language and culture. Literary language is considered superior to spoken language and therefore is the one that students study. Culture is vied as consisting of literature and fine arts. 6. Language areas that are emphasized. Vocabulary and grammar. Reading and writing are primary skills the students work on. 7. The role of the students native language. Students native language is used widely in the class. 8. Evaluation. Written tests with translation tasks and grammar exercise.

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THE REFORM MOVEMENT The 19th century saw a gradual disillusionment with grammar-translation method. So, by the end of the 19th century ideas which were previously had only a limited impact became more widely promoted. Central to this was the Reform Movement, an international movement which grew out of the formation of the International Phonetic Association in 1886. The key principles of the Reform Movement were: the primacy of speech, the centrality of the connected text as the kernel of the teaching-learning process, and the absolute priority of an oral methodology in the classroom. (Howatt, 1984) It is important to note that it is not just the ideas of the Reform Movement which are significant, it is approach also shaped developments which followed, such as Direct Method, Oral Approach and Audio-Lingual Approach.

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DIRECT METHOD The Direct method, which arrived at the end of the nineteenth century, was the product of a reform movement which was reacting to the restrictions of Grammar-Translation. This method was popularized as the Berlitz Method by Maxilillian Berlitz. Translation was abandoned in favour of the teacher and the students speaking together. The sentence was still the main object of interest, and accuracy was all important. Crucially, it was considered vitally important that only the target language should be used in the classroom. Reviewing the principles of Direct Method 1. Goals. Communication in the target language. Students learn to think in the target language. 2. Teacher's role. The students role is less passive than in the Grammar-Translation Method. The teacher and the students are seen like partners.

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3. Teaching/learning process Students need to associate meaning and the target language directly. No translation is used. Students speak in the target language and communicate as if they were in real situations. The syllabus is based in topics or situations. Grammar is taught inductively. 4. Student-teacher interaction. Interaction goes both ways, from teacher to student and vice versa. 5. Language and culture. Language is primarily spoken. Students study common, everyday speech. 6. Language areas that are emphasized. Vocabulary is emphasized over grammar. Oral communication is seen as basic, although all four skills are worked on. 7. The role of the students native language. Not used. When behaviourist accounts of language learning became popular in the 1920s and 1930s, the Direct method morphed into the Audiolingual method in the USA and Oral Approach (Situational Approach) in the UK.

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AUDIO-LINGUALISM AND SITUATIONAL APPROACH The Second World War provided a great spur to language teaching, especially in the USA. The Army Specialized Training Programme (ASTP) was established in 1942 to provide the large number of foreign language speakers required by the military. This programme influenced the development of what became known as Audio- Lingualism. Audio-Lingualism (ALM) saw itself as the first scientific language teaching methodology. The linguistic principles of audio-lingualism are based on those of structural linguistics: language is primarily oral and it is a rule-governed system understandable in terms of increasing levels of complexity (Charles Fried). The other important strand of Audio-Lingualism was that of a behaviourist psychology. Behaviourist models of learning essentially saw language as a behavioural skill where learners receive a stimulus (such as a cue in a drill), respond (by providing the correct utterance) and then have correct responses reinforced. Error was not tolerated as it was thought that this will lead to the errors being reinforced (bad habits).

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Language Teaching Methods: Audio-Lingual Method (3:08) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz0TPDUz3FU

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This method has been subsequently attacked for its promotion of mindless repetition over communication. This is rather unfair as it saw communication as being its goal. From these roots, Audio-Lingualism developed into a system which is still used in many parts of the world. However, as a coherent, self-contained system it has no proponents today. Its theoretical basis was demolished when Chomsky exposed his theory, showing that language is not just a learnt habit but something created by the speaker using an innate language facility. Reviewing the principles of Audio-Lingual Method 1. Goals. Communication in the target language. Language should be learnt automatically. The students achieve this by forming new habits in the target language. 2. Teacher's role. The teacher is like an orchestra leader, directing and controlling the language behaviour. She is also responsible for providing a good model for imitation.

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3. Teaching/learning process New vocabulary and structural pattern are presented through dialogues. The dialogues are learned through imitation and repetition. Drills are conducted based upon the patterns presented in the dialogue. Students successful responses are positively reinforced. Grammar is induced from the examples given. 4. Student-teacher interaction. Student-student interaction in chain drills, but this interaction is teacher directed. 5. Language and culture. Everyday speech is emphasized. The level of complexity of the speech is graded. Culture consists of the everyday behaviour and lifestyle of the target language speakers. 6. Language areas that are emphasized. The natural order of skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing. The oral/aural skills receive most of the attention. Pronunciation is taught from the beginning, often in language laboratories. 7. The role of the students native language. The habits of the students native language are thought to interfere the target language acquisition. Therefore, the target language is used in the class. 8. Correction of errors Students errors are to be avoided.

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HUMANISTIC METHODOLOGIES During the 1970s a number of methodologies appeared which were labelled as Humanistic. This label applies to those methodologies which see the learner as a whole person and the classroom as an environment where more than transfer of knowledge occurs (Moskowitz, 1978). Although none of them have become widely popular, they are worthy of some attention as they attempts to approach language learning from directions other than linguistics. We will have a look at four methodologies: THE SILENT WAY COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING SUGGESTOPEDIA TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE

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THE SILENT WAY Galeb Gattengo proposed the Silent Way in two publications in 1970. The Silent Way's goals are self expression in the target language, learner independence and the development of the learner's own facility to assess correctness. The way they are to be achieved is unique. The roles of teachers and learners are the key to this. Teachers, silent most of the time, should be constantly monitoring the learners. Learners are expected to be responsible for their own learning, to make their own generalizations from the language presented to them and to self-assess their own input. Peer correction is encouraged. It is also thought that learners can learn what they have been exposed to while they are sleeping. Silent Way lessons are characterized by the use of Cuisenaire rods (coloured wooden rods of different lengths), Fidel charts (colour coded pronunciation charts), vocabulary charts and the fact that the teacher is silent whenever possible. The Silent Way takes an essentially traditional structural view of language. But it sees the spoken language as paramount. Reading and writing are not explicitly taught. Language Teaching Methods: The Silent Way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqLzbLCpack

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COMMUNITY LANGUAGE TEACHING CLL is the name given to a teaching methodology developed by Charles Curran in the 1970s based on psychological counselling techniques. The teacher acts as the councellor, and the learners are the clients. In practice this means that the teacher provides a translation of what the learners wish to say from their L1 to the target language, allowing the learners to interact using the target language. It is important to create an unthreatening supportive atmosphere within the classroom as it seen to be crucial for successful learning. The relationship teacher-learner should include the discussion of the learners feeling about the learning process. The relationship could be compared to that of a parent helping a child to attain greater levels of independence. The desired outcome: communicate in the target language + learn about his/her learning and take responsibility for it. Initially CLL was not based on any new theories of language. Traditional structural syllabus was used. Later, La Forge, Currans successor in promoting CLL, suggested a theory of language which sees language as a social process. Language Teaching Methods: Community Language Teaching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx_we_P3Pic

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SUGGESTOPEDIA Suggestopedia, the system designed by Georgy Lozanov, is perhaps the best known humanistic method due to the media interest it attracted and the extent of the claims made by its proponents. It is famous for its use of music to create a non-threatening atmosphere conductive to learning. Focus on creating the appropriate mental state to facilitate learning. Lozanov claimed that language learning based on his method could be 25 times more effective than the other methods. It is its model and conditions of learning that characterize Suggestopedia the creation of the right learning environment and the fact that learners are expected to have faith in the system and accept that they are in childlike situation where they follow the teacher. Language Teaching Methods: Suggestopedia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rkrvRlty5M

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TOTAL PHYSICAL APPROACH Total Physical Approach (TPR) is a learning teaching methodology proposed by James Asher throughout the second half of the 1960s and 1970s. It is distinguishing feature is the linking of language learning with physical movement. TPR also draws on models of first acquisition, in particular the ideas that comprehension comes before output and that early learning is associated with concrete not with abstract. Learners respond physically to commands given by the teacher. Learner output is not required until the learner feels he/she is ready. Limitations: used at the beginning level. Various techniques of this method still are widely used by many CLT teachers. TPR is not based on any model of the language. Simple structure are usually selected and vocabulary is selected for its relevance to learners needs. TPR proponents claims that meaning is considered paramount. The teacher directs the lesson. The materials to be taught are selected by the teacher. The learner is required to listen and act upon the instructions given. The method clearly has some links with habit- formation theories of language-learning. The method is considered to be humanistic because it is believed to reduce the stress.

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Humanism in practice Paul Bress Teaching 'language items' In an attempt to be a humanistic language teacher myself, I introduce every new language item at the optimum time of readiness for my class. I firstly elicit the target language. This fosters a sense of co-operation between the students and me. Then I try to make the meaning of the language items as clear as possible by using a number of techniques (e.g. pictures, mime, or a mini-explanation). Such work on the concept of the target language needs to be repeated later in a way that is appropriate to the abilities and progress of the group. At the appropriate time, students also need to practise speech production by saying or writing the target language. After enough practice, through both teacher-centred and student-centred phases, the student should gradually learn the target language. The student will have fundamentally changed. Teaching skills As I want my classes to be able to understand the 'gist' of a spoken interaction, I make sure that they are mentally prepared for it. This means that: The 'text' is not dauntingly hard for them I create the right conditions for understanding the text by, for example, arousing interest and pre-teaching lexis Then, by setting an appropriate task I am setting a problem for the students to solve. If I can steer my students towards focusing on the main points of the text then I am enabling learners to become more successful listeners. After this, students can be encouraged to carry out their own, related, role plays, with the result that students' ability to carry out certain situation-specific interactions will be enhanced. It's worth noting that these principles relate to reading texts too! The teacher's status It cannot be denied that the teacher plays a different role from that of his/her students. We each have a particular job. This does not mean, though, that we have higher status. We are certainly not in the classroom to order people around. I try to provide students with learning opportunities, which the students are free to take or not. However, if a student chooses not to take up an opportunity, and then goes on to become a malign influence in class, I then ask the rest of the class if their learning is being affected and whether they want the offending student to stay in class or not. I then have the authority to ask the student to leave. Flexibility Without flexibility, a teacher cannot teach humanistically, because students will never learn completely in step with any designated syllabus. This is why I always make a point of observing my students very carefully so that I know when to introduce certain tasks, according to the progress they're making. The same applies to lesson plans. I know that if I plough on through my plan regardless of how my students are responding, some students will be lost forever and lose confidence both in me and their own ability to learn English.

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COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING CLT can be said to be the current dominant methodology. Even in countries where CLT has not been adopted in the state sector, most ministries of education appear to be moving in its direction. CLT has become un umbrella term which covers a wide range of classroom practices. Desired outcome: to communicate successfully in the target language in real situations, rather than have a conscious understanding of the rules governing the language. Model of language: Language as it is used rather than an abstract system. The concept of the communicative competence (Widdowson, Hymes, Swain). A theoretical model was developed to include ideas about how language is actually used to communicate in real life situations. The Chomskys idea about a distinction between competence (what learner knows) and performance (what he does). This ideas was developed to include ideas of appropriacy and the social use of language, giving rise to the concept of communicative competence. Hymes (1971) four point model of communicative competence includes both what is speaker knows and is able to use.

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CLT has been described as an approach that aims to: a) make communicative competence the goal of language teaching b) develop procedures for the teaching of the four skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication (Richards and Rogers). These basic principles have been applied in a variety of ways. However, Richards and Rogers have isolated three key elements of CLT classroom practice and the theory of learning: - the communication principle: activities that promote real communication promote learning. - the task principle: activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning. - the meaningfulness principle: language that is meaningful to the learner support the learning process.

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IMMERSION PROGRRAMMES AND THE NATURAL APPROACH Parallel to the development of CLT in the late 1970s and early 1980 another methodology was being developed which was based on studied of students in Canadian immersion programmes. This methodology was called the Natural Approach and its proponents were Steven Krashen and Tracy Terrell. The Canadian immersion programme dates back to the 1960s, but really became widespread in the 1970 s and 1980s. It marked a move away from teaching of French in Canadian schools to the teaching in French of other subjects. It was felt that while the content would be clear to the students through the context, they would be acquire the language through exposure. The experiment led to high level of proficiency in target language in the areas of discourse and strategic competence. However, they have not been successful in promoting grammatical proficiency. In 1983 Krashen and Terrell published The Natural Approach, containing Krashns theoretical perspectives and Terellss guidelines for their classroom application. They see their approach as similar to the other communicative approaches.

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The Natural Approach uniqueness lies in its model of learning. Krashen drew a distinction between conscious learning and acquisition. Only language which is acquired is seen as being available for natural language use. Language which has been learnt can be used to monitor and correct output based on acquired learning, but that is all. KRASHENS MAIN IDEAS -Learners acquire new language by being exposed to comprehensible input. Such input should be comprehensible for the learner but contain language just above the learner's current level. -Only comprehensible input facilitates acquisition, learner output is essentially irrelevant. - The Natural order Hypothesis: learners are only available to acquire new grammatical structures in certain order. It is based on studies of children learning their L1 which suggested a certain order of acquisition. - The Affective Filter: learners who were not motivated, lacked confidence or who were anxious would not do as well as motivated, confident and relaxed. Learning is influenced by the learner's emotional state, an idea shared by humanistic approaches. Most of Krashens ideas were debated and criticized. However, we should acknowledge its role in increasing our understanding of the language learning process. Krashens model of language learning was an attempt to find a broad universal framework and although it is not widely accepted now, it has acted as a sour for a great deal of subsequent thinking and debate. NATURAL APPROACH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2ZxixAzcek

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POST COMMUNICATIVE METHODS: TASK BASED LEARNING (TBL), TEXT-BASED TEACHING AND CONTENT BASED APPROACH Task based learning of languages is currently attracting a lot of attention. The definition of this methodology is not fixed. The common idea: giving learners tasks to transact, rather than items to learn, provides an environment which best promotes the natural language learning process. (Foster, 1999) The Bangalore Project (Bangalore Communicational Teaching Programme) in India. It was established by N.S. Prabhu in 1979 and formed the basis of his Second Language Pedagogy (Prabhu, 1987). Prabhus version of TBL was build around a syllabus which contained a series of task in the form of problem-solving activities. Grammar is constructed through a focus on meaning. This approach focuses on the input the students receive and the cognitive processing which they required to carry out. Unlike the other TBL approaches it does not focus on interaction as a facilitator of acquisition. Groupwork is allowed, but not actively encouraged. He found that the best activities were reasoning-gap activities, which involve deriving new information from given information through processes of deduction, reasoning, etc.

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TEXT-BASED TEACHING Another new post-CLT approach has been text-based teaching (also known as genre-based). Unlike TBL, which we saw grew out of a model of learning, text based learning grew out of a model of language, namely Systemic-Functional Grammar. This approach can be summarised in the following observation: Language occurs as a whole texts which are embedded in the social contexts in which they are used. People learn language through working with whole texts. (Feez 1998) This approach was developed and still highly applied in Australia for teaching migrants, as well as more generally in language and literacy programmes. English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programmes have also been influences by its innovations. Systemic-Functional Grammar describes language not only in terms of linguistic system, but relates it to the social interaction and culture in which it is used. This model of language was first proposed by Halliday. And also greatly influenced CLT (Haliday 1973).

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CONTENT-BASED INSTRUCTION Content-based instruction (CBI) is teaching organized around the content or information that students will acquire, and not around the linguistic or other type of syllabus. CBI is built on the principles of Communicative Language Teaching. Classroom needs to be filled with real and meaningful communication where information is exchanged. Content-based instruction is based in two principles: People learn a second language more successfully when they use the language as a means of acquiring information, rather than as an end in it. It better reflects learners needs for learning a second language. Many ESL,EFL programs focus on preparing students for academic studies. Theory of Language: CBI sees language as combination of several skills used together. Grammar is seen as a component of other skills. Theory of learning: CBI makes an assumption that learners learn best when they are given language in a meaningful, contextualized form with the primary focus on acquiring information.