Chapter 4: The Audio-Lingual Method

Textbook: Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. (2th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Introduction
Audio-Lingual Method is an oral-based approach. It drills students in the use of grammatical sentence patterns. Based on behavioral psychology (Skinner). Conditioning helping learners to respond correctly to stimuli through shaping and reinforcement. Habit-formation

A dialog from the text

Sally : Good morning, Bill. Bill: Good morning, Sally. Sally: How are you? Bill: Fine, Thanks, And you? Sally: Fine. Where are you going? Bill: Im going to the post office. Sally: I am too. Shall we go together? Sure. Lets go.

Im going to the post office.

1. introduces a new dialog (p36) 2. uses a backward build-up drill 3. uses a repetition drill (group) 4. initiates a chain drill (individual) 5. leads a single-slot substitution drill (replaces a word or phrase = cue) (shows pictures) 6. praise the class during the practice

How are you? (Subject-verb agreement)

1. subject pronouns (he, she, they, you) 2. be verb (is, are) 3. uses Multiple-slot Substitution drill (I am/ She is going to the post office) 4. uses a transformation drill (active vs. passive; yes/no-question) 5. uses pictures again and select individuals

More practices
1. reviews the dialog 2. expands upon the dialog by adding a few lines. 3. drills the new lines and introduces new vocabulary (p.41) 4. works on the mass and count nouns (a little/a few) 5. uses contrastive analysis (correct the pronunciation) (use of minimal pairs)

More practices
6. writes the dialog on the blackboard 7. uses the supermarket alphabet (grammar game)

Goals
Teachers want their students to be able to use the target language communicatively. Overlearning automatically without stopping to think Forming new habits through overcoming the old habit.

Teacher Role/Student Role

The teacher is like an orchestra leader. Providing students with a good model for imitation. Students are imitators.

Characteristics of the teaching/learning process

New vocabulary and structural patterns are presented through dialogues. Dialogues learning through imitation and repetition Positively reinforced Grammar is induced from the examples.

Student-teacher interaction/ student-student interaction

Interaction is teacher-directed Student-student interaction Chain drills and dialogues

The view of language/ the view of culture

The view of language be influenced by descriptive linguists. Each level( phonological, morphological)has its own distinctive patterns. Everyday speech is emphasized. The level of complexity of the speech is graded.

What areas of language are emphasized? What language skills are emphasized? Vocabulary is kept to a minimum while the students are mastering the sound system and grammatical patterns. The natural order of skills presentation is adhered to : listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The oral/aural skills receive most of the attention .

The role of native language

The habits of the students native language are thought to interfere with the students attempts to master the target language. The target language is mostly used in the classroom instead of the native language.

Evaluation
Nature: discrete-point each question on the test would focus on only one point of the language at a time. Ex: students might be asked to distinguish between words in a minimal pair.

Deal with errors

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

Brainstorming
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