In the name of God

Outline
• Introduction
• Theoretical Principles
• Theory of language
• Theory of Language Learning
• Theory of Language Teaching
• Content Specification
• Classroom Procedures
• Input Modification
• Interactional Activities
• Critical Assessment
• Conclusion
 Introduction
• Kumaravadivelu combined the british structural
situational method and the american audiolingual
method under THE AUDIOLINGUAL METHOD.
• some of its basics can be traced to almost simultaneous
developments in Britain and the United States. Toward
the second half of the 20th century, British applied
linguists such as Hornby, Palmer, and West developed
principles and procedures of what came to be called the
structural–situational method.

• It primarily centered around the triple principles of

selection, gradation, and presentation
• Selection deals with the choice of lexical and grammatical content,
gradation with the organization and sequencing of content, and
presentation with the aims and activities of classroom teaching

 This was a pragmatic version of audio-lingualism.

 The key difference from the audiolingual approach was that the
language presentation and practice was situationalised and was
always given social meaning.

 Speaking and listening were the most important skills.

 This approach gave rise to the idea of PPP (presentation, practice,

production).

 All the techniques of audio-lingual method were used, but the

famous ‘situation’ was added
 ASTP
• As the British applied linguists were engaged in developing the
structural– situational method, their American counterparts were
called upon by their government already drawn into World War II to
devise effective, short term, Intensive courses to teach
conversational skills in German, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese,
and other languages to army personnel who could work as
interpreters, code-room assistants, and translators. In response,
American applied linguists established what was called Army
Specialized Training Program .(1940s)

• After the war and by the mid-1950s, the program evolved into a
full-fledged audiolingual method of teaching, and quickly became the
predominant American approach to teaching English as
second l language
ALM
 Theory of Language
 Language-Centered pedagogists believed in the theory of language
proposed and propagated by American structural linguists during the
1950s. (Leonard Bloomfield)
 Structural linguists treated language as a system of systems
consisting of several hierarchically linked building blocks:
phonemes,morphemes,phrases,clauses,and sentences each with its
own internal structure

 Structural linguists regarded language as oral,  and thus  stressed 

listening and speaking.  Speech was considered to be primary,
forming the very foundation of language. Structure was viewed as
being as the heart of speech.
 Structuralists were skeptical about mentalism and rejected any
explanation of human behavior in terms of emotive feelings or
mental processes
 Theory of Language Learning

 Behaviorism
 All things should be looked at from the perspective of
behaviour.
 Behaviorism argues that there is no mind, no thoughts,
no feelings, and the only important thing to consider is
behavior.

 Habit formation is the basis of this method, learning

takes place with a stimuli, respond and reinforcement.

 Furthermore, audio-lingual theory of language learning

is the practice of this method since it consists of habit
formation via a lot of repetitions
 Assumptions of Language Learning Theory
 Learning to speak a language is the same as learning to
ride bicycle or drive a car.
 Language learning is just a process of mechanical habit
formation through repetition.
 Bloomfield “the command of language is a matter of practice every thing
until it becomes a second nature
 Habit formation takes place by means of analogy rather
than analysis
 Language learning is a linear,incremental,additive
process.
 Discrete items of language should be introduced in
carefully constructed dialogues embedded in a carefully
selected linguistic and cultural context
 Theory of Language Teaching
 Audiolingual theory of language teaching is a mirror
image of its theory of language learning.

 Because learning a language is considered to involve

forming habits in order to assimilate and use a
hierarchical system of systems, language teaching is
nothing more than a planned presentation of those
(sub)systems combined with provision of opportunities
for repetition.
The purpose of teaching is twofold:
 The emphasis on dialogues also takes care of the
primacy of speech as well as the strict

 sequencing of four language skills in terms of

Listening ,Speaking, Reading, and Writing

 Teacher/s major task is to drill the basic patterns, careful

design exercises. avoid the possibility of making errors.
(Hockett,1959)
 Various kinds of drills
• 1.Repetition
Ex: I used to know him – I used to know him

• 2. Inflection
Ex: I bought the ticket – I bought the tickets

• 3.Replacement – one word

Ex: He bought this house cheap – He bought it cheap

• 4.Completion

Teacher: I'll go my way and you go…

Student: I'll go my way and you go yours

 Materials
• Textbooks

• Tapes

• Visuals

• Realia

• Language labs
 Content Specification
o Linguistic forms constitute the organizing principle for
syllabus construction.
o The primary task of the learner is to synthesize the
discrete items of language in order to develop adequate
knowledge/ability in the language
o Selections and gradation are two challenges facing the
syllabus designer.

o Presented the language forms one by one to learners.

(Ex: adj - adv ,etc)

o Frequency and range.

 Classroom Procedures
A. INPUT MODIFICATION
B. INTERACTIONAL ACTIVITY

A . input modification
I.Form-based input modification
II.meaning-based input modification
III.form-and meaning based input modification

•Language centered methods adhere to form based input .

•The other two types rarely figure in language-centered methods .

• Language –centered pedagogists believe that form-based input

modification is necessary and sufficient for the development of linguistic
as well as pragmatic knowledge/ability in the L2.
 For purposes of teaching and testing linguistic forms , Paulston and
Bruder suggested three type of drills:

• Mechanical : automatic manipulative patterns aimed at

habit formation. The learner response is fully controlled
and there is only one correct way of responding.

• Meaning : automatic manipulative pattern aimed at habit

formation, there is more than one correct way of
responding.

• Communicative: help learners transfer pattern to

appropriate communicative situation
 B: Interactional activities
• The interactional activities of teachers and learner in a typical audio-
lingual classroom are characterized in term of three P s:

 Presentation : The already selected and graded linguistic item are

introduced through a constructed dialogue , the learners are
supposed to begin to grasp , mostly through analogy ,how a
particular structure works.
 Practice: The learner practice the new linguistic items through
mechanical , meaningful , or communicative drills. The pattern
practice consist of decontextualized sentence with the same
grammatical structure but different lexical item.
 Production : The learner are given the opportunity to role play
dialogues similar to the ones introduce in class or in the language
lab. They memorized in order to vary their production. They are
also encouraged to talk about a selected topic in a carefully
controlled context
•To conclude this section, the classroom procedures
explained and illustrated bring out limitations of input as
well as interactional modification associated with language
–centered methods. With regard to input the emphasis has
been on form-based modifications to the neglect of
meaning based activity.
 Critical Assessment
• Audio lingual method is based on well –articulated and well-
coordinated theories of language , language learning ,and language
teaching , prompting its proponents to call its scientific method.

• The systematic nature of language –centered is helpful to the

classroom teacher and be teacher friendly and it could be used at all
proficiency levels. The teacher organize large gropes of student,
and he is a authority in the classroom and center of what is
happening all time.
• Teaching language as a communication was coined by language –
centered pedagogists , it was later appropriated by leaner –
centered pedagogists and was used as a slogan for communication
language teaching .
 Follow the discution about teaching language as communication

 Widdowson made a useful distinction between language usage and

language use:

Usage :The citation of words and sentences as manifestions of the

language system

Use :The way the system is realized for normal communicative

purpose

Widdowson goes on to argue that the teaching of usage dose not guarantee a
knowledge of use implying that any teaching of language as communication
entailed the teaching of language use , not just language usage.
 Experiential and empirical evidence on the effectiveness of language –
centered methods revealed that the learners at the end of their language
learning were better at language usage than at language use. There are
several factors that contributed to this less than desirable outcome

1.Language – centered pedagogists failed to recognize that superficial linguistic

behavior in term of structures and vocabulary
2.They seldom acknowledged that communicative situations are far more
complex
3.They assumed wrongly that the learners will be able to successfully transfer
their knowledge of isolated items of grammar and vocabulary and automatically
apply it to real-life communicative situation outside the classroom.

The theoretical bases of language centered pedagogy signify at once its

strength as well as its weaknesses . although the solid theoretical foundation
governing its orientation to language learning and language teaching gave
language centered pedagogy a principle systematic and coherent based ,its
also contributed to its demise .and this theory was totally dependent upon
psychology and linguistic .
• The emerge of cognitive psychology and chomskyan linguistics the made
new insight about psychology and linguistic .taking a mentalistic approach ,
cognitive psychologists focused on the role of the human mind and its
capacity to form insights and rejected the stimulus response mechanism
and habit- formation advocated by behaviorists.
• Language acquisition is largely a developmental process insight formation
grounded in the cognitive capacity of the human mind . language behavior
is a rule – governed creative activity and not a habit- induced mechanical
one
• Hymes : communicative capability does not include grammatical knowledge
but also more importantly , knowledge of sociocultural norms governing day
to day communication .
• Theoretical base of language – centered pedagogy was completely
undermined by the new development in psychology and linguistic .both
teacher and learners were losing interest in it mainly because of its failure to
achieve its stated objectives.
• Ellis : many learners found pattern practice boring even learners who were
motivated to persevere found that memorizing patterns did not lead to fluent
and effective communication in real –life situation.
• this problem of language centered pedagogy resulted in a sharp
decline in its popularity. The loss of popularity of language –
centered does not mean that is had no redeeming feature.
Highlighting the positive aspects of the pedagogy several scholars
have for instance suggested that:

 Spolsky : Language learning does involve learning individual item

 Bialystok : An explicit focus on the formal properties of the language might
help the learner systematically examine , understand and organize the
linguistic system of the language .
 Stern: Explicit teaching of forms or structures of the target language is
beneficial to learners at a particular point in their acquisition of the target
language.
 Rivers: A manipulative repetition – reinforcement instructional procedure
may be adequate at the early sages of second and foreign language
learning
 Widdowson: there must be aspects of language learning which hove todo
with habit formation
 Widdowson: Total rejection of behavioristic theory is not more reasonable
than total acceptance
 Scholars suggested the suitable modification should be introduced
in the classroom procedures of language centered pedagogy in
order to reduce its excessive system dependence and to make it
more discourse oriented
When a German professional journal asked Lado if you look bake, 20
years ago and say which basic ideas of the audio lingual approach
would no longer stress:
Lado responded:
1. I don’t consider necessary the verbatim memorization of dialogue.
2. I no longer use pattern practice out of context.
3. I no longer limit the student to the vocabulary introduction in the text.
4. I no longer limit myself to helping them master the l.
5. I give more attention to features of discurse.
 Conclusion
 Lastly, using language-centered method is now spreads a big
dissatisfaction in the language teaching environment especially with
the new contemporary developments in linguistics.
 Using this method may be considered as a very old and traditional
method and as staying behind our age. Hence, this teacher driven
method should not be valid in our age, instead we should focus on
using or developing learner-centered teaching.

 Nunan (2000) argues the importance of learner-centered

classrooms and defines learner-centered classrooms as the places
where “key decisions about what will be taught, how it will be taught,
when it will be taught, and how it will be accessed will be made with
reference to the learner”.