Lecture 5. Methods of language teaching and language education.

Language education includes the teaching and learning of a language learning foreign or second language acquisition.

1. Foreign language education history.

2. Ancient to medieval period. Although the need to learn foreign languages is almost as old as human history itself, the origins of language education has its roots in the study and teaching of Latin. However, by the end of the 16^th century French, Italian and English displaced Latin as the languages of spoken and written communication.

The study of Latin diminished from the study of a living language to be used in a real world to a subject in the school curriculum.

It was than claimed that its study developed intellectual abilities and the study of Latin grammar become of utmost importance.

Grammar schools from the 16^th to the 18^th century focused on teaching the grammatical aspects of classical Latin. Advanced students continued grammar study with the edition of rhetoric.

3. the 19^th – 20^th century so-called applied linguistics tradition.

Innovation in foreign language teaching began in the 19^th century and continued in the 20^th century leading to a number of different methodologies sometimes conflicting, each trying to be a major improvement over the last or other contemporary methods.

The earliest applied linguistics specialist was Henry Sweet, who established in the applied linguistics a tradition in language teaching and approaches based on linguistic and psychological theories.

4. Methods of teaching foreign languages.

Language education usually takes place at a language school with many methods and methodologies used the latter often falls into relative obscurity whereas others are widely used.

Terms “approach”, “method” and “technique” are different concepts.

In approach is a set of correlative assumptions about the nature of language teaching foreign language learning but it does not involve steps and procedures or provide any details about how much these assumptions should be applied into the classroom setting.

1. Three principle views.

1. the structural view treats language as a system of structurally related elements to code meaning: ex. to code grammar

2. the functional view sees language as a vehicle to express or accomplish a certain function such as requesting, persuading, demanding, etc.

3. the interactive view sees language as a vehicle for the creation and maintenance of social relations focusing on patterns of moves, acts, negotiations in conversational exchanges and this very view was dominant since 1980s.

Method is a plan for presenting the language material and it should be based upon a selective approach in order for an approach to be translated into a method instructional system must be designed considering the objectives of the teaching and learning.

A technique is a very specific strategy or even a trick designed to fulfill an immediate objective.

The Grammar-Translation method.

It instructs students in grammar, provides vocabulary with direct translations to memorize. It was predominant method in Europe in 19^th century.

Most instructors now acknowledge that this method is ineffective by itself.

At school teaching of grammar consists of a process of training in the rules of a language which must make it possible to all the students to express their opinion correctly, to understand the remarks which are addressed to them and to analyze the texts which they read.

Attention is given to orthography, sentence structure, text analyzing.

Direct method (natural method).

It refrains from using the learners native language and just uses the target language.

According to this method printed language and text must be kept away from the 2^nd language learner as long as possible just as the 1^st language learner doesn’t use printed word until he has good grasp of speech. The method relies on a step-by-step progression based on question and answer sessions which begin with naming common objects such as door, floor, pencils, etc.

It provides a motivating start as the learner begins using a foreign language almost immediately. Lessons progress to verb forms and other grammar structures with the goal of learning about 30 new words per lesson.

Oral approach (situational language teaching).

It was developed from the 1930s to 1960s by British applied linguist Arnold Palmer, Andrew Hornsby. They were familiar with the direct method as well as the work of 19^th century applied linguists but they attempted to develop a scientifically founded approach to teaching English. A member of language scale investigations about language learning and the increased emphasis on reading skills in the 1920s led to the notion of vocabulary control. It was discovered that languages have a core/basic vocabulary of approximately 2000 words that occurred in written texts and it has assumed that mastery of this would greatly aid reading comprehension. Parallel to this was the of notion grammar control emphasizing the sentence patterns most commonly found in spoken conversation.

The principle difference between the oral approach and the direct method was that methods devised under this approach would have theoretical principles during the selection of contextual gradation of the difficulty of exercises and presentation of such a material and exercises.

The main proposed benefit was that such a theoretically based organization of context would result in a less confusing sequence of learning trends with better contextualization of the vocabulary and grammatical patterns presented.

Proprioceptive language learning method (the feedback training method)

Emphasizes simultaneous development of cognitive motor, neurological hearing as parts of comprehensive language learning process. Lesson development is as concentrated with a training of motor and neurological functions of speech as it is with cognitive memory functions.

It emphasizes that training each part of the speech must be simultaneous.

This method emphasizes spoken language training and is used by those wanting to increase their speaking ability in a target language. This method virtually stands alone as a second language acquisition method in that is why it bases its methodology on a speech pathology method. It stresses that mere knowledge is not the main requirement for the spoken language fluency but that the mind receives real time feedback from both hearing and neurological receptors of related organs in order to constantly regulate the store of vocabulary and grammar memory in the mind during speech.

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