Evolution of Language Teaching: Current Trends in English as a Foreign Language

The Evolution of Language Teaching

Current Trends in English as a Foreign Language

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UNIT 1. THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE TEACHING. CURRENT TRENDS IN THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

Abstract

The present unit aims to show the developments in language teaching from the beginnings of modern foreign language teaching until the present day. Indeed, understanding such developments in language and grammar teaching and in how we perceive language learning has an extremely important role in the language teaching and learning process, and helps us to understand how far we have come, where we have got to and how we have arrived here. The Organic Law of Education amended by LOMLOE 3/2020 maintained a Foreign Language as a core subject in the curriculum at all levels, and thus stage objective i) in CSE and f) in Baccalaureate both refer to the learning of a foreign language. In order to meet such objectives, it is clear that a knowledge of teaching approaches and methodologies is instrumental in developing a teaching and learning strategy that is effective for all according to our current legislation, which requires a strategy that fosters communicative competence in all its facets and holistic, multicompetence learning.

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Index

1. INTRODUCTION 3
2. THE GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION METHOD 3
3. THE DIRECT METHOD 4
4. The Psychological Tradition 4
5. Behaviourism & the Audio-Lingual Method 4
6. Cognitivism & the Cognitive Approach 4
7. The Second Language Acquisition Tradition: The Natural Approach & Total Physical Response. 5
8. Humanistic Approaches: Community Language Learning, The Silent Way, Suggestopedia 5
9. The Communicative Approach 6
10. Background 6
11. Principles 6
12. Methodology 7
13. The "Post-Communicative" Era and Current Trends in Language Teaching8
14. Learner-Centred Instruction. 8
15. Task-Based Language Learning 8
16. Cooperative Learning 8
17. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 9
18. E-learning 9
19. Conclusion 10
20. Bibliography 10

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Introduction to Modern Language Education

Modern language education could be said to have its roots in the study of Latin: before the thirteenth century no languages other than Latin or Greek were formally taught. Latin was the key to the word of scholarship, literature and thought and the dominant language of education, government, religion and commerce in the Western world. Although by the end of the 16th century, French, Italian and English had displaced Latin as the languages of spoken and written communication, the study of modern languages did not become part of the curriculum of European schools until the 18th century. But students were learning these languages much in the same way as students of Latin had been, studying grammatical rules and translating abstract sentences. Indeed, innovation in foreign language teaching did not really begin until the 19th century, and very rapidly in the 20th century, leading to a number of different methodologies and approaches.

In the long search for the best way of teaching a foreign language, countless different approaches and methods have been devised. In this unit, we will try to take a chronological approach to explaining some of the most prominent language teaching methods and approaches, from the grammar-translation method, through many different approaches in the twentieth century and up to where we are now, working in a Communicative Approach in a "post- communicative" period.

The Grammar-Translation Method

As modern languages began to enter the curriculum of European schools in the eighteenth century, they were taught with the same procedures which were used in the teaching of Latin. Speaking the language was not the goal and speaking practice was thus very limited. Instead, students were required to learn vocabulary lists, learn grammar rules and translate. By the nineteenth century, this approach based on the study of Latin had become the standard way of studying foreign languages in schools and had become known as the Grammar-Translation Method.

This method was exactly in tune with the times, with the emphasis on the primacy of reason, law, and logic. Its fundamental purpose was to control the tools of the language, which were basically vocabulary, grammar and orthography. The principle characteristics of the Grammar-Translation Method, according to Richards and Rodgers, were as follows:

1. The goal of language study was to learn a language in order to read its literature or to benefit from the intellectual development that result from foreign language study.
2. Reading and writing were the major focus, little or no systematic attention being paid to speaking or listening.
3. Vocabulary selection was based solely on the reading texts used, words being taught through bilingual lists.
4. The sentence was the basic unit of teaching and language practice.
5. Accuracy was emphasized and grammar was taught deductively - by presentation and study of grammar rules which students had to learn.
6. The student's native language was the medium of instruction.
7. Teachers played an authoritarian role in the classroom.

The Grammar Translation method dominated European and foreign language teaching from the 1840s until in the mid and late nineteenth century opposition to the Grammar-Translation method gradually developed in several European countries. As increased opportunities for communication amongst Europeans created a demand for oral proficiency in modern languages, the rise of structural linguistics started to view language as a variety of structures which could be adapted in a variety of ways, and phonology came to the fore, new methods started to develop around the turn of the 20th Century.

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The Direct Method

One of the first methods was the pragmatic, more communicative approach developed by Sauveur and Berlitz, given the title New, Natural or Direct Method. Its main objective was to emphasise the learning of the L2 as a vehicle for communication.

This new method attempted to legitimate itself by reference to the way a child learns its first language, advocating the avoidance of the mother tongue, using the direct association of word with object, and relegating grammar to a subordinate position (still taught, but inductively). This method placed great stress on correct pronunciation from the outset. It advocated the teaching of oral skills, because the new goal was how to communicate in the target language. Thus, reading and writing in the target language was postponed in the same way as a child does not start to read or write until a certain degree of oral fluency is achieved.

Although the Direct Method was quite successful in private language schools with high levels of motivation because of paying clients and native teachers, it was difficult to implement in public secondary schools under very different circumstances. In addition to this, the rise of mentalist, behaviourist and cognitive psychology in the 50s 60s and 70s brought with it new approaches in language teaching.

The Psychological Tradition in Language Teaching

Behaviourism and the Audio-Lingual Method

Born out of the way in which the army had been teaching language during World War II, the so-called "Army Method", with a great deal of oral activity - pronunciation, pattern drills and conversation practice based on many of the foundation stones of the Direct Method, came the Audiolingual Method in the 1950s. The Audiolingual Method (ALM) was firmly grounded in linguistic and psychological theory. Structural linguists of the 1940s and 1950s had been engaged in a "scientific descriptive analysis" of various languages" which seemingly could be applied to teaching linguistic patterns. At the same time behaviouristic psychologists such as Skinner and Osgood advocated conditioning and habit-formation models of learning that were perfectly married with the mimicry drills and pattern practices of audiolingual methodology.

Within this method new structures or patterns are presented through dialogues, which are learned through drills using imitation and repetition. Grammar structures are sequenced and rules are taught inductively from the examples given. Vocabulary is limited in initial stages and selected by the teacher. The target language is the only one used in the classroom. Errors are avoided as they lead to the formation of bad habits.

In the 1960s the structuralist methods were widespread, but those years also saw criticism from different sides, both in terms of its effectiveness as this method seemed to create structurally component but communicatively incompetent students, and from theorists such as Noam Chomsky, who saw serious shortcomings in the theory underpinning the method, language being a lot more than habit formation.

Cognitivism and the Cognitive Approach

The Cognitive Approach developed in the 60s was based on Gestalt psychology and transformational grammar, its aim being to emphasize language learning as an active, intelligent, rule-seeking process in which learners are encouraged to discuss the way that the target language works.

It differed from the audiolingual approach in that, instruction was often individualised, learners are responsible of their own learning. The study of grammar was considered central to language learning; it had to be taught deductively. Errors were inevitable and viewed as something that should be used constructively in the learning

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process, fluency was more important than accuracy. Much more opportunity was given to pupils to use their own acquired store of the foreign language for purposes that they perceived as their own.

The Cognitive Approach was not a method with a series of step by step guidelines, and thus did not attain the prominence of the audiolingual method. Also, empirical research into first and second language acquisition paved the way for the development of new methods: The Natural Approach and Total Physical Response. Likewise, humanist theory set the ground for other approaches such as Community Language Learning, The Silent Way and Suggestopedia.

Second Language Acquisition Tradition: Natural Approach & Total Physical Response

The following methods thus share some theoretical beliefs from SLA: language is considered a creative process of rule formation and hypothesis testing; language input is used to confirm or reject those rules and hypotheses about language; language learning is a universal process and it is innate, because all children develop language around the same age; we all possess a Language Acquisition Device (LAD); the process of learning a second language is very much the same as that of learning the mother tongue.

Total Physical Response developed by Asher (1977) focusing on several characteristics of first language acquisition, notably that children have to comprehend a lot of information before they learn how to speak and during this period, they receive a lot of input in which a lot of physical manipulation and movement is involved. Several key principles derived from the L1=L2 hypothesis constitute the basis of this teaching method: comprehension should come before production, input being provided through commands in the imperative form; the first group of activities should involve commands, then interaction dialogues, afterwards dramatization and role-plays. All activities should include physical action; learning is inductive rather than deductive.

The Natural Approach was developed by Krashen (1985) and based on his Monitor Theory. This method considers language as communication, so meaning, rather than grammar is at the core of this method. Just like children when learning their mother tongue, students do not produce output immediately, production being delayed until speech 'emerges' after a 'silent period'. Thus, a great deal of communication and acquisition should take place through a stimulating variety of classroom activities set around everyday language situations. Activities in the form of problem- solving, games, affective humanistic activities and those focused on learning something else in the language (rather than language itself) dominate, producing unconscious acquisition rather than learning.

Humanistic Approaches: Community Language Learning, The Silent Way, Suggestopedia

Humanistic approaches to psychology also produced language learning methods, such as Community Language Learning, the Silent Way and Suggestopedia. All three methods share a common framework: the primacy of affective and emotional factors within the learning process in line with the humanistic tradition. Humanism departs from audio-lingual habit theory and cognitive code learning and emphasizes the learner's affective domain.

In Community Language Learning, developed by Charles Curran, students formed part of a group in need of therapy and counselling rather than a class. Social relationships were established in L1 and then maintained through interpreting into L2 by the teacher. Students do not follow a pre-defined syllabus, they decide what and when to learn according to their needs.

Suggestopedia was a method developed by Lozanov (1979) in which students were put in a state of relaxation which it was hoped would lead to maximum retention of material. In this method much use was made of relaxing music, comfortable seats, indeed any technique which made students more relaxed and thus "suggestible". Students were thus 'flooded' with oral input and interaction was promoted to use what the students have unconsciously acquired.

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