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Language Teaching Methods: A Conceptual Approach

Article · January 2015

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OBUDU JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES. VOL. 9 NO. 1 (2015). P.20-34.

Language Teaching Methods: A Conceptual Approach.

By

Ugwu Ifeanyi Aaron

Igbo language Department

Federal College of Education,

Obudu.

&
Ugwu Ifeyinwa Rosemary
Department of Library and Information Technology
University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Abstract
At each point in time in the history of language teaching and learning, several methodologies
have been employed to positively advance the course of language teaching and learning. Each
method on one hand is situational and handles, perhaps, adequately the language teaching and
learning problems at a particular period, while on the other hand, exposes its demerits which
open the door for a new method to emerge. The result is that language teaching and learning is
replete with several methods which include: Grammar-Translation Method, Gouin and Berlitz –
The Direct Method, The Audio-lingual Method, Total Physical Response Method (TPR),
Community language learning, Suggestopedia, The Natural Approach, and Community
Language Teaching (CLT). While appreciating these methods, the practical application demands
a careful initiative of the language teacher; otherwise the desired result may not be seen. Our
study conceptually considers each method and opts for an eclectic approach by the language
teacher in other to enhance a fruitful language teaching and learning.

Introduction
For some decades now, researchers in language studies have delved into finding out several
ways in which language teaching will be enhanced. Out of practical experiences in the teaching
of language and the challenges associated with such experiences, several methods of teaching
language have emerged. Language scholars such as Asher (1977), Krashen (1982), Brown
(1994), Olaoye (1998), Rifkin (2003), Anozie (2007) etc., have somehow discussed some of
these methods, which we feel that a conceptual approach to this subject matter will not be out of
place. While Olaoye (1989) considered only five methods, Anozie (2007) included what he calls
the newer methods, and all are highlighted in the works of Krashen (1982).
OBUDU JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES. VOL. 9 NO. 1 (2015). P.20-34.

Language Teaching Methods

Krashen (1982 : 125) discusses several approaches or what he calls “the most widely used
methods” to language teaching, with the questions – on each approach to classroom teaching:
what extent it satisfies the requirements for optimal input”, and “what extent it puts learning in
its proper place”. These approaches have positively advanced the course of language teaching
and learning so much so that there is the need to have more insight on the approaches and what
contribution they can still make to our contemporary language study.

Grammar-Translation Method
Earlier in the Western world, around 17th, 18th and 19th centuries the focus of foreign language
learning was to promote intellects of the speaker with special biases on the learning of Latin and
Greek language. The learning emphasis was on grammatical rules, syntactic structures, and rote
memorization of vocabulary and translation of literary texts. Oral use of languages was de-
emphasized since the teaching and learning of Greek and Latin is only for scholarly or erudite
purposes. The classical method became known as the Grammar Translation Method at the late
of 19th Century with the same emphasis on grammatical rules as well as the process of translating
from the second to the native language.
The intention of most teachers that employ the grammatical methods to teach English
language was to equip the learners with the knowledge of literature, develop their minds
mentally, building in them the kinds of grammar, reading vocabulary and translation skills that
expedite their success in written tests or entrance examinations to the higher institutions.
The key features, notes Prator & Celce-Murcia (1979), found in this method are as follows:
i. Classes are taught in the mother tongue, with little active use of the target language.
ii. Much vocabulary is taught in the form of lists of isolated words.
iii. Long elaborate explanations of the intricacies of grammar are given.
iv. Grammar provides the rules for putting words together, and instruction often focuses
on the form and infection of words.
v. Reading of difficult classical texts is begun early.
vi. Little attention is paid to the content of texts, which are treated as exercises in
translating disconnected sentences from the target language into the mother tongue.
vii. Often the only drills are exercises in translating disconnected sentences from the
target language into the mother tongue.
viii. Little or no attention is given to pronunciation.
In the same vein, Krashen (1982), though with some variation, recognizes activities of grammar-
translation method which are as follows:
i. Explanation of a grammar rule, with example sentences.
ii. Vocabulary, presented in form of bilingual list.
OBUDU JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES. VOL. 9 NO. 1 (2015). P.20-34.

iii. A reading selection, emphasizing the rule presented in (i) above and the vocabulary
presented in (2).
iv. Exercises designed to provide practice on the grammar and vocabulary of the lesson.
These exercises emphasize the conscious control of structure and include translation in
both directions, from L1 to L2, and L2 or L1. Krashen (1982) also posits the
requirements for optimal input, each with its associated shortcomings. These are – A.
comprehensible – GTM provides scraps of comprehensible input-model sentences that
are designed to focus students on form. B. interest/relevant: An attempt is made to
provide the students with topics of interest, but learners will always remember that they
are written in another language. C. not grammatically sequenced: Texts sequenced
from what the author considers easy rules to move complex rules, yet each lesson
introduces certain rules, so that rules dominate the lesson. D. quality: Not only that
comprehensible input is scanty, the teacher rarely plays much role in the target
language. E. Affective filter level: GTM violates the tenets of input hypothesis, with
the tendency of putting the learners on the defensive, and even raise their anxiety level,
(Celce-Murcia, 1979). F. tools for conversational management: learners are helpless in
conversational management with native speaker.
The contribution of grammar-translation method to language learning has been limited since
it has shifted the focus from the real language to linguistic categories such as nouns, adjectives,
prepositions with less attention to the communicative ability in the foreign language.

Gouin and Berlitz – The Direct Method

The frustration experienced by the limits of the Grammar Translation Method in terms of its
inability to create communicative competences in learners gave rise to direct method. This
revolution began towards the end of 18th century. The teaching of foreign or second language
began to be approached along language acquisition perspective. Those areas where GTM de-
emphasized or omitted out rightly namely, Oral communication. Spontaneous use of the
language, developing the ability to think in the target language, etc., became the area of concern.
Direct method, therefore concerns itself with employing the target language as a means of
instruction with no translation and an emphasis on linking meaning to the language being
learned. The direct method functions well in private schools more than the public.
Krashen(1982) points out the characteristics of Direct method: discussion/all classroom for both
teacher /learners language is the target language; inductive teaching of grammar; learners should
guess or work out the rules of the language; induction is motivated and facilitated by teachers
questions that can lead the learners into conversation etc. This method insists on accuracy, while
errors are corrected in class.
One of the problems of direct method according to Brown (1994) is that it is met with
constraints of budget, classroom size, and time and teacher background in public education. As a
result of this, its practices began to decline. However, it later got revived and metamorphosed
into what we have as Audio-lingual method.
OBUDU JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES. VOL. 9 NO. 1 (2015). P.20-34.

The Audio-lingual Method

This method also known as fundamental skill method, aural-oral method or Army method
came as a result of the need for American soldiers who were to travel overseas to communicate
in foreign languages during the Second World War. The council of American learning society
has to produce many language speakers where total immersion language courses were
introduced. To this end, bits and pieces of the Direct Method were appropriated in order to
enhance this method.
The Audio-lingual method draws its practices from linguistic and psychological theory that
investigates different language using scientific descriptive analytic approach. The behavioristic
psychologists with the conditioning and habit-formation models of learning had a major role to
play in Audio-lingual method (krashen, 1982): Lesson begins with a dialogue which contains the
structures and vocabulary; the learners mimic the dialogue; the learners memorize the dialogue;
there is pattern drill on the structure to strengthen habits. These can clearly be stated in the
following form:
• Dependence on mimicry and memorization of set phrases.
• Teaching structural patterns by means of repetitive drills.
• No grammatical explanation.
• Learning vocabulary in context.
• Use of tapes and visual aids.
• Focus on pronunciation.
• Immediate reinforcement of correct responses.
Just like the preceding methods, Audio-lingual methods had its shortcoming, which is, the
inability to promote communicative ability as it paid undue attention to memorization and
drilling and less attention to the role of context and world knowledge in language learning. The
discovery that language was not acquired through a process of habit formation and that errors
were not necessarily a problem to the learner weakened this method.

Total Physical Response Method (TPR)

Around 1960s James Asher experimented with a method he tagged Total Physical Response
(TPR) which consists basically of obeying commands given by the instructor that involve an
overt physical response (Krashen, 1982). This method draws insight also from “trace theory”
that memory is stimulated and increased when it is closely associated with motor activity. It also
draws much from the basic principles of language acquisition in young learners – the process
that involves listening and comprehension combined with various physical responses e.g.,
smiling, grabbing, , looking etc., - well, before learners start using the language verbally,. The
key features of the Total Physical Response method are: i. the teacher directs and students act in
response. Asher (1977: 43) states that “the instructor is the director of a stage play in which the
students are the actors”. ii. Listening and physical response skills are emphasized over oral
production. iii. The imperative mood is the most common language function employed.
OBUDU JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES. VOL. 9 NO. 1 (2015). P.20-34.

Interrogatives are heavily used. iv. Humor is also created to make the lesson lively. v. emphasis
is laid on Grammar and Vocabulary over other areas. vi. Students response in speech is only
when they are naturally ready to do so. Asher (1977) lists the three principles of the TPR
method:
• Delay speech from students until understanding of spoken language has been
extensively internalized.
• Achieve understanding of spoken language through utterances by the instructor in
the imperative.
• Expect that, at some point in the understanding of spoken language, students will
indicate a readiness to talk.
Among the primary objectives of TPR is that learning needs to be more enjoyable and less
stressful. The use of TPR ensures active participation of students and helps the teacher know
when utterances are understood and also provides contacts to help student understand the
language they hear. However, a limitation can be identified due to its practice only inside the
classroom and also because of constraints imposed by the continuous use of imperatives and
the grammatical focus of lessons.

Community language learning

The proponent of this method Charles Curren developed a new educational model he called
affective factors as paramount in the learning process. In this method, students or learners are
seen as a group and not as a class. Students are also to be seen as clients while the teachers take
the position of counselor.
Issues in adult learning spurred Curren to work out the Counseling-Learning educational
model in order to cushion the threatening effect on the nature of a new learning situation to many
adult learners and the anxiety caused by the education context. Thus, an interactive community
of fellow learners would be of great help to lower the instinctive defenses that are found among
adult learners and also reduce the anxiety in their learning situations. The role of the teacher
who takes the position of a counselor is empathetic and not a threat. Having extended this model
to language, we now have the term – Community Language Learning.
The practice is that the teachers see the students as whole persons with feelings, intellect,
interpersonal relationships, and protective reactions with desire to learn. The students sit in a
circle, with the teacher outside the ring. They use their first language for interaction first, and the
teacher assists in translating it to the target language. The students repeat the target language
after the teacher severally until the students are able to stand on their own.
Some of the features of the Community Language Learning Method are:
• Students are to be considered as ‘learner-clients’ and the teacher as a ‘teacher-
counselor’.
• Students are permitted to use their native language and are provided with translations
from the teacher, which they will also apply.
OBUDU JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES. VOL. 9 NO. 1 (2015). P.20-34.

• A relationship of mutual trust and support is considered essential to the learning

process.
• Grammar and vocabulary are taught inductively.
• There is a record of the target language produced by the students that is transcribed
in their native language, which they use for their working texts.
• Students apply the target language when they are confident enough to do so.
• Students are encouraged to express how they feel about the language and the
learners’ process involved which draws empathy and understanding from the teacher.
• A variety of activities can be employed, e.g., grammar, or pronunciation, creating
new sentences etc.

Suggestopedia
Georgi Lozanov, a Bulgarian psychologist, around late 70s came up with the thinking that
most students have naturally set up psychological barriers because of fears supposing that they
are limited to a certain learning capacity. Lozanov believes that learners have been underutilizing
their mental capacity 5 – 10 percent while the brain can retain much more if given optimum
condition for learning. As a result, he was led to developing a language learning method that
deals on “desuggestion” of the limitations learners think they have, and providing them with a
condition that might keep their minds in a relaxed form in order to attain to its full potential
capacity. Suggestopedia reflects, therefore, the application of the power of suggestion to the
field of pedagogy.
Krashen (1982) posits that Suggestiopedia class, as conducted in Lozanov’s Institute of
Suggestology in Sofia, Bulgaria, consists of small groups, around 12 students at a time, and are
intensive, meeting for four hours per day. Bankroft (1978) in Krashen (1982) adds that each
four-hour class consists of three parts:
i. Review, done through traditional conversations, games, plays etc. Some exercises
and error correction, may be included, but no language laboratory. Use or pattern drill.
ii. New material is introduced in the form of dialogues based on situations familiar to
the students.
iii. The “truly original feature” of Suggestopedia in in two parts – 1. The active séance,
the dialogue is read by the teacher, while students follow the text and engage in deep and
rhythmic Yoga breathing, and the teacher reads the language materials in different other
times, starting from Bulgaria (L1) translation (two seconds); foreign language phrase (four
seconds); pause (two seconds).
The second parts is the passive or convert part of the séance. This involves the playing of a
Baroque music. Baroque music has a specific rhythm and a pattern of 60 beats per minute, and
Lozanov thinks it creates a level of concentration that can facilitate the intake and retention of
huge qualities of material. This increase in learning potential was put down to the increase in
alpha brain waves and decreases in blood pressure and heart rate that result from listing to
OBUDU JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES. VOL. 9 NO. 1 (2015). P.20-34.

Baroque music. There is also the introduction of providing soft comfortable chairs and dim
lighting in the classroom. The activity involves the teacher reading the dialogue “with an
emotional intonation” while the students with eyes closed meditate on the text. The features of
Suggestopedia are:
• Learning is facilitated in an environment that is as comfortable as possible, featuring
soft cushioned seats and dim lights.
• Learning is encouraged peripherally as the learning environment is beautified with
posters and decorations in the target language.
• The teacher assumes a role of complete authority and control in the classroom.
• Self-perceived and psychological barriers to learners’ potential to learn are
“digested”
• Students are encouraged to be child-like and think along with their teachers, and
assume new roles and names in the target language.
• Baroque music is played softly at the background to increase mental relaxation in
order to assist in retaining new material during lesson.
• Students work from lengthy dialogue in the target language with an accompanying
translation into the student’s native language.
• Errors are tolerated. The emphasis is on content and not structure.
• Homework is limited to students re-reading the dialogue they are studying once
before they go to sleep at night and once in the morning before they get up.
• Music, drama and “the Arts” are integrated into the learning process as often as
possible.
Just like every other method is bound to have a short coming, however, wonderful the
contributions to language learning may appear, Suggestopedia cannot thrive well where the
Classrooms are bereft of such amenities as comfortable seats, dim lights, music, compact disk
players etc. The method can also be sleep-inducing among the students.

The Natural Approach

In the early eighties, Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrel developed the Natural approach
which is based on Krashen’s theories about second language acquisitions. The Natural approach
shares a lot in common with Asher’s Total Physical Response method: the emphasis on silent
phase, waiting for the student’s use of the target language at will; the emphasis on learner’s
relaxation during learning process. Krashen (1982: 138) describes the natural method in the
following principles:
i. Class time is devoted primarily to providing input for acquisition.
ii. The teacher speaks only the target language in the classroom. Students may use
either the first or second language; their errors are not corrected unless communication is
affected.
iii. Homework may include formal grammar work. Error correction is employed in
correcting homework.
OBUDU JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES. VOL. 9 NO. 1 (2015). P.20-34.

iv. The goals of the course are “semantic”, activities may involve the use of a certain
structure, but the goals are to enable students to talk about ideas perform tasks, and solve
problems.
Other activities involved in Natural method include games, role plays, dialogues, group work and
discussions. Three generic stages involved are: i. preposition – developing listening skill. ii.
Early production – students struggle with the language and make many errors which are
corrected based on content and not structure. iii. Extending production – promoting fluency
through a variety of more challenging activities.
Natural method faced criticism faced criticism on the matter of recommending a silent period
which terminates when students feel ready to emerge into oral production and also the idea of
comprehensible input. The argument of the critics is that students emerge at different times or
perhaps, not at all, and determine which forms of language input that will be comprehensible to
student is a hard task. However, the Natural Approach led generally to preferring a general
accepted norm for effective language teaching known as Communicative Language Teaching.

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

This is a broad approach that encompassed various methods, motivations for learning the
target language, types of teachers and the needs of individual classrooms and students
themselves. It is one ‘umbrella’ approach to language teaching approach that has become the
accepted ‘norm’ in this field. The basic premises of this approach are:
• Focuses on all the components of communicative competence not only grammatical
or linguistic competence.
• Engages learner in the programmatic, functional use of language for meaningful
purposes.
• Views fluency and accuracy as complementary principles underpinning
communicative techniques.
• Uses the language in unrehearsed contexts.
The all-embracing nature of communicative language teaching (CLT) as a method has currently
been of the pre-occupation of modern language researchers and has also been of great interest
and pursuit of many college and university foreign language programmes. Rifkin (2003: 169)
notes that “many college and university foreign language programmes are designed to help
students achieve certain goals”. These goals according him are:
• Listing comprehension (and, in some cases, viewing comprehension).
• Reading comprehension.
• Speaking ability.
• Writing ability.
• Understanding the culture(s) in which the language is spoken.
• Understanding the perspectives of different culture.
OBUDU JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES. VOL. 9 NO. 1 (2015). P.20-34.

Labeling Communicative Language Teaching as taking the lead among other methods is
simply because language (whether to be acquired or learnt) is useless being in use. The teaching
methods that are methods that are mostly tested with foreign languages, especially English. The
application of any or all of these methods to study can only be determined as we examine our
own target language.

Conclusion
The teaching and learning of languages have been considered very vital as far as linguistic
research is concerned. And this is why we cannot over-emphasize the highlights of these
methodologies. It is out of these researches, that the aforementioned and discussed
methodologies have emerged. This implies that the language teacher is already handy and has the
choice of approaching language teaching with any of these methods. In the same way, a language
learner who has the privileged information on any of these methods is on an advantaged position
to perform well in language learning.
It is also important to mention that no one method is preferred to the other. A language teacher
is always trained to be eclectic in approaching the teaching of a language as there are several
factors that determine what a language teacher does as well as the student’s behaviour at a
particular point in time. The most important thing is that the language learning takes place.

References

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Rifkin, B. (2003). Guidelines for Foreign Language Lesson Planning. Foreign language Annals,
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Olaoye, A. A. (1989). Introduction to sociolinguistics. Nigeria: Ogunloye Publishing & Printing

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