1 A brief history of early developments

in language teaching

Introduction
By the beginning of the twentieth century, language teaching was emerging as an active
area of educational debate and innovation. Although language teaching has a very
long history, the foundations of contemporary approaches to language teaching were
developed during the early part of the twentieth century, as applied linguists and others
sought to develop principles and procedures for the design of teaching methods and
materials, drawing on the developing fields of linguistics and psychology. This led to
a succession of proposals for what were thought to be more effective and theoretically
sound language teaching methods. Language teaching in the twentieth century was
characterized at different times by change and innovation and by the development of
competing language teaching ideologies. The impetus for change in approaches to lan-
guage teaching is generally a response to increased demand for speakers of second and
foreign languages. World War II, for example, prompted the need for new ways of teach-
ing oral skills in foreign languages, as we discuss in Chapter 4. Large-scale movement of
people through immigration as well as the internationalization of education since the
1950s also created a demand for new types of language programs. And in more recent
times, globalization, the rise of the Internet, and the global spread of English has also
prompted a reassessment of language teaching policies and practices. This chapter, in
briefly reviewing the history of language teaching methods, provides a background for
the discussion of past and present methods and suggests the issues we will refer to in
analyzing these methods.

The emergence of methods

Efforts to improve the effectiveness of language teaching have often focused on changes
in teaching methods. Throughout history such changes have reflected changes in the
goals of language teaching, such as a move toward oral proficiency rather than reading
comprehension as the goal of language study; they have also reflected changes in theo-
ries of the nature of language and of language learning. The method concept in teach-
ing – the notion of a systematic set of teaching practices based on a particular theory
of language and language learning – is a powerful though controversial one, and the
quest for better methods was a preoccupation of many teachers and applied linguists

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 4 Major trends in twentieth-century language teaching

throughout the twentieth century. From a historical perspective, we are able to see that
the concerns that have prompted recent innovations in language teaching, such as Task-
Based Language Teaching (Chapter 9) and Content and Language Integrated Learning,
or CLIL (Chapter 6), are similar to those that have always been at the center of discus-
sions on how to teach foreign languages. Common to each method is the belief that the
teaching practices it supports provide a more effective and theoretically sound basis for
teaching than the methods that preceded it. Today’s controversies reflect contemporary
responses to questions that have often been asked throughout the history of language
teaching – questions about how to improve the quality of teaching and learning in
language teaching classrooms.

The influence of Latin

We live in a bilingual and multilingual world. From both a contemporary and a histori-
cal perspective, bilingualism or multilingualism is the norm rather than the exception. It
is fair, then, to say that throughout history foreign language learning has always been an
important practical concern. Whereas today English is the world’s most widely studied
foreign or second language, 500 years ago it was Latin, for it was the dominant language
of education, commerce, religion, and government in the Western world. In the sixteenth
century, however, French, Italian, and English gained in importance as a result of politi-
cal changes in Europe, and Latin gradually became displaced as a language of spoken and
written communication.
As the status of Latin diminished from that of a living language to that of an
“occasional” subject in the school curriculum, the study of Latin took on a different
function. The study of classical Latin (the Latin in which the works of Virgil, Ovid, and
Cicero were written) and an analysis of its grammar and rhetoric became the model
for foreign language study from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Children
entering “grammar school” in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries
in England were initially given a rigorous introduction to Latin grammar, which was
taught through rote learning of grammar rules, study of declensions and conjugations,
translation, and practice in writing sample sentences, sometimes with the use of parallel
bilingual texts and dialogue (Kelly 1969; Howatt 1984). Once basic proficiency was estab-
lished, students were introduced to the advanced study of grammar and rhetoric. School
learning must have been a deadening experience for children, for lapses in knowledge
were often met with brutal punishment. There were occasional attempts to promote
alternative approaches to education; Roger Ascham and Montaigne in the sixteenth
century and Comenius and John Locke in the seventeenth century, for example, had
made specific proposals for curriculum reform and for changes in the way Latin was
taught (Kelly 1969; Howatt 1984), but since Latin (and, to a lesser extent, Greek) had for
so long been regarded as the classical and therefore most ideal form of language, it was
not surprising that ideas about the role of language study in the curriculum reflected the
long-established status of Latin.

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 1 A brief history 5

The decline of Latin also brought with it a new justification for teaching Latin. Latin
was said to develop intellectual abilities, and the study of Latin grammar became an end
in itself.

When once the Latin tongue had ceased to be a normal vehicle for communica-
tion, and was replaced as such by the vernacular languages, then it most speedily
became a “mental gymnastic,” the supremely “dead” language, a disciplined and
systematic study of which was held to be indispensable as a basis for all forms of
higher education.
(V. Mallison, cited in Titone 1968: 26)

As “modern” languages began to enter the curriculum of European schools in the eight-
eenth century, they were taught using the same basic procedures that were used for teach-
ing Latin. Textbooks consisted of statements of abstract grammar rules, lists of vocabulary,
and sentences for translation. Speaking the foreign language was not the goal, and oral
practice was limited to students reading aloud the sentences they had translated. These
sentences were constructed to illustrate the grammatical system of the language and con-
sequently bore no relation to the language of real communication. Students labored over
translating sentences such as the following:

The philosopher pulled the lower jaw of the hen.

My sons have bought the mirrors of the Duke.
The cat of my aunt is more treacherous than the dog of your uncle.
(Titone 1968: 28)

By the nineteenth century, this approach based on the study of Latin had become the
standard way of studying foreign languages in schools. A typical textbook in the mid-
nineteenth century thus consisted of chapters or lessons organized around grammar points.
Each grammar point was listed, rules on its use were explained, and it was illustrated by
sample sentences.

Nineteenth-century textbook compilers were mainly determined to codify the foreign

language into frozen rules of morphology and syntax to be explained and eventually
memorized. Oral work was reduced to an absolute minimum, while a handful of written
exercises, constructed at random, came as a sort of appendix to the rules. Of the many
books published during this period, those by Seidenstücker and Plötz were perhaps
the most typical … [Seidenstücker] reduced the material to disconnected sentences
to illustrate specific rules. He divided his text carefully into two parts, one giving the
rules and necessary paradigms, the other giving French sentences for translation into
German and German sentences for translation into French. The immediate aim was for
the student to apply the given rules by means of appropriate exercises … In [Plötz’s]
textbooks, divided into the two parts described above, the sole form of instruction
was mechanical translation. Typical sentences were: “Thou hast a book. The house is

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 6 Major trends in twentieth-century language teaching

beautiful. He has a kind dog. We have a bread [sic]. The door is black. He has a book
and a dog. The horse of the father was kind.”
(Titone 1968: 27)

This approach to foreign language teaching became known as the Grammar-Translation

Method.

The Grammar-Translation Method

As the names of some of its leading exponents suggest (Johann Seidenstücker, Karl Plötz,
H. S. Ollendorf, and Johann Meidinger), Grammar Translation was the offspring of
German scholarship, the object of which, according to one of its less charitable critics,
was “to know everything about something rather than the thing itself ” (W. H. D. Rouse,
quoted in Kelly 1969: 53). Grammar Translation was in fact first known in the United States
as the Prussian Method. (A book by B. Sears, an American classics teacher, published in
1845 was titled The Ciceronian or the Prussian Method of Teaching the Elements of the Latin
Language [Kelly 1969].) The principal characteristics of the Grammar-Translation Method
were these:
1. The goal of foreign language study is to learn a language in order to read its literature or
in order to benefit from the mental discipline and intellectual development that result
from foreign language study. Grammar Translation is a way of studying a language that
approaches the language first through detailed analysis of its grammar rules, followed by
application of this knowledge to the task of translating sentences and texts into and out
of the target language. It hence views language learning as consisting of little more than
memorizing rules and facts in order to understand and manipulate the morphology and
syntax of the foreign language. “The first language is maintained as the reference system
in the acquisition of the second language” (Stern 1983: 455).
2. Reading and writing are the major focus; little or no systematic attention is paid to
speaking or listening.
3. Vocabulary selection is based solely on the reading texts used, and words are taught
through bilingual word lists, dictionary study, and memorization. In a typical
Grammar-Translation text, the grammar rules are presented and illustrated, a list of
vocabulary items is presented with their translation equivalents, and translation exer-
cises are prescribed.
4. The sentence is the basic unit of teaching and language practice. Much of the lesson is
devoted to translating sentences into and out of the target language, and it is this focus
on the sentence that is a distinctive feature of the method. Earlier approaches to foreign
language study used grammar as an aid to the study of texts in a foreign language. But
this was thought to be too difficult for students in secondary schools, and the focus on
the sentence was an attempt to make language learning easier (see Howatt 1984: 131).
5. Accuracy is emphasized. Students are expected to attain high standards in translation,
because of “the high priority attached to meticulous standards of accuracy which, as well

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 1 A brief history 7

as having an intrinsic moral value, was a prerequisite for passing the increasing number
of formal written examinations that grew up during the century” (Howatt 1984: 132).
6. Grammar is taught deductively – that is, by presentation and study of grammar rules,
which are then practiced through translation exercises. In most Grammar-Translation
texts, a syllabus was followed for the sequencing of grammar points throughout a text,
and there was an attempt to teach grammar in an organized and systematic way.
7. The student’s native language is the medium of instruction. It is used to explain new
items and to enable comparisons to be made between the foreign language and the stu-
dent’s native language.
Grammar Translation dominated European and foreign language teaching from the
1840s to the 1940s, and in modified form it continues to be widely used in some parts of the
world today. At its best, as Howatt (1984) points out, it was not necessarily the horror that
its critics depicted it as. Its worst excesses were introduced by those who wanted to dem-
onstrate that the study of French or German was no less rigorous than the study of clas-
sical languages. This resulted in the type of Grammar-Translation courses remembered
with distaste by thousands of school learners, for whom foreign language learning meant
a tedious experience of memorizing endless lists of unusable grammar rules and vocabu-
lary and attempting to produce perfect translations of stilted or literary prose. Although
the Grammar-Translation Method often creates frustration for students, it makes few
demands on teachers. It is still used in situations where understanding literary texts is the
primary focus of foreign language study and there is little need for a speaking knowledge
of the language. Contemporary texts for the teaching of foreign languages at the college
level still sometimes reflect Grammar-Translation principles. These texts are frequently
the products of people trained in literature rather than in language teaching or applied
linguistics. Consequently, though it may be true to say that the Grammar-Translation
Method is still widely practiced, it has no advocates. It is a method for which there is no
theory. There is no literature that offers a rationale or justification for it or that attempts to
relate it to issues in linguistics, psychology, or educational theory. However, its continued
use in some part of the world may be due to (a) the limited command of spoken English
of language teachers, (b) the fact that this was the method their teachers used, (c) it gives
teachers a sense of control and authority in the classroom, and (d) it works well in large
classes. Jin and Cortazzi (2011: 558–9) offer the following explanation for the continued
use of Grammar Translation and other traditional teaching approaches in some parts of
the world:

TAs (traditional approaches) have persisted for longer in most developing parts of the
world than in more economically developed ones, due to the slower development of
educational systems and language teacher training, cultural perceptions and different
ways of change, limited learning resources and finance.

But in Europe in the mid and late nineteenth century, opposition to the Grammar-
Translation Method gradually developed in several countries. This Reform Movement, as it

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 8 Major trends in twentieth-century language teaching

was referred to, laid the foundations for the development of new ways of teaching languages
and raised controversies that have continued to the present day.

Language teaching innovations in the nineteenth century

Toward the middle of the nineteenth century, several factors contributed to a questioning
and rejection of the Grammar-Translation Method. Increased opportunities for commu-
nication among Europeans created a demand for oral proficiency in foreign languages.
Initially, this created a market for conversation books and phrase books intended for pri-
vate study, but language teaching specialists also turned their attention to the way English
and modern European languages were being taught in secondary schools. Increasingly, the
public education system was seen to be failing in its responsibilities. In Germany, England,
France, and other parts of Europe, new approaches to language teaching were developed
by individual language teaching specialists, each with a specific method for reforming the
teaching of modern languages. Some of these specialists, such as C. Marcel, T. Prendergast,
and F. Gouin, did not manage to achieve any lasting impact, though their ideas are of his-
torical interest.
The Frenchman C. Marcel (1793–1896) referred to child language learning as a model
for language teaching, emphasized the importance of meaning in learning, proposed that
reading be taught before other skills, and tried to locate language teaching within a broader
educational framework. The Englishman T. Prendergast (1806–1886) was one of the first to
record the observation that children use contextual and situational cues to interpret utter-
ances and that they use memorized phrases and “routines” in speaking. He proposed the
first “structural syllabus,” advocating that learners be taught the most basic structural pat-
terns occurring in the language. In this way he was anticipating a more scientific approach
to language study, an issue that was to be taken up in the 1920s and 1930s, as we shall see
in Chapter 3. The Frenchman F. Gouin (1831–1896) is perhaps the best known of these
mid-nineteenth-century reformers. Gouin developed an approach to teaching a foreign
language based on his observations of children’s use of language. He believed that lan-
guage learning was facilitated through using language to accomplish events consisting of a
sequence of related actions. His method used situations and themes as ways of organizing
and presenting oral language – the famous Gouin “series,” which includes sequences of sen-
tences related to such activities as chopping wood and opening the door. Gouin established
schools to teach according to his method, and it was quite popular for a time. In the first
lesson of a foreign language, the following series would be learned:

I walk toward the door. I walk.

I draw near to the door. I draw near.
I draw nearer to the door. I draw nearer.
I get to the door. I get to.
I stop at the door. I stop.
I stretch out my arm. I stretch out.

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 1 A brief history 9

I take hold of the handle. I take hold.

I turn the handle. I turn.
I open the door. I open.
I pull the door. I pull.
The door moves. moves
The door turns on its hinges turns
The door turns and turns. turns
I open the door wide. I open.
I let go of the handle. I let go.
(Titone 1968: 35)

Gouin’s emphasis on the need to present new teaching items in a context that makes their
meaning clear, and the use of gestures and actions to convey the meanings of utterances, are
practices that later became part of such approaches and methods as Situational Language
Teaching (Chapter 3) and Total Physical Response (Chapter 15).
The work of individual language specialists like these reflects the changing climate of
the times in which they worked. Educators recognized the need for speaking proficiency
rather than reading comprehension, grammar, or literary appreciation as the goal for foreign
language programs; there was an interest in how children learn languages, which prompted
attempts to develop teaching principles from observation of (or, more typically, reflections
about) child language learning. But the ideas and methods of Marcel, Prendergast, Gouin,
and other innovators were developed outside the context of established circles of education
and hence lacked the means for wider dissemination, acceptance, and implementation.
They were writing at a time when there was not sufficient organizational structure in the
language teaching profession (i.e., in the form of professional associations, journals, and
conferences) to enable new ideas to develop into an educational movement. This began to
change toward the end of the nineteenth century, however, when a more concerted effort
arose in which the interests of reform-minded language teachers and linguists coincided.
Teachers and linguists began to write about the need for new approaches to language
teaching, and through their pamphlets, books, speeches, and articles, the foundation for
more widespread pedagogical reforms was laid. This effort became known as the Reform
Movement in language teaching.

The Reform Movement

Language teaching specialists such as Marcel, Prendergast, and Gouin had done much
to promote alternative approaches to language teaching, but their ideas failed to receive
widespread support or attention. From the 1880s, however, practical-minded linguists such
as Henry Sweet in England, Wilhelm Viëtor in Germany, and Paul Passy in France began
to provide the intellectual leadership needed to give reformist ideas greater credibility and
acceptance. The discipline of linguistics was revitalized. Phonetics – the scientific analysis
and description of the sound systems of languages – was established, giving new insights

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 10 Major trends in twentieth-century language teaching

into speech processes. Linguists emphasized that speech, rather than the written word,
was the primary form of language. The International Phonetic Association was founded in
1886, and its International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was designed to enable the sounds of
any language to be accurately transcribed. One of the earliest goals of the association was
to improve the teaching of modern languages. It advocated
1. the study of the spoken language;
2. phonetic training in order to establish good pronunciation habits;
3. the use of conversation texts and dialogues to introduce conversational phrases and idioms;
4. an inductive approach to the teaching of grammar;
5. teaching new meanings through establishing associations within the target language
rather than by establishing associations with the native language.
Linguists too became interested in the controversies that emerged about the best
way to teach foreign languages, and ideas were fiercely discussed and defended in books,
articles, and pamphlets. Henry Sweet (1845–1912) argued that sound methodological prin-
ciples should be based on a scientific analysis of language and a study of psychology. In his
book The Practical Study of Languages (1899), he set forth principles for the development of
teaching method. These included
1. careful selection of what is to be taught;
2. imposing limits on what is to be taught;
3. arranging what is to be taught in terms of the four skills of listening, speaking, reading,
and writing;
4. grading materials from simple to complex.
In Germany, the prominent scholar Wilhelm Viëtor (1850–1918) used linguistic theory
to justify his views on language teaching. He argued that training in phonetics would enable
teachers to pronounce the language accurately. Speech patterns, rather than grammar, were
the fundamental elements of language. In 1882 he published his views in an influential pam-
phlet, Language Teaching Must Start Afresh, in which he strongly criticized the inadequacies
of Grammar Translation and stressed the value of training teachers in the new science of
phonetics.
Viëtor, Sweet, and other reformers in the late nineteenth century shared many beliefs
about the principles on which a new approach to teaching foreign languages should be
based, although they often differed considerably in the specific procedures they advocated
for teaching a language. In general the reformers believed that
1. the spoken language is primary and that this should be reflected in an oral-based
methodology;
2. the findings of phonetics should be applied to teaching and to teacher training;
3. learners should hear the language first, before seeing it in written form;
4. words should be presented in sentences, and sentences should be practiced in meaning-
ful contexts and not be taught as isolated, disconnected elements;

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 1 A brief history 11

5. the rules of grammar should be taught only after the students have practiced the gram-
mar points in context – that is, grammar should be taught inductively;
6. translation should be avoided, although the native language could be used in order to
explain new words or to check comprehension.
These principles provided the theoretical foundations for a principled approach to
language teaching, one based on a scientific approach to the study of language and of lan-
guage learning. They reflect the beginnings of the discipline of applied linguistics – that
branch of language study and research concerned with the scientific study of second and
foreign language teaching and learning. The writings of such scholars as Sweet, Viëtor, and
Passy provided suggestions on how these applied linguistic principles could best be put into
practice. None of these proposals assumed the status of a method, however, in the sense of a
widely recognized and uniformly implemented design for teaching a language. But parallel
to the ideas put forward by members of the Reform Movement was an interest in develop-
ing principles for language teaching out of naturalistic principles of language learning, such
as are seen in first language acquisition. This led to what have been termed natural methods
and then ultimately to the development of what came to be known as the Direct Method.

The Direct Method

Gouin had been one of the first of the nineteenth-century reformers to attempt to build a
methodology around observation of child language learning. Other reformers toward the
end of the century likewise turned their attention to naturalistic principles of language
learning, and for this reason they are sometimes referred to as advocates of a “natural”
method. In fact, at various times throughout the history of language teaching, attempts
have been made to make second language learning more like first language learning. In the
sixteenth century, for example, Montaigne described how he was entrusted to a guardian
who addressed him exclusively in Latin for the first years of his life, since Montaigne’s father
wanted his son to speak Latin well. Among those who tried to apply natural principles to
language classes in the nineteenth century was L. Sauveur (1826–1907), who used intensive
oral interaction in the target language, employing questions as a way of presenting and
eliciting language. He opened a language school in Boston in the late 1860s, and his method
soon came to be referred to as the Natural Method.
Sauveur and other believers in the Natural Method argued that a foreign language
could be taught without translation or the use of the learner’s native language if meaning
was conveyed directly through demonstration and action. The German scholar F. Franke
wrote on the psychological principles of direct association between forms and meanings
in the target language (1884) and provided a theoretical justification for a monolingual
approach to teaching. According to Franke, a language could best be taught by using it
actively in the classroom. Rather than using analytical procedures that focus on explanation
of grammar rules in classroom teaching, teachers must encourage direct and spontaneous
use of the foreign language in the classroom. Learners would then be able to induce rules
of grammar. The teacher replaced the textbook in the early stages of learning. Speaking

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 12 Major trends in twentieth-century language teaching

began with systematic attention to pronunciation. Known words could be used to teach
new vocabulary, using mime, demonstration, and pictures.
These natural language learning principles provided the foundation for what came
to be known as the Direct Method, which refers to the most widely known of the natu-
ral methods. Enthusiastic supporters of the Direct Method introduced it in France and
Germany (it was officially approved in both countries at the turn of the century), and it
became widely known in the United States through its use by Sauveur and Maximilian
Berlitz in successful commercial language schools. (Berlitz, in fact, never used the term; he
referred to the method used in his schools as the Berlitz Method.) In practice it stood for
the following principles and procedures:
1. Classroom instruction was conducted exclusively in the target language.
2. Only everyday vocabulary and sentences were taught.
3. Oral communication skills were built up in a carefully graded progression organized
around question-and-answer exchanges between teachers and students in small, inten-
sive classes.
4. Grammar was taught inductively.
5. New teaching points were introduced orally.
6. Concrete vocabulary was taught through demonstration, objects, and pictures; abstract
vocabulary was taught by association of ideas.
7. Both speech and listening comprehension were taught.
8. Correct pronunciation and grammar were emphasized.
These principles are seen in the following guidelines for teaching oral language, which
are still followed in contemporary Berlitz schools:

Never translate: demonstrate

Never explain: act
Never make a speech: ask questions
Never imitate mistakes: correct
Never speak with single words: use sentences
Never speak too much: make students speak much
Never use the book: use your lesson plan
Never jump around: follow your plan
Never go too fast: keep the pace of the student
Never speak too slowly: speak normally
Never speak too quickly: speak naturally
Never speak too loudly: speak naturally
Never be impatient: take it easy
(cited in Titone 1968: 100–1)

The Direct Method was quite successful in private language schools, such as those of
the Berlitz chain, where paying clients had high motivation and the use of native-speaking
teachers was the norm. But despite pressure from proponents of the method, it was difficult

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 1 A brief history 13

to implement in public secondary school education. It overemphasized and distorted the

similarities between naturalistic first language learning and classroom foreign language
learning and failed to consider the practical realities of the classroom. In addition, it lacked
a rigorous basis in applied linguistic theory, and for this reason it was often criticized by the
more academically based proponents of the Reform Movement. The Direct Method repre-
sented the product of enlightened amateurism. It was perceived to have several drawbacks.
It required teachers who were native speakers or who had native-like fluency in the foreign
language. It was largely dependent on the teacher’s skill, rather than on a textbook, and
not all teachers were proficient enough in the foreign language to adhere to the principles
of the method. Critics pointed out that strict adherence to Direct Method principles was
often counterproductive, since teachers were required to go to great lengths to avoid using
the native language, when sometimes a simple, brief explanation in the student’s native
language would have been a more efficient route to comprehension.
The Harvard psychologist Roger Brown has documented similar problems with strict
Direct Method techniques. He described his frustration in observing a teacher performing
verbal gymnastics in an attempt to convey the meaning of Japanese words, when translation
would have been a much more efficient technique (Brown 1973: 5).
By the 1920s, use of the Direct Method in noncommercial schools in Europe had
consequently declined. In France and Germany it was gradually modified into versions that
combined some Direct Method techniques with more controlled grammar-based activities.
The European popularity of the Direct Method in the early part of the twentieth century
caused foreign language specialists in the United States to attempt to have it implemented
in US schools and colleges, although they decided to move with caution. A study begun
in 1923 on the state of foreign language teaching concluded that no single method could
guarantee successful results. The goal of trying to teach conversation skills was considered
impractical in view of the restricted time available for foreign language teaching in schools,
the limited skills of teachers, and the perceived irrelevance of conversation skills in a
foreign language for the average American college student. The study – published as the
Coleman Report – argued that a more reasonable goal for a foreign language course would
be a reading knowledge of a foreign language, achieved through the gradual introduction
of words and grammatical structures in simple reading texts. The main result of this rec-
ommendation was that reading became the goal of most foreign language programs in the
United States (Coleman 1929). The emphasis on reading continued to characterize foreign
language teaching in the United States until World War II.
Although the Direct Method enjoyed popularity in Europe, not everyone embraced
it enthusiastically. The British applied linguist Henry Sweet recognized its limitations. It
offered innovations at the level of teaching procedures but lacked a thorough methodologi-
cal basis. Its main focus was on the exclusive use of the target language in the classroom, but
it failed to address many issues that Sweet thought more basic. Sweet and other applied lin-
guists argued for the development of sound methodological principles that could serve as
the basis for teaching techniques. In the 1920s and 1930s, applied linguists systematized the
principles proposed earlier by the Reform Movement and so laid the foundations for what

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 14 Major trends in twentieth-century language teaching

developed into the British, or Oral Approach to teaching English as a foreign language,
which emphasized the need to grade language items according to difficulty and to teach
language through a focus on its core structures and grammar (see Chapter 3). Subsequent
developments led to Audiolingualism (Chapter 4) in the United States and Situational
Language Teaching (Chapter 3) in Britain.
However, what assumptions underlie the concept of method in language teaching as
it emerged as a significant educational issue in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? We
have seen from this historical survey some of the questions that prompted innovations and
new directions in language teaching in the past:
1. What should the goals of language teaching be? Should a language course try to teach
conversational proficiency, reading, translation, or some other skill?
2. What is the basic nature of language, and how will this affect the way we teach it?
3. What are the principles for the selection of language content in language teaching?
4. What principles of organization, sequencing, and presentation best facilitate learning?
5. What should the role of the first language or languages be?
6. What language acquisition processes do learners use in mastering a language, and can
these be incorporated into a method?
7. What teaching techniques and activities work best and under what circumstances?
Particular teaching approaches and methods differ in the way they have addressed these
issues from the late nineteenth century to the present, as we shall see throughout this book.
The Direct Method can be regarded as the first language teaching method to have caught
the attention of teachers and language teaching specialists, and it offered a methodology
that appeared to move language teaching into a new era. It marked the beginning of what
we can refer to as the “methods era.”

The methods era

One of the lasting legacies of the Direct Method was the notion of “method” itself. The
controversy over the Direct Method was the first of many debates over how second and
foreign languages should be taught. The history of language teaching throughout much of
the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century saw the rise and fall of a variety of
language teaching approaches and methods, the major examples of which are described in
this book. The distinction between an approach and a method will be covered in depth in
Chapter 2; for the purposes of this chapter, however, the terms are used indistinguishably.
Common to most approaches and methods are the following assumptions:
l An approach or method refers to a theoretically consistent set of teaching procedures
that define good practice in language teaching.
l Particular approaches and methods, if followed precisely, will lead to more effective
levels of language learning than alternative ways of teaching.
l Teacher training should include preparing teachers to understand and use the best avail-
able language teaching methods.

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 1 A brief history 15

The different teaching approaches and methods that have emerged since the 1950s and
1960s, while often having very different characteristics in terms of goals, assumptions about
how a second language is learned, and preferred teaching techniques, have in common the
belief that if language learning is to be improved, it will come about through changes and
improvements in teaching methodology. This notion has been reinforced by professional
organizations that endorse particular teaching approaches and methods, by academics who
support some and reject others, by publishers who produce and sell textbooks based on the
latest teaching approaches and methods, and by teachers who are constantly looking for the
“best” method of teaching a language. Lange (1990: 253) comments:

Foreign language teacher development … has a basic orientation to methods of teach-

ing. Unfortunately, the latest bandwagon “methodologies” come into prominence with-
out much study or understanding, particularly those that appear easiest to immediately
apply in the classroom or those that are supported by a particular “guru.” Although
concern for method is certainly not a new issue, the current attraction to “method”
stems from the late 1950s, when foreign language teachers were falsely led to believe
that there was a method to remedy the “language teaching and learning problems.”

Hunter and Smith (2012: 430) suggest that the notion of methods has also been established
by the fact that accounts (such as this one) represent “a general tendency in the profession
to ‘package up’ the past by assigning methods labeled to bounded periods of history. Past
methods are presented as fixed sets of procedures and principles, with little attention paid
to the contexts in which these were developed, the way alternatives were debated at the
time, or indeed the extent to which there was continuity with previous period.” This should
be kept in mind in reading the accounts presented here.
Notwithstanding the note of caution above, debate over the teaching methods and
approaches that will be covered in this book has been a dominant theme in language teach-
ing since the 1950s. The 1950s and 1960s saw the emergence of the Audiolingual Method
and the Situational Method, which were both superseded by the Communicative Approach
(Chapter 5). During the same period, other methods attracted smaller but equally enthu-
siastic followers, including the Silent Way (Chapter 16), the Natural Approach (Chapter
14), and Total Physical Response (Chapter 15). Since the 1980s and 1990s, Content-Based
Instruction (Chapter 6), and task-based and text-based approaches (Chapters 9 and 10)
were developed as well as movements such as Competency-Based Language Teaching
(Chapter 8) that focus on the outcomes of learning rather than methods of teaching.
Other approaches such as Cooperative Language Learning (Chapter 13), Whole Language
(Chapter 7), and Multiple Intelligences (Chapter 12), originally developed in general educa-
tion, have been extended to second language settings. And more recently CLIL (Chapter 6)
has attracted considerable interest in Europe, as has the Common European Framework of
Reference which shifts focus to the outcomes of learning.
At the same time, applied linguists have also questioned the assumptions implicit in
the views of teaching underlying the concept of approaches and methods. For example,
Holliday (1994) argued that a communicative approach, as taught to teachers who are native

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 16 Major trends in twentieth-century language teaching

speakers of English, reflects a view of teaching and learning that is culturally bound and
reflects assumptions from dominant Western cultures – Britain, Australasia, and North
America (see Chapter 20). Kumaravadivelu presents a more radical critique of the influence
of Western methods, also known as “inner-circle” based or “center-based” methods, which
take as their starting point “the native speaker’s language competence, learning styles, com-
munication patterns, conversational maxims, cultural beliefs, and even accent”:

Briefly, Center-produced methods are based on idealized concepts geared toward

idealized contexts. Since language learning and teaching needs, wants, and situa-
tions are unpredictably numerous, no idealized teaching method can visualize all the
variables in advance to provide situation-specific suggestions that practicing teachers
need to tackle the challenges that confront the practice of their everyday teaching.
As a predominantly top-down exercise, the conception and construction of methods
have been largely guided by a one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter approach that assumes a
common clientele with common goals.
(Kumaravadivelu 2012: 18)

Others have suggested that the history of methods is often presented as evidence of
self-proclaimed progress, with little consideration of the successes achieved by teachers
using superseded methods that are depicted as “failures.” Since the 1990s, many applied
linguists and language teachers have consequently moved away from a belief that newer
and therefore “better” approaches and methods are the solution to problems in language
teaching. Alternative ways of understanding the nature of language teaching have emerged
that are sometimes viewed as characterizing the “post-methods era” (Chapter 20).
These newer approaches to understanding language teaching are discussed in Part IV of
this book.

Approaches and methods in teacher preparation programs

Despite the changing status of approaches and methods in language teaching, the study of
past and present teaching methods continues to form a component of many teacher prepa-
ration programs. This is discussed more fully in Chapter 20. There are several reasons why
methods are a component of many teacher-education programs. The study of approaches
and methods
l provides teachers with a view of how the field of language teaching has evolved and
forms part of the disciplinary knowledge expected of language teachers today;
l introduces teachers to the issues and options that are involved in planning and develop-
ing a language course;
l introduces a variety of principles and procedures that teachers can review and evaluate
in relation to their own knowledge, beliefs, and practice.
This is the orientation we adopt toward the teaching approaches and methods described
in this book. In order to understand the fundamental nature of methods in language

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 1 A brief history 17

teaching, however, it is necessary to conceptualize the notion of approach and method

more systematically. This is the aim of the next chapter, in which we present a model
for the description, analysis, and comparison of methods. This model will be used as a
framework for our subsequent discussions and analyses of particular language teaching
methods and philosophies.

Conclusion
In this chapter, we have looked at the emergence of methods, which in the early years
included an emphasis on Latin and the Grammar-Translation Method. The Reform
Movement then led to an emphasis on the spoken language and development of the Direct
Method, a “natural method” emphasizing native-speaker input as a way for the learner to
induce language patterns in the target language. Criticisms that the Direct Method lacked
a thorough methodological underpinning led to the birth of the “methods era” and the
many approaches and methods that will be covered in this book. More recently, some
educators have criticized the better-known approaches and methods as “Western-centric,”
and applied linguists have begun to conceptualize new ways of understanding language.

Discussion questions
1. What changes in approaches to language teaching have you experienced? What
prompted the changes you have witnessed?
2. Have you ever been trained in, or have you ever studied, the use of a “new” language
teaching method? What are your recollections of the experience? Has it had a lasting
impact on your approach to teaching?
3. “The goal of foreign language study is to learn a language in order to ... benefit from the
mental discipline and intellectual development that result from foreign language study”
(p. 6). What do you think are examples of this “mental discipline” and “intellectual
development”? Are these relevant to language learning today?
4. Have you experienced grammar-translation instruction yourself? How was your experi-
ence? Were there any aspects of it that you enjoyed or thought were useful for your own
teaching?
5. Review the beliefs of Viëtor, Sweet, and other reformers in the late nineteenth century
presented on page 10. To what extent do these differ from your own?
6. Can you think of situations where the use of translation and a heavy reliance on the
learner’s first language can be fruitful?
7. What are some ways in which first and second language learning are similar? In what
ways are they different?
8. The Coleman Report, published in 1929, recommended a focus on reading as the basis
of language instruction. In some countries today, language classes meet for only two or

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 18 Major trends in twentieth-century language teaching

three hours per week and most of the learners will not move or travel overseas. Could a
similar argument be made for a focus on reading skills?
9. What do you think is the value of studying approaches and methods, including older and
more current ones? What factors contributed to the development of the methods era? Do
you perceive a Western bias in current approaches and methods that you are familiar with?

References and further reading

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Prentice Hall.
Brown, R. 1973. A First Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Coleman, A. 1929. The Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages in the United States. New York:
Macmillan.
Cook, V. 2011. Teaching English as a foreign language in Europe. In Eli Hinkel (ed.), Handbook of
Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning, Vol. II. New York: Routledge. 140–54.
Darian, K. C. 1971. Generative Grammar, Structural Linguistics, and Language Teaching. Rowley, MA:
Newbury House.
Franke, F. 1884. Die Praktische Spracherlernung auf Grund der Psychologie und der Physiologie der
Sprache Dargestellt. Leipzig: O. R. Reisland.
Holliday, A. 1994. The house of TESEP and the communicative approach: the special needs of state
English language education. ELT Journal 48(1): 3–11.
Howatt, A. P. R. 1984. A History of English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Howatt, T. 1997. Talking shop: transformation and change in ELT. ELT Journal 5(3): 263–8.
Hunter, D., and R. Smith. 2012. Unpackaging the past: “CLT” through ELTJ keywords. ELT Journal
66(4): 430–9.
Jin, L., and M. Cortazzi. 2011. Re-evaluating traditional approaches to second language teaching and
learning. In E. Hinkel (ed.), Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning,
Vol. II. New York: Routledge. 558–75.
Kelly, L. 1969. 25 Centuries of Language Teaching. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Kumaravadivelu. B. 2012. Individual identity, cultural globalization, and teaching English as an
international language: the case for an epistemic break. In L. Alsagoff, S. L. McKay, G. Hu,
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Language. New York: Routledge. 9–27.
Lange, D. 1990. A blueprint for a teacher development program. In J. C. Richards and D. Nunan
(eds.), Second Language Teacher Education. New York: Cambridge University Press. 245–68.
Larsen-Freeman, D. 1998. Expanding roles of learners and teachers in learner-centered instruction.
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Regional Language Center. 207–26.
Mackey, W. F. 1965. Language Teaching Analysis. London: Longman.
Marcella, F. 1998. The Historical Development of ESL Materials in the United States. ERIC document
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Richards, J. C. 1985. The secret life of methods. In J. C. Richards, The Context of Language Teaching.
New York: Cambridge University Press. 32–45.

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 1 A brief history 19

Stern, H. H. 1983. Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Waters, A. 2012. Trends and issues in ELT methods and methodology. ELT Journal 66(4): 440–9.

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