The Audio-Lingual Method

On Monday ( 27/11/2014), our lecturer Dr.Rajan taught us two different approaches such as Direct Method and the Audio- Lingual Method. In this blog, I am going to focus only one approach which is called the 'Audio-lingual Method'. Audio-lingual Method is a method for foreign language teaching which point out the teaching of listening and speaking before reading and writing. 

History 

Before World War II, there were three methods: 

a) A modified direct method approach

b) A reading approach

c) reading-oral approach 

Based on the three methods above, there were two problems. One is the method lacked standardization of vocabulary and grammar, while the other is no one could agree the importance of teaching beginners, intermediate, and advanced students. The lacked structure. World War II changed everything. 

This method combines behavioural psychology and linguistic. It is also known as the 'Army Method' because this method occurred since the World War II for the American armies who has a need to learn the language quickly and intensively. The structural theory of language constituted its backbone. One of the theory underlies this method is called the "Structural Linguistics". Structural Linguistics influenced audio-lingualism  as a more practical interest in language study. It viewed language as a system of structurally related elements for the expression of meaning. These elements is based on language samples that could be described at any structural level(phonetic, phonemic,  morphological, sentence types). Linguistic levels are structured in a pyramid. Phonemic systems led to morphemic and these led to phrases, clauses, and sentences. 

The language theoreticians and methodologists is behavioural psychological which is an empirically based approach to the studying of human behaviour. Behaviourism attempts to explain how an external event (stimulus) caused a change in the behaviour of an individual( response) without using 'concept' or an 'idea'. 

In the Audio-lingual Method, students first hear a language. Then, they speak the language and proceed with reading and writing. Mother tongue is not allowed to use in the classroom when we used this method. The Audio Lingual Method does not focus on lots of vocabulary. The teacher drills speaking and grammar. Grammar is the most important in this method, particularly when the student have to repeat the grammar pattern after the teacher. This method also similar to the direct method. 

There was a time came when audio-lingual method is no longer being as a popular method in teaching English Language. In the 1950s, a linguists name Noam Chomsky documented that there were many shortfalls in this method. The behaviourist psychology to language learning was also questioned and this method was quickly phased out. 


Methodology 

The audio-lingual method includes drills and repetition patterns. There are four parts: 

• Repetition- the students repeat what the teacher says. 

Example:

        Teacher: I walk to school

        Student: I walk to school

• Inflection - When teacher say a word, students say another form of one of the words back to the teacher. 

Example: 

    

         Teacher: I walk to school

         Student: I walked to school

• Replacement - The teacher says a sentence and the students replace on of the words for a different word. 

Example: 

       

            Teacher: I walk to school

            Student: I run to school

• Restatement - The teacher will tell a sentence and the students rephrase the sentence. 

Example: 

             

           Teacher: Tell me to walk to school

           Student: Walk to school

Principles of audio-lingual teaching 

• Foreign language learning is a process of mechanical habit formation. Students will be able to give correct response than making a mistake. 
• It is an effective way to learn language skills if the items to be learned in the target language are delivered in a spoken form rather than the written form. Aural-oral training is needed to provide the foundation for the development of other language skills. 
• Drills allow students to form correct analogies.Therefore, teachers use an inductive approach to teach grammar rather than deductive
• The meaning that the words of a language have for the native speaker can be learned only in the linguistic and cultural                   (sriartini, 2013)

The advantages and disadvantages of audio-lingual 

Advantages 

• Students are able to speak the target language communicatively 
• Students have no difficulties in understanding the lesson as it is carried out in the mother tongue
• Students are able to provide a correct response directly 
• Students tend to worry about the combination between behavioral psychology and linguistic

Disadvantages

• Speaking or any kind of spontaneous creative output was missing from the curriculum
• Students play a passive role in the classroom
• Very little attention is paid to communication 
• Little attention is paid to content 
• Process of learning emphasize on speaking 

Due to these disadvantages, teachers will find ways to ensure pitfalls of the audio-lingual method                                                                                      (Lake, 2013)

Here is a You Tube clip below, about how the Audio-lingual Method (ALM) is used in the real classroom 

http://youtu.be/Pz0TPDUz3FU?list=PL7BlTIDdOgZJhim70umCX0sAJFOtMRnda

In this video, there are 25 students in the class. The teachers presents a dialogue in the class. This dialogue is in the form of role play, where the teacher role play as the salesman and the woman ( housewife). Students listen to the teacher. In the video, the teacher uses repetition method to teach students. The more often students repeat the sentences from the teacher, the stronger the habit. Thus, students will achieve in their learning. Moreover, this falls back to one of the characteristics of Audio-lingual method which is language is a habit formation. 

The teacher also did ask individual students to repeat the dialogues. If a particular student tend to make errors, the teacher will keep on repeating again until the student get to say the sentence in the right way. Because in audiolingualism, errors will lead to bad habits 

Subsitution Drills/ Grammar drills- encourage students to overlearn the sentence patterns of the dialogue. Overlearning the dialogue leads to automaticity 

Positive reinforcement is given by the teacher such as Good, Well Done, Smart...

Although most educators tend to discredited this method, but it is still used by some teachers because it is very teacher centred and both teachers and students know what to expect from the lesson. Despite its limitations, this method will be useful to drill students with sentences, but not use this method fully in isolation. The use of dialogues and drills are effective in foreign language teaching as they helped students to produce speech

Repetition can be helpful if there is a large number of students in the classroom and the teacher can use this method to build students pronunciation and speaking skills in the classroom. 

    

Another You Tube Clip: 

http://youtu.be/7qBq_mcrbC8

This video agrees with my points above, where the main focus for us teachers in using audio-lingual method is to teach language directly. The video also further gives more examples on the  four methodologies repetition, inflection, replacement, and restatement. As a whole, this method is still being used in the ESL/EFL classroom, but it will be more efficient if this method were use in conjunction of other methods. 

References

Lake, W.(2013). Audio-Lingual Method of Teaching English[Electronic Version]. Retrieved November 2, 2014, from http://blog.about-esl.com/audio-lingual-method-teaching-english/

Sriartni. (2013). Audio-Lingual Method[Electronic Version]. Retrieved November 2, 2014, from http://sriartini46.wordpress.com/2013/06/29/audio-lingual-method/