1.     What are the major practices in Audio-lingual Method? Give example to support each of your classroom practice that you mention.

“Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow”

Ø  Introduction:

The audio-lingual method or the Army Method is a style of teaching used in teaching foreign ulanguages and it is one of the structural methods. It is based on behaviorist theory, which professes that certain traits of living things, and in this case humans, could be trained through a system of reinforcement—correct use of a trait would receive positive feedback while incorrect use of that trait would receive negative feedback. Like the direct method, the audio-lingual method advised that students be taught a language directly, without using the students' native language to explain new words or grammar in the target language. However, unlike the direct method, the audio-lingual method didn’t focus on teaching vocabulary. The audio-lingual method (ALM) arose as a direct result of the need for foreign language proficiency in listening and speaking skills during and after World War II. It is closely tied to behaviorism, and thus made drilling, repetition, and habit-formation central elements of instruction. Proponents of ALM felt that this emphasis on repetition needed a corollary emphasis on accuracy, claiming that continual repetition of errors would lead to the fixed acquisition of incorrect structures and non-standard pronunciation.

Ø  Definition

“The Audio-lingual method is an oral based approach using the method of drills with student’s to make them acquire the use of grammatical sentence patterns. Charles Fries, 1945 led the way in using principles from structural linguistics in developing the method. Later, principles from behavioral psychology, skinner, 1957 were also used to develop the method.”

Ø  Historical roots

The Audio-lingual method is the product of three historical circumstances. The prime concern of American Linguistics at the early decades of the 20th century had been to document all the indigenous languages spoken in the USA. However, because of the dearth of trained native teachers who would provide a theoretical description of the native languages, linguists had to rely on observation. For the same reason, a strong focus on oral language was developed. At the same time, behaviourist psychologists such as B.F. Skinner were forming the belief that all behaviour (including language) was learnt through repetition and positive or negative reinforcement. The third factor that enabled the birth of the Audio-lingual method was the outbreak of World War II, which created the need to post large number of American servicemen all over the world. It was therefore necessary to provide these soldiers with at least basic verbal

communication skills. Unsurprisingly, the new method relied on the prevailing scientific methods of the time, observation and repetition, which were also admirably suited to teaching en masse. Because of the influence of the military, early versions of the audio-lingualism came to be known as the “army method.”^[1].

Ø  Principles of the A-L Method

Principles	What is done in the Class
Dialogues in Context	A ‘constructed’ dialogue is used in the class that the teacher reads out/ students listen to a recording.
No interference from native language	Teachers use only the target language in the classroom: action, pictures and realia are used.
Focus on correct answers and correct pronunciation	Teacher acts as a model
Language is learnt through habit formation	The students repeat the dialogues several times
Prevention of errors is important	The teacher uses a back-word building drill to correct errors. The error’s correction is immediate.
Speech is slotted	Substitution drills are used frequently, either single or multiple slot.
Positive reinforcement is used	The teacher says ‘very good’, when the student answers correctly.
Speech consists in responding to verbal and non-verbal cues	The teacher uses spoken and picture cues.
Language consists of finite patterns and therefore patterns and therefore pattern practice is required	The teacher conducts transformation and question and answer drills.
Language consists of automaticity	Students should be able to respond automatically, without thinking-‘over learning’.
Focus on structural patterns and not vocabulary.	Vocabulary practice can happen later.
Grammar should be learnt inductively	No grammar rules are taught in the classroom. But the grammar is taught through examples and pattern.
Language and culture are inseparable	Language learning consists of learning of the culture as well.

ü  The native language and the target language have separate linguistic systems. They should be kept apart so that the students' native language interferes as little as possible with the students' attempts to acquire the target language.

ü  One of the language teacher's major roles is that of a model of the target language. Teachers should provide students with a native-speaker-like model. By listening to how it is supposed to sound, students should be able to mimic the model.

ü  Language learning is a process of habit formation. The more often something is repeated, the stronger the habit and the greater the learning (The students repeat each line of the new dialogue several times).

ü  The purpose of language learning  is to learn how to use the language to communicate (The teacher initiates a chain drill in which each student greets another).

ü  Positive reinforcement helps the students to develop correct habits (The   teacher   says,   "Very good," when the students answer correctly).

ü  The major objective of language students should learn to respond to both verbal and nonverbal stimuli (The teacher uses spoken cues and picture cues).

ü  Each language has a finite number of patterns. Pattern practice helps
 students to form habits which enable the students to use the patterns.

ü  Students should "over learn," i.e., learn  to  answer  automatically without stopping to think.

ü  The teacher should be like an orchestra    leader-conducting, guiding,   and   controlling   the students' behavior in the target language.

ü  The major objective of language teaching should be for students to
acquire the structural patterns. New  vocabulary  is  introduced through lines of the dialogue; vocabulary is limited.

ü  It is important to prevent learners from making errors. Errors lead to the formation of bad habits. When errors do occur, they should be im­mediately corrected by the teacher.

ü  The learning of a foreign languages should be the same as the acquisition of the native language. We do not need to memorize rules in order to use our native language.

ü  The major challenge of foreign language teaching is getting students to overcome the habits of their native language. A comparison between the native and target language will tell the teacher in what areas her students will probably experience.

ü  Language cannot be separated from culture. Culture is not only literature and the arts, but also the everyday behavior of the people who use the target language. One of the teacher's responsibilities is to present information about that culture.

Ø  Types of learning and teaching activities

l  Repetition

l  Inflection

l  Replacement

l  Restatement

l  Completion

l  Transposition

l  Expansion

l  Contraction

l  Transformation

l  Integration

l  Rejoinder

l  Restoration

Ø  How it Functions:                                                                                                              

It is applied to language instruction, and often within the context of the language lab, this means that the instructor would present the correct model of a sentence and the students would have to repeat it. The teacher would then continue by presenting new words for the students to sample in the same structure. In audio-lingualism, there is no explicit grammar instruction—everything is simply memorized in form. The idea is for the students to practice the particular construct until they can use it spontaneously. In this manner, the lessons are built on static drills in which the students have little or no control on their own output; the teacher is expecting a particular response and not providing that will result in a student receiving negative feedback. This type of activity, for the foundation of language learning, is in direct opposition with communicative language teaching.

Ø  Objectives

Just as with the Direct Method that preceded it, the overall goal of the Audiolingual Method was to create communicative competence in learners. However, it was thought that the most effective way to do this was for students to "overlearn" the language being studied through extensive repetition and a variety of elaborate drills. The idea was to project the linguistic patterns of the language (based on the studies of structural linguists) into the minds of the learners in a way that made responses automatic and "habitual". To this end it was held that the language "habits" of the first language would constantly interfere, and the only way to overcome ths problem was to facilitate the learning of a new set of "habits" appropriate linguistically to the language being studied.

Ø  Key Features

Here is a summary of the key features of the Audiolingual Method, taken from Brown (1994:57) and adapted from Prator and Celce-Murcia (1979).

(1) New material is presented in dialog form.

(2) There is dependence on mimicry, memorization of set phrases, and over learning.

(3) Structures are sequenced by means of contrastive analysis and taught one at a time.

(4) Structural patterns are taught using repetitive drills.

(5) There is little or no grammatical explanation. Grammar is taught by inductive analogy    

      rather than deductive explanation.

(6) Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context.

(7) There is much use of tapes, language labs, and visual aids.

(8) Great importance is attached to pronunciation.

(9) Very little use of the mother tongue by teachers is permitted.

(10) Successful responses are immediately reinforced.

(11) There is great effort to get students to produce error-free utterances.

(12) There is a tendency to manipulate language and disregard content.

Ø  Typical Techniques

Larsen-Freeman, in her book Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (1986:45-47) provides expanded descriptions of some common/typical techniques closely associated with the Audiolingual Method. The listing here is in summary form only.

(1) Dialog Memorization

    (Students memorize an opening dialog using mimicry and applied role-playing)

(2) Backward Build-up (Expansion Drill)

    (Teacher breaks a line into several parts, students repeat each part starting at the end of     

     the sentence and "expanding" backwards through the sentence, adding each part in

     sequence)

(3) Repetition Drill

    (Students repeat teacher's model as quickly and accurately as possible)

(4) Chain Drill

    (Students ask and answer each other one-by-one in a circular chain around the classroom)

(5) Single Slot Substitution Drill

    (Teacher states a line from the dialog, then uses a word or a phrase as a "cue" that     

     students, when repeating the line, must substitute into the sentence in the correct place)

(6) Multiple-slot Substitution Drill

    (Same as the Single Slot drill, except that there are multiple cues to be substituted into the    

     line)

(7) Transformation Drill

     (Teacher provides a sentence that must be turned into something else, for example a question to be turned into a statement, an active sentence to be turned into a negative statement, etc)

 (8) Question-and-answer Drill

     (Students should answer or ask questions very quickly)

(9) Use of Minimal Pairs

     (Using contrastive analysis, teacher selects a pair of words that sound identical except for   

     a single sound that typically poses difficulty for the learners - students are to pronounce

    and differentiate the two words)

(10) Complete the Dialog

      (Selected words are erased from a line in the dialog - students must find and insert)

(11) Grammar Games

      (Various games designed to practice a grammar point in context, using lots of repetition).

Ø  Teacher's  role

In Audiolingualism, as in Situational Language Teaching, the teacher's role is central and active; it is a teacher-dominated method.

Ø  In practice

As mentioned, lessons in the classroom focus on the correct imitation of the teacher by the students. Not only are the students expected to produce the correct output, but attention is also paid to correct pronunciation. Although correct grammar is expected in usage, no explicit grammatical instruction is given. Furthermore, the target language is the only language to be used in the classroom.^[1] Modern day implementations are more lax on this last requirement

Ø  Disadvantage

      Students were often found to be unable to transfer skills acquired through Audiolingualism to real communication outside the classroom, and many found the experience of studying through audiolingual procedures to be boring and unsatisfying.

Ø  Fall from popularity

In the late 1950s, the theoretical underpinnings of the method were questioned by linguists such as Noam Chomsky, who pointed out the limitations of structural linguistics. The relevance of behaviorist psychology to language learning was also questioned, most famously by Chomsky's review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior in 1959. The audio-lingual method was thus deprived of its scientific credibility and it was only a matter of time before the effectiveness of the method itself was questioned.

Ø  Today

Despite being discredited as an effective teaching methodology in 1970^[3], audio-lingualism continues to be used today, although it is typically not used as the foundation of a course, but rather, has been relegated to use in individual lessons. As it continues to be used, it also continues to gain criticism, as Jeremy Harmer notes, “Audio-lingual methodology seems to banish all forms of language processing that help students sort out new language information in their own minds.” As this type of lesson is very teacher centered, it is a popular methodology for both teachers and students, perhaps for several reasons but in particular, because the input and output is restricted and both parties know what to expect. Some hybrid approaches have been developed, as can be seen in the textbook Japanese: The Spoken Language (1987–90), which uses repetition

and drills extensively, but supplements them with detailed grammar explanations in English.

Butzkamm & Caldwell have tried to revive traditional pattern practice in the form of bilingual semi-communicative drills. For them, the theoretical basis, and sufficient justification, of pattern drills is the generative principle, which refers to the human capacity to generate an infinite number of sentences from a finite grammatical competence.^[4]

 

Ø  Oral drills

Drills and pattern practice are typical of the Audiolingual method. (Richards, J.C. et-al. 1986) These include
Repetition : where the student repeats an utterance as soon as he hears it
Inflection : Where one word in a sentence appears in another form when repeated
Replacement : Where one word is replaced by another
Restatement : The student re-phrases an utterance

Ø  Examples

Inflection: Teacher: I ate the sandwich. Student: I ate the sandwiches.
Replacement: Teacher: He bought the car for half-price. Student: He bought it for half-price.
Restatement: Teacher: Tell me not to smoke so often. Student: Don't smoke so often!

The following example illustrates how more than one sort of drill can be incorporated into one practice session:
“Teacher: There's a cup on the table ... repeat
Students: There's a cup on the table
Teacher: Spoon
Students: There's a spoon on the table
Teacher: Book
Students: There's a book on the table
Teacher: On the chair
Students: There's a book on the chair
etc.”^[2]