In “Language Teaching Approaches: An Overview,” Celce-Muria gives some historical background then outlines the principal approaches to second and foreign language teaching that were used during the twentieth century. She previews the book as a whole and projects some trends for language instruction in the new millennium.
INTRODUCTION
The field of second (foreign) language teaching has undergone many fluctuations and shifts over the years. Different from physics or chemistry, in which progress is more or less steady until a major discovery causes a radical theoretical revision (Kuhn 1970), language teaching is a field in which fads and heroes have come and gone in a manner fairly consistent with the kinds of changes that occur in youth culture.
Pre-twentieth-Century Trends:
A Brief Survey
Prior to the twentieth century, language teaching methodology vacillated between two types of approaches: getting learners to use a language versus getting learners to analyze a language.
Both the classical Greek and medieval Latin periods were characterized by an emphasis on teaching people to use foreign languages. The classical languages, first Greek and then Latin, were used as lingua francas. During the Renaissance, the formal study of the grammars of Greek and Latin became popular through the mass production of books made possible by the invention of the printing press. In the case of Latin, it was discovered that the grammar of the classical texts was different from that of the Latin being used as a lingua franca – the letter subsequently being labeled vulgate Latin.
Czech scholar and teacher, who published books about his teaching techniques between 1631-1658, some of the techniques that Comenius (the most famous teacher and methodologist at that time) used and espoused were the following:
– Use imitation instead of rules to teach a language
– Have your students repeat after you
– Use a limited vocabulary initially
– Help your students practice reading and speaking
– Teach language through pictures to make it meaningful
By the end of ninetieth century, the Direct method (became very popular in France and Germany), which one more stressed the ability to use rather than to analyze a language as the goal of language instruction, had begun to function as a viable alternative to Grammar-Translation Francois Gouin, a Frenchman, began to publish in 1880 concerning his work with the Direct Method.
Some phoneticians (Henry Sweet, Wilhelm Vietor, and paul Passy), they made some of the first truly scientific contributions to language teaching when they advocated principles such as the following:
– The spoken form of a language is primary and should be taught first
– The findings of phonetics should be applied to language teaching
– Language teachers must have solid training in phonetics
– Learners should be given phonetic training to establish good speech habits
Nine Twentieth-Century Approaches to Language Teaching
- Grammar-Translation Approach
It is an extensive of the approach used to teach classical languages to the teaching of modern language.
- Direct Approach
It is a reaction to the Grammar-Translation Approach and its failure to produce learners who could communicate in the foreign language they had been studying.
- Reading Approach
It is a reaction to the problems experienced in implementing the Direct Approach.
- Audiolingualism
It is a reaction to the reading Approach and its lack of emphasis on oral-aural skills. Adds features from the Direct Approach and Behavioral psychology.
- Oral-Situational Approach
It is a reaction to the reading Approach and its lack of emphasis on oral-aural skills. Adds features from Firthian linguistics and the emerging professional field of language.
- Cognitive Approach
It is a reaction to the behaviorist features of the Audiolingual Approach; influenced by cognitive psychology and Chomskyan linguistics.
- Affective-Humanistic Approach
It is a reaction to the general lack of affective considerations in both Audiolingualism and Cognitive Approaches.
- Comprehension-Based Approach
It is an out-growth of research in first language acquisition at led some language methodologists to assume second foreign language learning is similar to first language acquisition.
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