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Jetgirly · Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 741

I thought some people might find this of interest. I taught EFL overseas for a few years, including some time with Inlingua. I then moved back to Canada and became a certified teacher; for the past four years I've been teaching in a great public school. My teaching assignment has included some ESL for the past four years.

We recently got a new department head, and she recently attended some professional development run by a company (I'm not exactly sure who, but they sell thousand-dollar kits of teacher resources!). The basic premise- actually, the entire premise- is that students can only learn a language through the audio-lingual method. And now she has convinced our administration, who don't have training in language teaching, that the entire department has to use the audio-lingual method. All the time. This afternoon we were called into a meeting in which the amazing powers of the audio-lingual method were praised, and we were told that starting next year, parents would be informed that this "amazing new" method would be used 100% of the time in the classroom. Oh, but nobody calls it the audio-lingual method- they keep referring to it by the name of the for-profit PD the department head took. It may as well be the General Mills Proctor & Gamble Coca Cola Classic method. I'm pretty sure nobody else has even HEARD of the audio-lingual method, or even the direct method, and thus nobody else has even considered the limitations. I tried to bring some up in the meeting, but they've really pulled the wool over their own eyes on this one.

So now, five years into my career teaching in a public school, with an English degree AND an Education degree under my belt, not to mention the CELTA, I will be returning to the lessons of my Inlingua days! (Or at least I will when administration pops in for a visit...)

DebMer · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:39 am Post subject:

Grooooaaaaannnnnn! One thing I hate about public schools is the way they jump on so many bandwagons and change curriculum so frequently. It's like pedagogical square dancing.

Isla Guapa · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 6:29 am Post subject:

How awful. I was trained as a Spanish teacher in the 1960s to use the audio-lingual method. Such boring books with long tedious dialogues for the students to memorize . . . Yuck!

tttompatz · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 6:49 am Post subject:

Welcome to 1962.

.

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

That truly is depressing. I could go on and on, but honestly - that's just simply depressing.

Sashadroogie · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:03 pm Post subject:

Time to train my vodka bottles to fly in a figure-of-eight....hic!

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

Does audio-lingualism work when vodka bottles need flight training, Sash?

For sure, it's not effective with language students (except possibly at the very lowest levels).

It's really astonishing that ALM has had such marketing success all these years.

Sashadroogie · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:44 pm Post subject:

What else do you suggest I do with my empties?

Teacher in Rome · Joined: 09 Jul 2003 Posts: 1286

Ou est Jean-Claude?
Il est dans le jardin.

Ou est Francoise?
Elle est dans le jardin.

Ou sont Marie-France et Pascal?
Il est dans le jardin.

Non! Ils sont dans le jardin.

Ecoutez et repetez.

Ou sont Marie-France et Pascal?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Oh? and...

Que font-ils dans le jardin?

Sashadroogie · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:14 pm Post subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1sQkEfAdfY

Laughing

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Sashadroogie · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:34 pm Post subject:

I think it proves that the old Behaviourism has some merit. He repeats the same phrases all the time, after translating them and them builds up the routine. I'd doubt that anyone in the audience had more than schoolboy French, yet they are rolling in the aisles. Impressive, huh?

Sort of like Burgess' Nadsat in Clockwork Orange. By the time you've finished reading the novella, you are practically fluent in Russian! : ) All in a book about social conditioning and brainwashing etc. Sneaky...

BadBeagleBad · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:43 pm Post subject:

Well, I have taught using the Audio Lingual method and I think it has some value in some situations. I don't think it is a bad way to start students off, they get some practice forming sentences and get a feel for basic sentence structure. BUT, I think it is OK in limited doses for true beginners, after they can more on to other things. I worked for a school in Mexico around 20 years ago that used that method. (They still do) and they have grown from 4 branches at the time I first worked for them to 100's of branches all over the country, so there are still loads of people marketing, and selling, that boring method. When I taught in the US, I saw the same thing, every few years it's something new. And before that, when I was in college, we started out with the Whole Language method of teaching reading, but halfway through the program Phonics was back in style and they added more coursework that had not even been part of the program when I started. And this wasn't at any cut rate school, but Loyola of Chicago, generally considered to be a decent school. And so it goes I'm sure to this day.

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

I agree (and said earlier) that for low learners it can have some use....

I guess basically we're back to the Olde Argument whether there is any single 'method' that's 100% positive or negative - and I think we've generally agreed that there's not.

Even drooling doggieism has some value in some circumstances.

Though I do sincerely pity those for whom it's all or most of what happens in teaching/learning.

Except in the case of empty vodka bottles, obviously Very Happy