Teacher Discussion Forums

Are there any well know ESL professionals who advocate the Audiolingual Method?

At first, I had nothing to say in a reply. But having done a bit of research, I can offer you a small answer based on some info I came across:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the audiolingual approach to foreign language training involves a lot of ... repeating of utterances, right? Pattern practice? Where the instructor shouts a sentence out and the students repeat and imitate their instructor, then the instructor replaces a word (ie. the subject, object or the verb) and the repititions continue.
ex. 'The man ate (pizza) last night.' (students repeat)
'The man ate (apples) last night.' (students repeat)
'The man ate (cake) last night.' (students repeat)
etc

This became very popular in the 50s as the US government expanded its efforts to increase the number of students and teachers of foreign languages in the US. Written forms would be taught long after this system of teaching would be used to introduce specific sentences.

Literature on this system of teaching is very limited. Most was written during the 50s and 60s. Here are a few titles I came across with content on this topic:

Brooks, N. 1964. 'Language and language learning : theory and practice'
Chasain, K. 1969 'The audio-lingual habit theory versus the cognitive
code-learning theory: some theoretical considerations'
Moulton, W. 1966. 'A linguistic guide to language learning'
Skinner, B.F. 1957. 'Verbal behavior' (for which Chomsky has a review
done in 59)

I haven't read or even searched for any of the texts but at least you can see if they're available and find out their opinions on your own.

Good luck rruedemann

wjserson

[/i]

Good evening!

I found this topic down there at the end of the list... And decided to post something here.

I've been contacted by a new english school in a small town about an hour away from mine. The owner is a german woman who's been working with this approach for years. She assures it really works, and I was invited to watch a class there. There were four students. The teacher was really used to doing all those drills and lots and lots of repetitions. It was really fast, mechanic, the students rarely comitted mistakes. It would be incredibly boring, if the teacher weren't so funny. She tapped her shoes on the floor and clapped her hands, played around. And she was smiling all the time, the students seemed to love her. But the point is: Does it work? I talked a bit with her later on, and she told me she doesn't like the communicative approach. I noticed the sudents really respond more quickly to this audiolingual approach, but is that all? I still don't know if it changes in a more advanced level, but I didn't see any student having the chance to make up sentences and learn with their own mistakes. I think it's important, too. Besides, there are many ways of saying the same thing. For example: my mother was educated with this audiolingual approach at regular school. She can't speak english, but there are some structures that have never left her brain. Such as "the book is on the table". This one is good. Everybody nows it. But one day I turned to her and said: "The table's under the book". I know it sounds weird, but, anyway, doesn't it have the same meaning as the former sentence? And she was like: "Uh?". It's just a silly example, but I think that's the result of all this repetition exercises that emphasize only one way of saying something.

Anyway, I woukd really like to know if someone here works with this approach and can tell me more about it, deny or confirm my premature theories and everything... I'm looking for some data online, but I'd like to hear from someone here who really experiences (or has experienced) this method. Or whoever may be able to help me learn more about it

Thanks

Milena

I'm no expert, but this approach seems to have been largely discredited. I imagine that the rote learning approach favoured in many Asian educational systems must be similar/the same and/or contain aspects of the audiolingual approach though. I find that in certain employers I've had in Taiwan, my local employers colleagues/management have stressed that students learn by rote memorization the one "correct" answer (usually as given in the textbook) whilst native speakers are more interested in things like fluency, comprehension and communicative competence. It strikes me that here' s where current mainstream and audiolingual thinking might end up at odds.

Stephen

I'm ready to be flamed (err - gently and politely corrected) if I'm wrong, but isn't Callan method basically audiolingual?

[edit] not to mention popular, in this part of the world, at least....

The Callan method, to me, is like the mythical Oliphant. I've heard about it but I've never seen one.

From what I've heard it can be quite effective, although boring for teachers. If a student misses some lessons the effectiveness drops off (drops off what?) rather sharply. (ouch!)

Iain