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Chapter 2

A Historical Survey

of Various Methodological

Theories and Attempts in the Field

of Teaching English as a Second Language

Contents

2 .1 Introducrion

2 .2 The Concept of Method

2 .3 Development of Language Teaching

2.3.1 Antiquity and the Middle Ages

2 .3 .2 The Renaissance

2 .3 .3 The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

2 .3 .4 The Nineteenth Century

2 .3 .5 The Twentieth Century

2.4 Approaches to Language Teaching

2.4.1 The Traditional Approach

2.4.2 The Communicative Approach

2 .4 .3 The Humanistic o r Psychological Approach

2.5 Types of Methods

2.5.1 The Grammar-Translation Method

2.5.2 The Direct Method

2 .5 .3 The Audiolingual Method

2 .5 .4 The Silent Way

2.5.5 Community Language Learning

2 .6 Conclusion

Notes

2.1 Introduction

This chapter proposes to trace the origin and development of various theories

and attempts in the field of teaching English as a second language.' The section

2 .3 presents a concise history of English language teaching in its attempt to inves-

tizate specific circumstances under which various methods evolved and survived,

with the hope it will provide us with additional resources and improved perspec-

tive for our current methodological concerns. This is followed, in section 2.4, by

the representative approaches to language teaching as perceived in this historical

development. Section 2 .5 deals comprehensively with the selected methods which

are characteristic of the approaches described.

2 . 2 The Concept of Method

Although the question of how to teach languages has been debated for over

twenty-five centuries.' the conceptualisation of language teaching in terms of teach-

ins methods has evolved particularly over the last hundred years. Even then the

significance attached to methods has had a fluctuating r e p ~ t a t i o n . ~ While some

language educators considered the method as all important, and the cause of suc-

cess or failure in language learning, at the other extreme, methods were assigned

little importance and considered merely as instruments in the hands of teachers or

as inconsequent beside the quality of the learners. To worsen the situation further,

the names of the methods have not been applied in a "consistent and unambiguous

way. " 4 Often, the methods did not correspond to clearly specified characteristics.

Even the generic term 'method' was not ~ n e ~ u i v o c a l , ~ and the distinction between

the terms 'approach' , 'method', and 'technique' remained blurred. This prompted

~ n t h o n y ~ to refer to the field as "the undergrowth of overlapping terminology"

9

and offer a discuss~on on the differences between 'approach', 'method', and 'tech-

nique:. Approach to him constitutes the axiomatic or theoretical bases of language

teachin2. Method I S procedural and includes, in Mackey's terms, " some sort of

selection. some sort of gradation, some sort of presentation, and some sort of

repetition"' of the learning materials. Within one approach there can be more than

one method, but each method must be based upon the selected approach. Tech-

nique is implementational and is described as " a particular trick, stratagem, o r

contrivance" used in the classroom. It must harmonise with a method and conse-

quently also with the underlying approach. Anthony recognises a hierarchical re-

lationship among the three terms:" techniques carry out a method which is consist-

ent with an approach." As these definitions have been found very helpful in sort-

Ing out the distinct~on between theoretical assumptions (approach), teaching strat-

egies (methods), and specific classroom activities (techniques), they are followed

i n this thesis whenever these terms come up for discussion.*

2.3 Development of Language Teaching

The historical development of English language teaching from antiquity to

the present is reviewed under five sub divisions spread over 'antiquity and the

middle ages' (2 .3 .1) . ' the renaissance ' (2 .3.2) , ' the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries' (? .3.3) , 'the nineteenth century' (2.3.4), and ' the twentieth century'

( 2 3.5). The focus of attention is not o n the analysis of approaches and methods

that may turn up during the survey, but o n the specific conditions that contribute

to their origin. Approaches, methods, and techniques, which will be examined in

thr subsequent sections, are thought of as evolving from these historical milieus.

2.3 .1 Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Before the foundation of the Roman empire, the Romans studied Greek as a

second languaze. The education of a Roman began almost in his childhood and the

languages 'Latin' and 'Greek' were learnt almost simultaneously. The Romans

engaged Greek tutors, nurses, Greek-speaking slaves and servants in their house-

hold. The process was similar to the acquisition of the first language, that is, by

direct living contact with the speakers of the foreign language, by imitation and

reproduction of the sounds, words and sentences of the target language.

During the Middle Ages, as the Roman empire expanded, Latin became the

international language of the western world, the language of church and state.

Latin was then taught as any living language was taught - at first orally, through

an imitation of the language of the native speaker, and later through extensive as

well as intensive reading and writing. Mackey underlines this historical impor-

tance of Latin in the development of language teaching method:

The first concern with language teaching method in Europe, therefore,

had to do with the teaching of Latin. During the Middle Ages Latin was

the language of teaching. Methods were mostly limited to Latin gram-

mars des~gned to enable clerics to speak, read and write in their second

language. the language in which nearly all academic learning was done.9

2.3.2 The Renaissance

The renaissance gave a new direction to the teaching of a foreign language. T O

besin with, there were a number of attempts to improve the teaching of Latin ,

which by that time had degenerated into the teaching of Latin grammar, by doing

away with the learnin: of' grammar for grammar's sake. Di ~ h r i a i s . " Luther, ' 1

. . ~ , ' .

Rlelanchthon. and Montaigne were opposed to too much formal grammar and~ro.

the teaching o i rules. Meanwhile the famous Czech educator Jan Comenius de-

vised new methods of language teaching based on the principles of imitation,

repetition, and plenty of practice in both reading and speaking. He stressed the

importance of sensory perception and intuitive learning. In his own text books,

Comenius introduced pictures and illustrations. so that the child's sensory per-

ception would lead him to 'think' first and then to 'express' . In this manner, gram-

mar was acquired indirectly by induction." These scholars maintained that the

objective of teachin2 a foreign language (in this case Latin) was to get the learner

to have normal, conversational practice, and to achieve accuracy of expression to

meet the demands of trade and commerce and social relations. But the observa-

tions of Comenius and Montaigne were overlooked and the teaching of Latin con-

tinued to be the teaching of Latin grammar based on Latin classics which were

written several centuries before. Thus the Latin language followed in the class-

rooms was quire different from the Latin spoken in academic Europe at the time.

State decrees to the effect that the kind of Latin found in the classic^'^ should take

the place of the form of the language spoken at the time were largely responsible

for converting Latin into a dead language and surrender its place to the national

languages of Europe.

2 .3 .3 The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

During this period. John ~ o c k e " and Basedow largely followed the ideas of

I2

Comenius and f a ~ o u r e d the removal of grammar from any language learning pro-

gramme. The? advocated the natural method of learning a language which meant,

by and large. conversation practice in the target language and comparison of the

t ~ r s t and second languages. Locks held that

. . . languages were not made by Rules of Art, but by Accident, and the

Common Use of the people. And he that will speak them well, has no

other Rule but that: nor anything to trust to, but his Memory, and the

Habit of speaking after the Fashion learned from those, that are allowed

to speak properly, which in other Words is only to speak by rote .... 14

S ~ n c e languages were not created by rules of grammar, but by the common usage

of the common people. Locke maintained, they should be learned in the same

natural way. Grammar should be taught only after the acquisition of the language,

and to consolidate the gains of the language learnt.

The contributions of Basedow, who followed the ideals of Comenius, and

Meidinger, who in 1783 published his 'Praktische franzosische Grarnmatik' which

advocated translation into the second language instead of vice-versa, are also

worth considering during this period.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the teaching of Latin grammar had

become an end in itself and had begun to influence even the teaching of modern

languages which. as a result, came to be taught with the same methods as Latin

and justified by the same arguments of mental discipline through intellectual exer-

cise.

2 3 . 4 The Nineteenth Century

In this csntury, we find two opposing trends still contending for supremacy.

One was the teaching s:f languages by direct contact with them either on their oral

or written form. most often with both the forms. The second trend was the depend-

ence on a systematic teaching of grammar based on paradigms, declensions, conju-

gations and prescriptive rules of various kinds.

At the b r ~ i n n i n g of the century, following the lead of James Hamilton (1764-

1829), Jacotot and Toussaint-Langenscheidt encouraged a return to inductive gram-

mar through the study of literary and biblical textsi5 in the target language. But it

was Ollendorff's language courses which combined brief presentations of gram-

mar points with massive translation practice that came into popular use around

1840. The sequential arrangement used by Ollendorff in his lessons

. . . became standard : a statement of the rule. followed by a vocabulary

list and translation exercises. At the end of the course translation of

connected prose passages was attempted.16

In the mid-nineteenth century, Karl Plotz (1819-81), a German educationist, adapt-

ing Seidenstucker's principles popularised the grammar translation method as the

principal method of teaching modern languages in schools. Plotz's method was

divided into two parts: (1) rules and paradigms, and (2) sentences for translation

inro and out of the second language. Throughout the nineteenth century, language

teaching in schools followed Plotz 's methodology.

In the later half of the ninenteenth century, there arose a number of reactions

against the grammar-translation method which finally developed into the Direct

~ r t h u d " mo\.ernent. In his Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching, Stern

records the gravity of this reaction and its historical relevance:

In the final decades of the nineteenth century grammar-translation was

atlacked as a cold and life-less approach to language teaching, and it

was blamed for the failure of foreign language teaching. The majority

of language teaching reforms in the late nineteenth century and throughout

the first half of the twentieth developed in opposition to grammar-trans-

l a t~on . 18

The Reform Movement in the last two decades of the nineteenth century was

preceded by the work of a few individual reformers. We already saw that Jean

Joseph Jacotot (1770-1840) was the first to employ and recommend monolingual

methods for the language classroom. In 1853 Claude Marcel (1793-1876) made a

proposal to make the teaching of reading the first priority in foreign language

teachlng through his Language as a Means of Mental Culture and Inrernational

Communication.

In 1866 Heness started a private school for teaching languages by a 'natural

method' as an extreme reaction against the grammar-translation methods of Plotz,

Ahn and Ollendorf. In 1874 ~ a u v e u r ' ~ advocated the abolition of translation and

glammar rules and emphasised the development of the four language skills. In

1880 Francois Gown (1831-96) published his The Art of Teaching and Studying

L~znguages and held the view that the structure of a language text reflected the

structure of the experience it described. H e assumed that sequentiality was the

primary feature of experience and that language could be best learnt in terms of

sequential structures.

I5

Cornins no\+ to the 'reform movernent' itself, its major landmarks were : the

publication in 1887. by W Vietor, of a pamphlet in German the title of which may

be translated as 'Luny~tage Teaching must Start Afresh'; the setting up by P.

Passy in 1886 of the Phonetic Teachers' Association which was later to become

the International Phonetic Association; the publication, by H. Klinghardt in 1888

and 1892 of studies of the new methods follow in^ actual trial; the publication of

. W . H. W i d ~ e r y ' s Teaching of Languages (1888); Henry Sweet 's The Practical

Srudy of Languages (1899), and Otto Jespersen's How to Teach a Foreign Lan-

guage (1904).

Historically the development of the direct method is thus closely linked with

such practical teaching reformers like Gouin and Vietor on the one hand, and with

the development in linguistic theory, philology, and phoneticsz0 on the other hand.

2.3.5 The Twentieth Century

By the turn of the twentieth century, the Direct Method textbooks began to

follow a definite pattern. The typical text totally avoided the learner's first lan-

guage, started with the spoken language with the study of sounds through phonetic

notation and then proceeded to reading and later to writing. The material for read-

ins was scrupulously written in the contemporary style. 'The international con-

gress of modern language teachers' in Vienna in 1898, and the 'Leipzig congress'

ot 1900 further tried to systematize the direct method principles. By 1902 the

direct method was officially approved both in France and in Germany, and was

introduced in England by Walter Ripman without however becoming the official

method there.

16

As the principles of the direct method spread, there was more and more com-

promise with them. The countries which accepted the method officially did not

have enough trained teachers who possessed the fluency, techniques and energy

which the method demanded. As a result, in Germany, France, Switzerland and in

Belgium, the method was adapted to more traditional language -teaching and com-

bined with the systematic study of grammar. This eventually came to be known as

eclectic method. Mackey traces the denouement of the direct method in England,

where it had remained in vogue between 1899 and 1924, in the following words:

As it spread to the average school, however, its use began to decline

because it demanded highly competent teachers, willing to spend a great

deal of time and energy on each lesson, for results which were not

always worth the effort. Teachers gradually drifted back to some forms

of the grammar-translation approach."

During the first half of the twentieth century, the teaching of English as a

second l a n ~ u a g e emerged as an autonomous profession. English established itself

as " a second language with a utilitarian function in the communication of knowl-

edge. "22 The monolingual methodology of the direct method and its applied lin-

guistic base provided the foundation as well as the impetus for a number of teach-

ers , phoneticlans, and linguists in Britain to evolve several new methods. Daniel

Jones published a number of source books: The Pronounciation of English (1909),

the English Pronourzcing Dictionary (1917), and An Outline of English Phonetics

(1918). Harold E . palmer" published a number of books on methodology such as

The Scienrific Srudx and Teaching of Languages (1917), and The Principles of

Language Srud~ (1921). Michael West published The New Method Grammar (1938),

17

T11e New Meiliud E11glis11 Pracrice Books (1939), and General Service List of Eng-

1 1 s h Words (1953) A.S Hornby's An Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current

English (1957). A Glcide ro Patterns and Usage in English (1954), and The Teach-

i1;g of Srrucrirral WOI-ds and Sentence Patterns, and a number of books by others

like Pit Corder established language teaching as a profession. The British approach

was thus "mainly built up by phoneticians and experienced language teachers. 11 24

These developments in Britain were parallelled by the growth of applied Iin-

guistics as a discipline in America. The Coleman report (1929), published at this

time as part of the Modern Foreign Language Study in the U.S.A, recommended

the development of reading skill as the only reasonable objective for foreign lan-

guage study in America. Coleman reiterated that the objective of any short term

foreign language course should be to develop "the ability to read the foreign lan-

euage with moderate ease and with enjoyment for recreation and for vocational .. purposes. "'' The effect of this study was the spread of 'Reading Method'.

Descriptive linguistics was introduced in the U.S.A with the works of anthro-

pological linguists like Franz Boas, and Edward Sapir at the beginning of the

century. Leonard Bloomfield. the leading figure in structural linguistics, had set

out in his Language (1933) a programme of applications of linguistics in the field

of education. His pamphlet entitled An Ourline Guide for the Pracrical Srudy of

Foreign Languages (1942) came to provide a model for a major programme of

foreign or second language teaching to the American Armed Forces. This pro-

zramme called the Army Specialised Training Programme (ASTP) proved very

effective during World War I1 when American soldiers had to operate in different

parts of the world. Unfortunately the mimicry-memorisation method which the

18

programme popularised. with the instructor and a native informant acting as class-

room teachers. came to be applied mechanical^^'^ in the teaching of English in

schools and colleges which tried to duplicate the method as a post-war attempt.

The emphasis on imitation and practice also received theoretical support later from

the behaviourist psychology of B.F. Skinner. " The army method of American

wartime lanzuage prozrammes in world war 11, the writings of Fries, Lado and

o[hers inspired by Bloomfieldian thinking, the new technology of the language

laboratory. the influence of behaviouristic psychology based on B.F. Skinner's

Verbal Behaviour (1957), and the grants made available for language research and

dcvelopment were responsible for the development of the audiolingual theory '* in the

USA. The audiolingual method, which was thus in part a reflection of the avail-

ability of audlotechnology during the 1950s and the structural views o n language,

retained its influence from about 1959 to 1966. From the beginning of this period,

but increasingly so since 1964. audiolingualism was challenged. Eventually by

1970, it was severely criticised on theoretical grounds. particularly after the at-

tack on structural linguistics and behaviouristic psychology by Chomsky .29Reject-

ing behaviourism and structural linguistics, language pedagogy began to seek in

transformational grammar and cognitive psychology a basis for second language

teaching. The cognitive theory which ensued as a consequence stressed the intel-

lectual understanding of the language as a system by the learner. The behaviouris-

tic view of learning in terms of conditioning, shaping, reinforcement, habit-for-

mation, and overlearning has been replaced by an emphasis on rule learning, mean-

insful practice. and creativity. Carroll defined the cognitive theory in these terms:

The theory attaches more importance to the learner's understanding of

the structure of the foreign language than to the facility in using that

structure, since i t is believed that provided the student has a proper

degree of cognitive control over the structures of the language, facility

will develop automatically with use of the language in meaningful situ-

ations. 30

Thus instead of expecting automatic command of the language and habit formation

from intensive drill, the cognitive method demanded creative construction that

involved cognition and interaction. Carroll 's assumption that the language-using

ability would "develop automatically" in "meaningful situations" has not been con-

ill-med by subsequent experience and has ultimately led in turn to the questioning

of the cognitive theory . 3 1

It was only when Dell Hymes (1966) introduced the concept of communicative

competence in the USA and British applied linguists such as D . A . Wilkins,

Christopher Candlln, Henry Widdowson, Christoper Brumfit, and Keith Johnson,

drawing on the work of British functional linguists like J .R. Firth and M.A.K.

IIalliday, recognised the functional and communicative aspects of language that a

real shift took place in the language pedagogy. The goal of language instruction

shifted to building up learners' 'communicative competence'. Making its appear-

ance in the 1970s. 'communicative competence' focused on sociolinguistic con-

cerns and considered linguistic competence merely as an adjunct to communica-

tion. Besides mastering liriguistic forms, we were expected to know "when, how ,

and to whom i t is appropriate to use these forms."32 A distinction was made

between grammatical rules of 'usage' that enable users to construct correct sen-

tences and the 'use ' of language to accomplish some kind of communicative pur-

20

pose.33 The familiar structural patterns remained, but they were ordered differ-

elitly. and orsanised around functional headings. This meant building the language

course around the uses o r functions to which language is put; for example, one

lesson can be planned on 'requesting information', another on 'apologizing', etc.

Wilkins' advocacy of a notional-functional syllabus in his book3' (1976) was one

manifestation of t h ~ s shift from the structural approach to a more functional ap-

proach. Widdowson recognises that the functional-notional approach has shifted

the focal point in foreign language teaching to the communicative aspects of

language, but does not recognise Wilkins' claim that it 'takes communicative facts

of the language into account ' . To Widdowson:

Communication does not take place through the linguistic exponence of

concepts and functions on self-contained units of meaning. It takes place

as discourse. whereby meanings are negotiated through i n t e r a ~ t i o n . ~ ~

This interactional view of Widdowson treats language as a vehicle for the realisa-

tion of interpersonal relations. As a result of this shift from linguistic competence

t c ) communicative competence , several communicative syllabuses have been pro-

posed. The following are some of the important ones:

Table 2 .1

Kinds of Cornrnunlcative Syllabuses

Syllabus type

Functional

Structures plus functions

Notional

Learner-zenerated

Interactional

Functional-spiral around

a structural core

Name(s) associated with i t .

I

Jupp and Hodlin (1975)

Wilkins (1976)

Wilkins (1976)

Candlin (1976)

Widdowson (1979)

I Brumfit (1980) I Grognet and Crandall (1982)

Prabhu (1983)

But despite this volume of literature, not to mention the writings of transfor-

mational grammarians and psycho- and sociolinguists, there seemed to be some-

thing of a vacuum in methodology during the transition period of the late 1960s

a n d early 1970s. ~ a r r o l l ~ ~ , ~ e ~ ~ ' , and Marckwardt made a significant plea for

prudent eclecticism. suggesting a synthesis of methodologies. Many others, nota-

bly ~ i l l e r ~ ' among them, opposed this view and held that eclecticism was unten-

able and unable "to endure for long". It was only natural that innovations should

appear. When the methodological alternatives appeared, they have been found to

be drawing inspiration largely from the humanistic movement in psychology and

education. They expressed interest in the total person and not simply in the intel-

lect. The interaction o f emotions and intellect was closely e ~ a m i n e d . ~ ' The hu-

22

manistic instruction thus strove ro provide a blend of the cognitive and the affec-

tive. We can see these humanistic reflections in various contemporary methodolo-

gles40 like Caleb Gattegno's 'Silent Way' (1972), Georgi Lozanov's 'Suggestopedia'

(1978), Asher's 'The Total Physical Response Method' (1982), and Curran's 'Coun-

selling-learning methodology'. These are concerned not only with increased lan-

euage proficiency but also with the many facets of personal growth; their content - ranges from the academic to exploration of values. Recognising the learner's ac-

tive role in acquir~ng his language, they evolve strategies to lessen classroom anxiety

anti promote a warm accepting climate for the learner.

The following table gives a summary of the various methodological theories

and attempts in the field of teaching English language sketched from 1830 to 1998.

Table 2.2

Change and Innovation in Language Teaching : 1830-1998

Period Decade Main Features

I Grammar-translation Method I I ReformlDirect Method I Phonetics

Compromise Method

I Modern Foreign Language Study I Reading Method

Basic English

Linguistic Approach to Language Teaching

I American Army Method I

Source:

23

H . H . Stern. Fundamenral Concepts of Language Teaching (Oxford: Oxford

UP, 1983)113.

I

i I

i i

V

2 .4 Approaches to Language Teaching

In present-day TESL programmes, and indeed in language teaching in gen-

eral, three different basic approaches to the method of teaching are discernible.

1950-1960

1960-1970

1970-1998

Intensive Language Teaching

Audiolingual (U.S.A) and Audiovisual

(France / Britain ) methods.

Language Laboratory

Psycholinguistics

Audiolingual Habit Theory vs.

Cognitive Code Learning

Impact of Chomsky's Theory

Sociolinguistics

Method Research

Method Analysis

New Methods

Breakaway from Method Concept

2.1

2.4 .1 Thr Traditional Approach

The term 'traditional' figuring in the title of this approach is intended to con-

trast with ' r ecen t ' . However the term is not meant to refer to the Grammar-

tl.anslation method alone, but to the whole range of methods including Grammar-

translation, the Direct Method. Audiolingualism, Cognitive Code Learning Theory,

and so on, including eclectic compromises between them evolved up until about

three decades ago. It is an approach which is structure dominated , that is, it

comprises methods which share the assumption that the major problem in learning

a second language is to master the structure of that language to the exclusion of

other elements of the language. The essential problem for the learner is "to master

l~nguistic form and only secondariiy the social meaning and use of such forms." 41 Out

of the necessity for keeping the class under control, this traditional approach

maintains teacher centredness. It is an approach most frequently met with in

s ~ h o o l and in commercial instirutions for adult learners. Teacher training institu-

tlons often follow this approach which offer them the least theoretical and most

down-to-earth introduction to the art of teaching a language. J .T . ~ o b e r t s ~ '

reports that within TESL programmes the traditional approach is found principally

in "non-English-speaking countries among non-native teachers." Roberts points

out that where teachers are not native speakers of the language they teach, it will

be more convenient for them to use a long established method for which materials

al-r readily available than to struggle with more open-ended techniques which would

challenge their linguistic competence.

Though the traditional approach is now theoretically defunct, it is not to be

rejected out of hand for there are some situations, particularly where general -

purpose school language courses are concerned, in which the traditional method

may provide the most useful foundation for further, more communicatively ori-

ented learnin: at a later stage

2 . 4 . 7 The Commuriicative Approach

The theoretical precursor of this approach is probably Firth4', but others in-

cluding Halliday ". ~ y m e s ~ ~ , us tin^^, and Searle" have made major contribu-

tlons to it. In contrast with the traditional approach, the communicative approach

takes semantic knowledge as primary and attempts to answer the question: 'What

uo users of the languaze need to express?'. This implies a belief in language as a

system but ' a system of meanings' rather than of forms. It assumes that learning

a language consists of learning "how to mean."'* Such an approach would seek

correlations between form and function but would define the link as being between

the forms of the language available to the user and the meanings he wishes to

express. Unlike the traditional approach in which the correlation is between form

and form, the communicative approach attempts to define communication needs

of the learner and then proceeds from these needs to the linguistic forms which

have to be learnt if the needs are to be fulfilled. Thus we can distinguish the

traditional and the communicative approaches in terms of the relationships be-

tween form. meanins. and use. Whereas the grammatical approach moves from

form, to meaning to use: the communicative approach moves from meaning to

form to use.

Fig. 2.1

Traditional and Communicative Approaches Compared

Traditional .Approach Communicative Approach

Use Use

There are no precisely established teaching procedures, yet, to be associated

with the communicative approach which constitute a method in the conventional

sense. It is essentially eclectic where it comes to methods. This cannot be other-

wise since the communicative needs of the learners as well as their learning needs49

will vary greatly from group to group and from student to student. The teacher has

to borrow his appropriate techniques from a whole range of classroom activities

such as drilling pronounciation with audiolingual materials, explanations, role-

plays, editing classroom newspapers, and conducting interviews. T o this extent

" communicative methodology does not convey any very precise meaning. Brumfit

emphasised the same point when he said:

The last ten years have seen a great deal of discussion of communica-

tive language teaching, but almost all discussion has concentrated on

how to organise syllabuses and materials. There has been much less

considerat~on of' direct classroom activity by the t e a ~ h e r . ~ '

The stress was on developing in the student the competence to perform in real life

and to supply the student accordingly not only with grammatical knowledge, but

27

with fluency. eftcct~ve communicative strategies and more generally with a theory

of speech acts" related to a given culture.

Attempting to teach people to communicate requires some insight into the struc-

ture of communication, and this has led to a greater interest in discourse analy-

sis. Of particular interest in the early stages was the work of SinclairS3, and ~ a n d l i n . ~ ~

~ i d d o w s o n " has particularly stressed that the ability to understand and engage in

discourse requires knowledge going beyond the mastery of grammatical structure

and that consequently the grammatically based syllabus is inadequate for commu-

nicative teaching. He distinguished between signification and value, between text

and discourse. and between usage and use, pointing out that while traditional ap-

proach has concentrated upon the first of each of these pairs, communicative ap-

proach must focus on the latter of each pair. It should go beyond the sentence to

the text and view the text: as communication.

The communicative approach also draws on sociolinguistics and to some ex-

lent on stylistics. The influence of theoretical linguists on it has been nominal but

that of pedagogical gra~nmarians such as QuirkS6, Greenbaum, ~ e e c h ~ ' , and

Thompson and Martinet5' have been significant.

Of late there has evolved an American school in opposition to the prevailing

British tradition within the communicative approach. The British tradition, in spite

of movins away from the structure dominance of the traditional approach, is still

linguistically oriented in that it sees teaching as leading students to forms of lin-

guistic expression prescribed more or less specifically in advance by the syllabus.

The communicative teaching of the British type is thus largely syllabus-centred.

'She American school. in contrast, rejects the specifically prescribed linguistic

28

objectives and allows the learners to diagnose their own needs and gain such as-

slstance with thelr learning as they may desire. The American school is thus

cons~dered more learner-centred than the ~ r i t i s h . ' ~

The communic3tive approach as a whole has developed primarily around the

adult learner. largely because i t is usually adults who have closely specifiable

communication needs in foreign or second languages. Of course, where communi-

cative needs arz identifiable, teaching can be highly specific and efficient in the

sense that i t can concentrate only on those needs actually identified instead of

aiming for some general competence. But while this is the strength of the commu-

nicative approach in relation to learners with clear requirements, the extent of its

applicability is not so obvious where young learners taking general school courses

are concerned.

2.4.3 The Humanistic or Psychological Approach

This approach summarises, as a general movement in language teaching and

especially in second language teaching, a range of methods and techniques which

on the surface may seem unconnected, but which in fact share at least two impor-

tant assumptions:

(i) the affective aspects of language learning are as important as the cognitive

aspects and hence the learner should be treated as a 'whole person' rather than as

a characterless Language Acquisition Device LAD).^'

(ii) the ans\vers to language-learning problems are more likely to come from

psychology than from linguistics.

The major methods coming under this approach are 'Silent Way ' , 'Community

29

Language L e ~ r n i n s , 'Suggestopedia', and 'The Total Physical Response' , a few

of which will be examined at length in the next section. In general, they enable the

srudents to talk about what it is valuable to them as individuals to talk about,

rather than carrying them on towards a target communicative competence speci-

fied in a syllabus.

Jakobo\.its and Gordon were the first to attempt a lengthy justification of the

humanistic viewpoint in their book The Conte,xr of Foreign Language ~ e a c h i n ~ . ~ '

The book prrsmts an argument comprehensively against the authoritarian teacher-

centred classroom with the teacher as purveyor of narrowly linguistic informa-

tion, and for the creation of learning environments which minimise anxiety, en-

hance personal security and promote genuine interest through a deeper engage-

ment of the learner's whole self. This is pertinent to the humanistic approach as a

whole. The works of ~ a v i ~ n o n ~ ~ , and ~ l l w r i ~ h t ~ ~ are also identified more with

this third approach than with the second one (communicative approach). The ex-

perimental works of both ~ s h e r ~ ~ and P o ~ t o v s k ~ ~ ~ also deserve mention. They are,

however, not centrally located in it since they are more interested in the empirical

kind of psychology than in the often subjective and speculative psychology of the

'humanistic' language teachers. The connecting factor is that they drawthei r ideas

about languaze teaching from psychology rather than linguistics. Both are con-

cerned with the initial stage of language learning, and have in common the view

that this should be 'silent but active' o n the part of the learner. Both reject the

more traditional, and particularly audiolingual view that oral practice and repeti-

tion are in themselves learning devices. Their studies are formally unrelated. but

30

they both drait upon a considerable body of psychological research to support

their positions.

In the malnstrean? of the humanistic approach, thus , we find a combination of

the tendency to look to psychology and of the trend towards treating the whole

person rather than just the specific element - deficiency in his target-language

nustery. And on the periphery, we find figures such a s Asher, and Postovsky,

interested more in the psychological rather than the linguistic aspects of language

learning.

Summing-up

It has been maintained that the theory and practicc of TESL can be located in

the context of one of the three basic approaches described above. The first of these

approaches (the traditional approach) is rather defunct now; there is no longer any

theoretical input into it by way of new ideas from linguistics, psychology. o r edu-

cation. However, the methods associated with it are still operative, particularly

\ \here constraints are very high. The latter two approaches are theoretically very

much in force; the communicative approach (in the British tradition) being based

in linguistics but being essentially eclectic where it comes to methods, and the

humanistic approach being founded on psychological and, in a broad sense, educa-

tional ideas. These two approaches can be seen as different areas of immediate

interests which may yet merge.

2.5 Types of Methods

The following brief outlines of the selected language teaching methods, ar-

ranged in more or less historical sequence and representative of the approaches

dlxussed in 7 4 , include (a) theoretical assumpt~ons and objectives underlying -. '

them. (b) thelr teachin2 techn~ques, and (c) an assessment of their e f f e c r i ~ e n e ~

It is hoped that by stating the defining features of each, comparison and contrast

w ~ t h other methods will be facilitated.

2 .5 .1 The Grammar-Translation Method

The grammar-translation method emphasizes the teaching of the second lan-

guage grammar. Its principal practice technique is translation from and into the

target languase. The origins of the method do not lie in an attempt to teach lan-

guages by grammar and translation. Krishnaswamy and s r i r a m a d 6 shares Howatt's

view that the original motivation was reformist. They affirm that the traditional

scholastic approach among individual learners in the eighteenth century to acquire

a reading knowledge of foreign languages by interpreting texts with the help of

dictionaries and grammar books came to be "extended to the teaching of languages"67

under the guise of a method.

Theoretical Assumptions and Objectives

L a n g u a ~ e learning is primarily viewed as an intellectual activity involving

rule-learnins and the memorisation of these rules. The target language becomes "a

system of rules"68 to be related to first language rules and meanings by means of

massive translation practice. Thus the first language is maintained as the reference

system in the acquisition of the second language. Wilga M. R i v e d 9 maintains that

the grammar-translation method also shared the assumptions of faculty psychology

in that i t considered mental training to be possible with the practice given to the

learners in its 1o;uical analysis of the language, memorisation of complicated rules

32

and paradigms. and the application of these in translation exercises. Along with

'mental training'. another objective was that it could be used at advanced stages to

appreciate literary texts and their significance.

Teaching Techniques

The teacher is provided with short grammatical chapters, each containing a

few language rules which are exemplified. A technical grammatical terminology is

scrupulously follo\ced. The teacher attempts detailed grammatical explanations in

the native languaze of the learners followed by practice on the part of the students

in writing paradigms, construction of sentences in the target language and the

translation of prose-passages from the native to the target language and vice-versa.

Ideally, a teacher is expected to discuss the literary and the cultural significance

of the texts too. Teaching is thus based on particular grammatical texts, and real-

ised through descriptions, explanations, and short lectures on the part of the teach-

ers, and through written works and memorisation practices on the part of the learn-

ers. On the whole, the grammar-translation teaching techniques tended to make

language learning appear 'problem or puzzle solving. 1- 70

Assessment

The present-day attitude to this method can be summed up in Gauntlett's judge-

ment'' of i t as "unsc~entific" and "pernicious", made as early as in 1961. The

major drawbacks of the grammar-translation method which gave way to the reform

movement were:

(i) Spoken language was neglected

33

( i i ) The translation exercises were all sentence-based and not text or discourse

based. The method became " a jungle of rigid rules and exceptions, endless lists of

M ord -classes. literary archaisms and snippets in philology. "'*

(iii) There \\;as no consideration for the communicative needs of the speakers,

their feelings and their changing social conditions.

(iv) The language learned was that of literary type, cut off from the living,

communicative languase.

In spite o i Stern's commendations on the method for some of its highly valued

l~nguistic concepts such as 'the first language as a reference system', 'transla-

t ~ o n ' , 'stress on grammatical system', 'problem-solving nature of exercises' , 'ease

of adaptation to varied classroom conditions and teacher abilities ' , the grammar-

translation method has become defunct and is reviewed in the present only for its

historical importance.

2 .5 .2 The Direct Method

Whereas rhe grammar-translation method bases its work o n the pupil 's knowl-

edge of his first language and depends largely upon preliminary grammatical in-

struction, translation and explanation for the teaching of the target language, the

direct method seeks to eliminate the mother-tongue, endeavouring from the begin-

ning to associate directly the object with the foreign word, and the thought with

the foreign expression. The target language becomes the means of instruction and

communication in the classroom. This method is variously referred to as 'reform

method', 'natural method', or 'phonetic method.' Perhaps more than in any other

contemporar) teaching methods, we find in the direct method several attempts to

34

adapt i t to teacher abillty and local needs.In his TESOL Techniques and Proce-

dures, Donald ow en" emphasises this aspect and agrees with Gauntlett who re-

Today the use of the student 's mother-tongue in the classroom meets

with little objection, provided it is done within reason and scientifi-

cally. so that the term direct method has lost much of its original mean-

ing . . . i t becomes indistinguishable from an eclectic method. .. . 74

Theoretical Assumptions and Objectives

The spoken lanzuage is the basic form of a language, and what deserves

particular attention in the early stages of learning is the mastery of the sound

system. The learnins of the second language can be viewed as analogous to first

language acquisition. As such the learning of the receptive skills should precede

that of productive skills. Ideally the learners should listen to the speech (a recep-

tive skill) before they start to speak ( a productive skill). The second language can

be learnt through direct association of words and phrases with objects and actions

without passing through an intermediate stage of translation into the native lan-

guage. Stern recognises the impact of "associationist p s y c h o ~ o g y " ~ ~ in this as- - sumption. Lansuage. being a skill or habit, has to be learnt through practice and

not through detailed grammatical explanations. The direct method rejects the 'mind

-trainingv objective of the grammar- translation method and stresses instead on the

acquisition of the spoken, everyday language as the object of its instruction.

Teaching Techniques

Teachers use texts which are short and specially constructed foreign language

35

narratives organised around language structure and not around topics or stories.

Where the meaning of expressions cannot be explained by concrete representation,

the teacher resorts to synonyms, miming, sketching, manipulating objects, and

paraphrases in [he rarget language. He teaches concrete vocabulary through dem-

onstration, objecrs. and pictures, and abstract vocabulary through association of

ideas. New teachins points are introduced orally. Oral communication skills are

built up throuzh question-answer exchanges between teachers and learners in small

intensive classt i . Grammar is not taught deductively and explicitly as in a gram-

mar-translation class. but inductively through reflecting on what they listen to,

speak, read and write. In this way the study of grammar is kept "at a functional

Classroom exercises involve transformations. substitutions, dictations,

narrative, and free compositions. The emphasis on acquiring a n acceptable

pronounciation remains the primary objective of the direct method teaching even

today.

Assessmenr

The direcr method has been one of the first attempts in the history of language

teaching to make the learners 'use' the language rather than learn the facts about

the language. On the L1 - L2 issue, the method attempts to exclude L1 in L2

learning by training the learners to gain direct accessibility to the target language.

Again the direcr method is one of the first of its kind in being " a truly collabora-

tive and co-operarive enterpriseN7' between the practitioners and linguistic scholars

such as Sweet and ~ i e r o r . ' ~ Language pedagogy in rhe twentieth century79 owes

much to the direcr merhod for its classroom techniques such as 'spoken narratives',

'dictation', ' im~tat ion' . 'emphasis on question and answer', 'demonstration of pictures

and objects' , and 'inductive techniques'

However many practical constraints such as lack of teacher-training and mate-

r ~ ; ~ l s . exactin: requirements for teacher expertise in the foreign lansuage, ex-

hdusting drains on teacher energy during lesson presentation, and unrealistic stand-

ards in lesson preparation prevented the method from becoming as impressive as

its principles sounded.

2 . 5 . 3 The Audiolingual Method

Whereas the direct method emphasised the primacy of the target language

over the learner 's first language, the audiolingual method emphasises its aural -

oral skills in particular over its graphic skills. Paralleling this linguistic aim is its

"endeavour to develop understanding of the culture of other peoples through expe-

7, 80 rience with their language. We can trace this method of the sixties directly to

the scientific linguistics of Bloomfield and his followers in the 1920s and 1930s

and to the assumptions of behaviouristic psychology which had at that time come

Into vogue.

Theoretical Assumptions and Objectives

Foreign-language learning is considered basically a mechanical process of habit

formation. Because it is mechanical, the linguistic behaviour can be conditioned.

So, in teaching a language, the teacher should follow the stimulus-response-rein-

torcement pattern. followed by controlled, spaced repetition. The fluent use of a

language is essent~ally a set of habits which could be developed with practice.

Since language learning is a mechanical skill , no intellectual process is involved in

37

i t , since it is a habit formation, learners should not be allowed to commit errors

lest their errors should become habitual. The objective of language learning to

audiolingualists is the acquisition of a practical set of communicative skills. The

dominant emphasis is placed on listening and speakin?. and in the teaching se-

quence these skills precede reading and writing. But Brooks a' points out that

reading and writing are not neglected, and that "a co-ordinate command of the

second languaze" is the ideal objective of language learning.

Teaching Techniques

Various kinds of mimicry and memorisation, and pattern drillss2 based on

analogies are the two basic techniques of audiolingual methodology. Skills are

sitquenced - listen, speak, read, write - and teaching techniques with tape record-

ings and language laburatory offer practice in listenin: and speaking. Teachers

attach great importance to pronounciation, with special attention to intonation. As

in skills, structures too are sequenced and taught one at a time. The audiolingual

method rejects the intellectual. problem-solving approach of grammar-translation,

but does not severely restrict the use of the first language in the class o r in the

learning materials as it is in the direct method. The audiolingualists do not advo-

cate the detailed presentation of grammatical knowledge to the learners, for the

learning process is viewed as one of habituation and conditioning without the help

of intellectual analysis.

Assessment

The audio l in~ual method organised language teaching in such a way as not to

demand great intellectual feats of abstract reasonins to learn a language. This

38

made lanxuagt: learnins accessible to large groups of ordinary learners. Anne C.

Newton comments on this achievement of the method as a change "from a schol-

al..y pursuit to a practical means of oral c o m m ~ n i c a t i o n . " ~ ~ It is among the first

mcthods to recommend the development of a language teaching theory on de-

clared linguislic and psychological principles. In contrast to the previous methods

\vIlich tended to be preoccupied with vocabulary and morphology, the audiolingual

method stressed syntactical progression. It introduced specifically designed tech-

niques of auditor); and oral practice, and analysed language skills o n a pedagogical

basis.

The lack of sophistication and of consistency in its application of psychologi-

cal and linguistic theory has however been criticised, repeatedly, by R i ~ e r s ~ ' ~ and

~ i i o m s k y . ~ ' Critics also point out the mechanical nature of audiolingual drilling

practices which bear " no resemblance to the interactional nature of actual lan-

guage use. ,786

Techniques of memorisation and drilling can become tedious and boring, caus-

Ing fatigue and distaste on the part of the student. I t calls for inventiveness and

resourcefulness on the part of the teacher to vary the presentation of material and

fol-ce the students into interesting situations where they will feel a spontaneous

desire to express themselves through what they have learned. Wilga M. Riversa7

expresses doubt on the appropriateness of the audiolingual method for learners of

v.lryins abilities and ages She recommends the method for the less gifted who

need not have to cope with the abstractions of grammar, and for the younger

children who love to mimic and act out roles and prefer to learn through activity

r~ither than through abstractions. Further, it has been pointed out that the method

39

demands neal--native articulation and intonation from the teachers in modelling

utterances for the learners. Thus the lack of adaptability of the audiolingual method

fol- both the learners and teachers of heterogeneous background has been projected

seriously by the crlrics of this method.

2 .5 .4 The Silent Way

Silent way. the product of many years ' work by ~ a r t e g n o * ~ is so called be-

cause it is aa iomat~c for the teacher, here, to remain as silent as possible and for

the learner to do the work of learning. The learner discovers, as learning pro-

ceeds, new inner resources with which to cope with what at the outset seems a

daunting task. The method involves the use of special charts and a non-verbal

signalling system to give feedback.

Theoretical Assumptions and Objectives

(i) Knowledge students already possess of their native language can be ex-

pioited by the teacher of the target language. Since sounds are considered to be the

most basic of the features languages share, many of the sounds in the students'

native language will be similar, if not identical, to sounds in the target language.

The teacher can build upon this existing knowledge to introduce the new sounds in

the target language. Thus the teacher should start with something the students

already know and build from that to the unknown.

(ii) Silence is a tool. It helps to foster autonomy or the exercise of initiative.

The teacher should give just as much help as is necessary and then should be

silent.89 'The silent way' respects the students ' capacity to work out language

problems and recall information o n their own with minimal help from the teacher.

40

( i i i ) Language is not learned by repeating after a model. Students need to

develop their own 'inner criteria' for correctness - to trust and to be responsible

foi- their own production i n the target language.

(iv) Meaning can be made clear not through translation but by focusing on the

students' perceptions. As Gattegno says, " The teacher works with the student; the

srudent works on the language. 31 90

(v) Learning involves transferring what one knows to new contexts.

(vi) Students should learn to rely on each other and themselves. Teacher's

silence encourages group cooperation; his interference arrests the students' devel-

oping their own criteria. It is the non-competitive atmosphere that stimulates

students to help one another.

(vii) Student attention is a key to learning . But teachers can ensure the atten-

rion not by repetition but by the lackg' of it.

(viii) Errors are important and necessary to learning. Students commit errors

when they explore the language, and so the teacher can use student errors as a

basis for deciding where further work is necessary. Thus teachers should look for

progress, not perfection.

(ix) Language is for self-expression. In order to do this, learners need to

develop independence from the teacher, to develop their own inner criteria for

correctness. This has led to the principle that teaching should be subordinated to

learning

4 I

( x ) Learners must feel secure. This can be done by accepting the learners as

'whole people' and letting them know how their performance compares with ex-

pcctations

(xi) To Gattesno. both reflection and sleep9' are creative periods and should

be utilized adequately. Gattegno maintains that the subconscious generates solu-

tions to problems which have initially been reflected on.

Teachin2 Techniques

Despite the silence of the teacher, the learning process in the classroom is

kept under tight conrrol. The teacher doesn' t use any text during the entire time

spent on the basics of the language. Instead the teacher starts with what the

students know and builds from one linguistic structure to another. As the learners'

repertoire expands. previously introduced structures are continually recycled. The

syllabus, thus. develops according to learning needs. Essentially the only objects

the teacher uses in the lessons are a number of coloured wooden rods of various

lengths. He uses them not simply to illustrate spatial relationships and related

prepositionsy3. but virtually every aspect of language, ranging from comparisons

to tense, the conditional. and the subjunctive. Phonic charts utilise standard spell-

ing and identif! identical sounds through colour coding. Wall charts reinforce the

words that have been introduced. The teacher also uses specially prepared draw-

ings and pictures, and work sheets which contain miniature pictures which the

students can use to label the words they are interested in. The students thus gain

autonomy in the language with the help of the teacher and by exploring the lan-

guage themselves.

Assessment

The Silent way' is considered to be flexible enough for the advanced learners

as well as the bezinners. For the advanced learners,

. . . the same principles apply, and the same charts are used. In addition,

there are pictures for topical vocabularies, books for American cultural

settings. and an introduction to ~ i t e r a t u r e . ~ ~

Further the method has been found to be effective in teaching a large number of

international languases like Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Japanese and Ger-

man besides English ' a s a second language'. However, to its detractors, one limi-

tation lies in its approach to language basics which begins with seemingly irrel-

evant discussions about ' rods ' , and which involves 'silence' and 'concentration'

and 'games' with the teacher about meaning. But for Gattegno, he doesn' t even

claim 'the silent way' to be a method, nor does he assume that language learning is

unique and that it requires an approach quite different from that appropriate to

o t l~e r subjects. Ignoring his critics, experts in the fields of linguistics and teaching

alike, Gattegno speaks at length about the basic spirit underlying all language

learning:

Since babies learn to talk their mother-tongue by yielding to its music,

I think that we can trace the first elements of the spirit of a language to

the unconscious surrender of our sensitivity to what is conveyed by the

background of noise in each language ... . Surrender to the melody of

languase. as to music, will bring to our unconscious all of the spirit of

a language that has been stored in the melody. It cannot be reached

This philosophical undercurrent in Gattegno's theory has led the proponents of

thi. 'silent way' claim that its principles are far-reaching, affecting not only educa-

tion, but the way one perceives the living of life itself.

2 .5 .5 Community Language Learning

'Community language learning', also known as 'Counselling learning', places

great stress on learners being regarded as ' whole persons', and from the begin-

nlng attempts to promote a feeling of security through awareness of community.

Students are referred to as 'clients' and the teacher is known as either a 'knower'

or as a 'counsellor ' . Charles A. Curran who introduced this counselling-learning

niethodologyg6 in 1961 is less concerned with technique and more concerned with

human relationships, and devotes a surprising amount of space to the needs of the

teachers. From his counselling point of view, Curran describes the sense of be-

longing needed both by the student and the teacher. He says:

It is not only the teacher ... who is responsible for understanding; the

students also have a responsibility to recognise the state of threat and

anxiety that they too can constitute for the knower.97

Theoretical Assumptions and Objectives

(i) The teacher should adopt the role of a counsellor. Curran rejects the di-

chotomy between counselling and teaching. The former is interested in the indi-

vidual's achieving insights and self-awareness that can stimulate personal devel-

opment and improved relations with others; the latter exclusively concerned with

44

the intellectual learning process. In 'counselling-learning', the two are merged.

( i i ) The development of a community can help the teaching-learning process.

111 groups. students can begin to feel a sense of community and can learn from each

other as well as the teacher. A spirit of cooperation , not competition, can pre-

vail. It can help to reduce the threat of the new learning situation.

(iii) Anxiety can be minimised through the accepting attitude of the knower

and through the realisation that all the learners are working together as a team in

a community.

(iv) Teachers and students are whole persons. Non-defensive learning can re-

sult when teacher and learner treat each other as a whole person, and do not

separate each other's intellect from his o r her feelings.

(v) Students learn best when they feel secure. Any new learning experience

can be threatening, but the learners feel secure when they know the limits of an

activity. Some of these ways are the teacher's use of the students' native lan-

guage. tellin$ precisely what they will be doing during the lesson, and respecting

the established time limits.

(vi) Language is for communication. Curran identifies five stages in the learn-

ers ' progress towards this communicative ability. The first he calls the 'Embry-

onic stage', where there is total dependence on the teacher. The second is the

'Self-assertion stage' as the student begins to show some independence and tries

out the language himself. Next is the 'Birth Stage' when the learner speaks inde-

pendently, though imperfectly. Fourth comes the 'Reversal stage' , where the learner

feels confident enough to exchange roles periodically with the knower. And fi-

nally there comes the 'Independence stage' for the learner

Teaching Techniques

As Rardin has observed, ' the community language learning method' is "nei-

ther student-centred. nor teacher-centred, but rather teacher-student centredv9*, with

both being decision makers in the class. Exact procedures may vary between prac-

titioners, but the central activity of the classroom is free conversation, with 'com-

munity' suggested from the beginning by having the learners' chairs arranged in a

close circle. In the early stage, when one of the learners begins the conversation in

h ~ s native language, the teacher who remains outside the circle whispers the target

language versiong9 of the same utterance into the learner's ear , and the learner

then repeats this target-language version. At first, conversations will tend to be

facile and there will be much translation by the 'knower' , but as time goes on and

more of the language is acquired, conversation will take place more and more in

the target language. Learners are free to ask the 'knower' for explanations of

gmmmar and help with any other aspects of the language, and are encouraged to

do so in sessions where all reflect on the day's learning experiences. The knower

may intervene at any stage of learning, but must maintain warmth and acceptance

M hen offering corrections or improvements. In the early stages, students are given

the responsibility for designing their own syllabus'00 in that they decide what they

want to be able to say in the target language. Later on the teacher might work with

published text books.

Assessment

~tevick '" has demonstrated that an effective language-learning situation pre

46

supposes rapport and mutual understanding between the 'knower' and the learner.

It has been recorded in actual counselling-learning situations that the competent

ki~ower-client relationship can develop this warm, sympathetic attitude of mutual

trust and respect. The client emulates the language and person of the knower; the

knower is fulfilled and enriched through the counselling-teaching experience.

adse en'^' comments that "the method's strengths are both affective and cog-

nitive". The learners becorne highly motivated; the freedom and initiative they are

permitted in the approach fascinates them, and they strive to identify culturally

n ith the lansuage being learned.

However, a possible limitation of the approach lies in the training it demands

o f an ideal 'knower ' . Besides having a perfect command of the foreign language,

. . . he would have to be professionally competent in both psychology -

for the interpersonal problems which could arise - and linguistics to

deal with the phonological and grammatical problems of the foreign

language in a scientific way.lo3

This level of profess~onal qualification can hardly be expected of many individu-

als

These methods designed to promote L, learning thus reflect different views on

how a second language is best learned. The Grammar- translation method treats

second language learning on a par with any other academic subject. The Direct,

Audiolingual. and Audio-visual methods attempt to re-create the exposure which

47

young children have in their first-language acquisition. The communicative lan-

euage learning is based on a view that the functions of language should be empha- <

s ~ s e d rather than the forms of the language. In short, each method has a distinctive

theoretical base and i t is this feature that lends it to be grouped with other methods

of similar nature to form the three approaches outlined already in 2.4.

2.6 Conclusion

In conclusion. the salient features of teaching English as a second language.

as evident from t h ~ s historical survey, can be summed up as follows:

2.6 .1 Language teaching is moving away from the teacher-centred and cus-

tom-designed approaches and methods. It has already begun to explore the possi-

bility of non-analytical and participatory ways of language learning. It attempts to

resolve the code-communication dilemma by emphasising the communicative ac-

tivities rather than the learning of language-code. The affective aspects of lan-

guage learning are today considered as important as its cognitive aspects. This

trend is unmistakable in the humanistic approach (2.4.3) introduced by Savignon,

Allwright, Jakobovits, and Gordon; and in such contemporary language teaching

methods as Gattegno's Silent Way, Lozanov's Suggestopedia, and Curran's Coun-

selling -Learning. This has prompted Stern to observe:

. . . the communicative approach has so profoundly influenced current

thought and practice on language teaching strategies that it is hardly

possible today to imagine a language pedazogy which does not make

some allowance at all levels of teaching for a non- analytical (experien-

tial or participatory), communicative component.IM

48

2 . 6 . 2 A related trend in current language teaching methodology is the pref-

erence it shows for eclecticism. This shows its readiness to adapt the best from

diverse sources. systems and styles to attain maximum efficiency and achievement

in any instructional programme. This trend is in many ways the direct opposite of

the monolithic approach exhibited so far and is indicative of a more " realistic

outlook based on analysing the dimensions of the learning situation for each set of

I e a r n e r ~ . " ' ~ ~ Eclec~icism has a long-standing tradition,lo6 but in the past eclectic

approaches and methods were dictated more by the personal likes and dislikes of

their initiators. What makes it distinct in the present decade, however, is its ac-

ceptance that learners are 'unique' and that the teachers have to adapt their teach-

ing methods to the kinds of students who pass through their classes. It is this

insistence on 'learners' and their 'needs' that makes this trend related to the hu-

manistic tendency noted already in 2.6.1.

2 .6 .3 T E S L methods have been found to originate chiefly in three different

ways.

(i) They have resulted partly from the social, economic, political, and educa-

tional changes. The 'audio-visual' and 'audiolingual' methods are generally traced

to the period of rising nation states in the Third World and the time of new inter-

national awareness in the Western world following World War 11. The 'direct

method' evolved in a period of European political and commercial expansion, the

development of railways and mass-communication.

( i i ) The methods have a lso resul ted f rom changes in l inguis t ics and

piycholinguistics. Whereas the 'direct method' stems from the associationist psy-

49

chology of the nineteenth century; the cognitive theory has found its base in the

'cognitive psychology' and 'transformational-generative' linguistics of the twenti-

eth century. We can trace the Audiolingual method directly to the 'structural lin-

~ ~ l i s t i c s ' of Bloomfield and his followers in the 1920s and 1930s, and to the

assumptions of behaviourist psychology which had at that time come into vogue.

(iii) The impetus to many a method can be partly attributed to the unconven-

tional teaching reformers motivated by their experiences, intuitions, and dissatis-

faction with an ex~s t ing method. The roles o f Charles A. Curran in 'counselling-

learning approach' and that of Gouin and Berlitz in the 'direct method' are exam-

ples in point.

2 .6 .3 Each of the different methods has provided us with new insights into

the nature of language and language learning. The Direct Method rejects the theo-

retical distinction between language acqu i~ i t ion '~ ' and language learning and as-

sumes the learning of second language as analogous to first language acquisition.

The Grammar-translation Method shows that the first language can be maintained

as a reference system in the acquisitioli of the second language. While both the

Grammar-translation Method and the Cognitive Code Learning theory view lan-

guage learning primarily as an intellectual activity involving rule-learning, the

Audiolingual and Audio-visual methods have advocated a relatively non-analytical

approach involvins intensive practice and habituation. The Reading Method and

the Audiolingual Method demonstrate the possibility of analysing the language

ability into its component skills and the need for maintaining precedence over

individual skills in the teac:hing sequence - the reading skill in the former, and the

listening and speaking skills in the latter.

SO

2.6.5 The history of second language teaching presents the curious specta-

cle of a given method evolving as a result of the reaction against the preceding

one. That this reaction can be activated by socio-economic or political factors; by

tlil: advancement in linguistics o r psycholinguistics; or by the efforts of individual

reformers has already been acknowledged in 2.6.3. But what strikes as curious to

a historian is its unfailing repetitive pattern. The Direct Method developed as a

re.iction to the extension of the Grammar-translation Method to the teaching of

modern langux~es; the Reading Method reacted against the simultaneous acquisi-

tion of all the four language skills aimed at in the Direct Method; the Audiolingual

Method reacted against the neglect of oral communication in the Reading Method

and so on

2.6.6 Viewed historically, the most striking feature of language instruction

is the great diversity of the methodologies that have been propounded. Language

teaching has always been subject to change, but " the process of change has not

resulted from the steady accumulation of knowledge about the most effective ways

of teaching languages." log When new methods emerge, it is at the expense of both

the good and the bad in the older methods, dispassionately discarded. That is why

both Mackey and Clifford ~ r a t o r ' ' ~ fail to observe in the history of language in-

struction the characteristics of a systematically arranged body of knowledge de-

veloped through scientific methods. They, however, account for this fact on the

around that language teaching is primarily an art"' and as such alterations in its 3

methodology are analogous to shifting preferences in fashion or architecture.

It is this long-standing bias in favour of newness that has necessitated our

discoverin3 anew and refining once again abandoned techniques and methods which

5 1

should never have been eliminated. For example, methods have swung from whole-

sale learning by heart to the highly logical techniques of linguistic analysis, and

back again to learning by heart."' The Grammar-translation Method considered

t l ~ c speaking skill as irrelevant; the Direct Method made this skill its primary aim;

the Reading Method totally neglected it; and the Audiolingual Method once again

insisted on the primacy of speech. Rivers underlines this observation when she

writes:

As we study the evolution of language-teaching methods, we see what is

most effective in each method being taken up again at a later date. elabo-

rated and refashioned.. . . 112

Further, most of the methods are characterised by their over-emphasis on sin-

ele aspects as the fundamental issue of language teaching and learning. Thus they - limit themselves ro a single aspect of a complex subject, implying that that aspect

alone is what matters. The humanistic approach is concerned mainly with the learner

as a human individual, having no particularly disciplined way of looking at lan-

guage as such. Similarly Direct Method is silent about 'what ' i t is to be taught, or

'when' it is to be taught. It says only 'how' the language is to be presented - that

is by making direct association in the mind of the learner between the target lan-

guage and the objects of his environment, without making any reference whatso-

ever to his own language. Michael Swan makes the same point while referring to

the communicative approach in these words:

Along with its many virtues, the Communicative Approach has most of

the typical vices of an intellectual revolution; it over-generalises valid

bur limited insights until they become virtually meaningless."'

These shortcomings in the language teaching methods, compounded further

b!, the absence of critical verification through empirical evidence in them, led to a

s h ~ f t in language pedagogy away from the single method concept towards empha-

sising more on the interdisciplinary and multidimensional nature of learning itself.

2.6.7 Language teaching through the ages has served three major aimsH4:

language for communication, language for artistic and cultural appreciation, and

language for linguistic a n a 1 y ~ i s . l ' ~ These aims have been emphasised to varying

degrees in different periods in history. Still, a major distinction can be recognised

in the present age with the communicative ability of the learners particularly aimed

at in second language teaching , and the literary, linguistic, or cultural aspects

emphasised in the first language instruction. This has naturally led to subordinat-

ing the literary aims in second language teaching and taking the learners' commu-

nicative skill for granted in their mother-tongue instruction. Strevens identifies

thrs changing trend as a 'new orientation ' in second language teaching:

. . . there has been a major change in recent years, away from the earlier

assumption of language teaching as a handmaiden of literary studies . . .

towards a conception of teaching and learning the practical command of

a language. unrelated to aspects of culture.. . . 'I6

Along with this, the role of literature"' in second language teaching pro-

grammes has set off a debate regarding its usefulness and relevance in it. It is

significant to note that literary texts were the very staple of foreign language teach-

ing when the Grammar-translation Method was in vogue. The literary texts were

53

exemplif~ed as the model5 of good writing and used for illustrating the grammati-

cal rules of the language. However, during the period of structural dominance

(r.,p. during the Audiolingual approach) literature was side-lined; it was difficult

to fit the use of literary texts in a structural frame where the control and grading of

vocabulary and structures held sway. The formal properties of language were em-

phasised through the use of short, specially constructed second language narra-

tives. Even the recent communicative movement, with its emphasis on utilitarian

and effective communication in everyday life, has ignored literature and the teach-

ing of literature.ii8 Referring to 'the old order ' that has changed now, 'yielding

place to new'. Widdowson records the status of literature in the present day pro-

grammes in second languaze learning as follows:

But that time is past, and now literature hardly figures at all in language

programmes. It is linguistics rather than literary studies that prevails as

the informing i n f l ~ e n c e . " ~

What is the relevance of this historical survey to the teaching of English in

India'? English is considered a second language in India. It functions as the me-

dium of instruction for most of the university courses in our country. English is

offered as an optional subject at both the under-graduate and post-graduate levels,

and considered as a compulsory paper in every under-graduate university course

in India. Thus the role of English in our country is comparable to that in many

orher nations where English is taught as a second language. And the survey has

brought forth two emerging trends in the field of second language learning:

( i ) A second language is learnt for its practical and communicative language

54

skills. Cultural. humanistic, and artistic objectives, if any, are subordinated to

this primary objec t~ve

( i i ) Short. specially constructed second language narratives, rather than clas-

sical literary texts, are used to develop the linguistic skills aimed at. Literary texts

are offered, if offered at all, only to the advanced learners for the extension of

thzir linguistic skills already attained, and for pleasure.

But what distinguishes the teaching of English as a second language in India is

the predominance of literary works, mostly classical, in its syllabus with the as-

sumption that " the study of great works in English literature will automatically

and imperceptibly provide for proficiency in the language. "lZ0

Can the teaching of "great works in English literature" to TESL learners pro-

vide them with practical, communicative skills in the language? The theoretical

investigation of this particular relationship between literature and TESL classes is

taken up in the next chapter.

Notes

' There is a great deal of fragmentation among the different aspects and

branches of l a n g u a ~ e teachins, and even a sharp opposition between first language

(mother-tongue) and second language teaching. The distinctions made in the area

oi second language teaching are generally exemplified, taking English as a typical

case because of its world-wide use. Thus we have TESL (Teaching / Teachers of

English as a Second Language), T E F L (Teaching /Teachers of English as a For-

elzn Language). and TESOL (Teaching1 Teachers of English to Speakers of Other

Languages). These acronynis have various connotations, but the following appear

to have gained relatively permanent acceptance:

TESL - used in educational situations where English is the partial o r universal

medium of ~nstruction for other subjects in the curriculum. In this sense English is

typ~cally tauzht as a second language in India. The instrumental and communica-

t ~ \ e aspects of language receive attention here.

TEFL - used in educational situations where instruction in other subjects in the

curriculum is not normally given in English. In this sense English is typically

taught as a foreign language in France. It is the cultural and creative aspects that

are emphasised here

TlISOL - a cover-term for both of the above situations jointly but which will

distinguish them from the teaching (or teachers) of English to children for whom it

is the mother tongue.

Tile distinction is thus "based on the uses to which the language is to be put on

ultimate objectives. '

56

Clifford H. Prator. " The Cornerstones of Method." Teaching English As a

Second or Forelgn Lunguuge, eds. Marianne Celce-Murcia, and Lois McIntosh

(Rowley: Newbury House, 1979)14.

It is in this restricted sense of being 'a second language' that English is defined

and a survey of its teaching undertaken in this chapter.

' Louis G . Kelly. 25 Centuries of Language Teaching (Rowley : Newbury

House. 1969)7.

William Francis Mackey, Language Teaching Analysis (London: Indiana

UP, 1967) 138.

H.H.Stern. Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching (Oxford: Oxford

UP , 1983) 452.

Stern reports that no two direct method teachers conduct their classes in the same

way, and that an impartial observer can hardly recognise the method a teacher

uses and claims to be.

' Method meant different things to different people. For some, it meant a set

of teaching procedures; for others, the avoidance of teaching procedures. Some

others considered it as the amount of vocabulary and structure alone.

Edward M . Anthony, "Approach, Method, and Technique ," English

L~itlguage Teaching 17.2 (1963): 63-67.

' William Francis Mackey, Language Teaching Analysis (London: Indiana

UP. 1967) 157

57

It may be noted that several writers, H . H. Stern and Ronald Wardhaugh

included, found these definitions by Anthony very useful and used them in their

William Francis Mackey, Language Teaching Analysis (London : Indiana

UP, 1967) 141.

lo In 1532. DiMarinis published a brief grammar of 67 pages, the avowed aim

of which was to make Latinists and not grammarians out of the students.

Comenius' 'Linguarum Merhodus Nbvissima' contained one of the first

attempts to teach grammar inductively, and one of his later works, the Orbis Pictus

(1658) was the first to teach language through pictures.

'' The language of the Latin classics came to be regarded as the'original and

correct form of Latin, the form on which Latin grammars and methods of teaching

the language should be based. Mackey considers this development as the outcome

of the invention of printing which helped the reproduction of Latin classics and

their popularisation.

William Francis Mackey, Language Teaching Analysis (London : Indiana

UP,1967) 141.

l 3 John Locke (1632-1704), the famous English philosopher synthesised the

method of Roger Ascham (1515-68) on the one hand and of Montaigne (1533-92)

aud Comenius (1592-1670) on the other. Locke is well-known for his concept of

interlinear translation in which instead of giving a Latin sentence and the vernacu-

lar sentence on f a c ~ n g pages, these sentences are printed one below the other so

58

that the learner could quickly form the necessary links between the two languages.

'Q.H. Quick, Locke on Education (London : Oxford UP, 1880) 138

I' As the texts they used were mostly literary and biblical, they proved too

difficult for the beginners. Seidenstucker in 1811 succeeded to overcome this dif-

ficulty by writing illustrative texts himself. This innovation of his was taken up

l~i ter by Ahn. Ollendorf and most notably by Karl Plotz (1819-1881).

l 6 Louis G . Kelly, 25 Centuries of Language Teaching (Rowley: Newbury

Mouse, 1969) 52 .

" The reforms went under a variety of names : ' reform method' , 'natural

method', 'psychological method', 'phonetic method', etc. , but the most persistent

term to describe the various features of new approaches in language teaching was

the term 'direct method'.

H.H. Stern. Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching (Oxford: Oxford

UP, 1983)454.

l9 L. Sauveur, Inrroducrion to the Teaching of Living Languages (New York

Holt, 1883).

20 Conceptually phonetics and direct method are not necessarily linked. How-

ever the common ground for them was that both emphasised the use of the spoken

language.

William Francls Mackey, Language Teaching Analysis (London : Indiana

UP, 1967) 147.

59

'' A . P . R . Houat t . A History of English Language Teaching (Oxford : Oxford

LIP, 1984)212.

" In both theory and practice, Palmer laid stress on speech : his Grainmar of

Spoken Engllsh (1924) was "the first large-scale attempt to provide a detailed de-

scription of standard spoken English for pedagogical purposes. "

A.P.R. Howatt, A Hisrory of English Language Teaching (Oxford: Oxford

LJP, 1984) 235.

' " .~r lshnaswamy, S.K. Verma , a n d M . Nagar jan , Modern Applied

Linguistics (Madras: Macmillan, 1992) 206.

25 A. Coleman. The Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages in the United

Stares (New York: Macmillan, 1929)107.

' 6 Some adaptations of ASTP techniques , after the war, produced impressive

results in the United States and other countries. "When the extra time was not

available. however. the 'Army Method' did not succeed in producing anything

llke a fluent command of the spoken language."

H.B. Dunkel, Second Language Learning (Boston: Ginn, 1948)293

*' B.F. Skinner, Verbal Behaviour (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts,

1957) 32.

H.H. Stern comments that the audiolingual theory was probably the "first

language teaching theory that openly claimed to be derived from linguistics and

psychology. "

60

H . H . Stern, Fundurnenral Concepts of Language Teaching (Oxford: Oxford

IJP, 1983)463.

29 Noam Chornsky, " A Review of B . F . Sk inner ' s Verbal Behaviour ,"

Language 35.1 (1959).

30 J . B . Carroll. " The Contributions of Psychological Theory and Educational

Research to the Teaching of Foreign Languages," Modern Language Journal 49

(1965):278.

31 It is indisputable that the Chomskyan revolution had a profound effect in

bi-inging about a change in the directions in linguistics as well as psychology. But

this has been felt more at the theoretical and research level: i t "contributed little to

alter the way language was actually taught in classrooms". Like the structural

linguists. transformational-generative grammarians too focused more on syntax

and transformations.

N . Krishnaswamy, and T. Sriraman, English Teaching in India (Madras : T.R

Publications, 1994)94.

32 Dell Hymes, "On Communicative Competence, " Sociolinguistics, eds. J.B.

Pride, and J . Holmes (England:Penguin, 1972)272.

33 H.G. Widdowson. Teaching Language as Communication (Oxford: Oxford

UP, 1978)179.

34 D .A . Wilkins, Notional Syllabuses (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1976) 17

35 H . G . Widdowson, "Directions in the Teaching of Discourse , " The

Cornlnunicative Approach to Language Teaching, eds. C.J. Brumfit, and K.Johnson

61

(Oxford: Oxford CP . 1979)82.

36 Carroll made his plea in a keynote address at the 1971 TESOL convention

in New Orleans.

37 James Sey. " Towards a Synthetization of Teaching Methodologies for

TESOL," TESOL Quarterly 7 (1973):5.

38 Karl C . Diller, " Some New Trends for Applied Linguistics and Foreizn

Language Teaching in the United States, " TESOL Qlcarrerly 9(1975) :67.

'' Stevick has shown, for example, that memory is intimately related to the

emotional responses of the learners and that learning is significantly enhanced

when the student sees the relevance of what he is studying to his personal life.

E.W.Stevick, Memory, Meaning and Method (Row1ey:Newbury House,

1976)38-40.

40 It has to be admitted here that many writers, at present, consider 'communi-

cative methodology' too as coming under humanistic movement. Bowen, Madsen,

and Hilferty represent this group.

J . Donald Bowen, Harold Madsen, and Ann Hilferty, TESOL Techniques and

Procedures (Rowley :Newbury House Publishers, 1985)49.

In this paper. 'communicative methodology' is not clubbed with humanistic move-

ment, taking into consideration the unique British tradition prevalent within the

communicati\.e approach. See 2.4.2 in this paper.

41 Roger T.Be11. An Introduction ro Applied Linguistics (London: Batsford,

1981)53.

62

" J .T. Roberts, "Recent Developments in ELT," Survexsl2. ed. Valerie Kinsella

(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1982)96

" J .R. Firth, Papers in Linguistics 1934-1951 (Oxford:Blackwell, 1957)46

- - -, Srudies in Linguistic Analysis (0xford:Blackwell. 1957)19

'%.A.K. Halliday, Intonarion and Grammar in British English (The Hague

: Moulron, 1967)82

- - -, E.rplorations in the Funcfions of Language (London :Edward Arnold,

1973)55.

45 Dell Hymes, On Communicative Competence (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania

Press, 1971)80.

' 6 J.L. Austin. How t o Do Things with Words (Oxford: Oxford U P . I962)33.

" John R.Searle, Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge U P , 1969)25

48 M.A.K. Halliday, Learning How to MeantExplorarions in the De\.elopment

o f Language (London: Edward Arnold, 1975)25.

49 This refers to the gap between the level of competence from which the

student sets out and his target communicative competence.

50 J .T . Roberrs, "Recent Developments in ELT," Surveys/2. ed.Valerie Kinsella

(Cambridge : Cambridge UP, 1982)103.

5' Christopher J . Brumfit, "Accuracy and F1uency:A Fundamental Distinction

for Communicative Teaching Methodology," Practical English Teacher 1 (1981): 12.

63

'' This refers to the knowledge of how to use languase appropriately in given

situations in ~ i v e n cultural contexts in order to achieve given communicative ob

jectives.

" J.McH. S ~ n c l a ~ r , et al . , The English Used by Teachers and Pupi1s:Final

Reporr ro the SSRC (Dept of English Language and Literature:University of Bir-

mingham, 1972)

J .McH. Sinclair, and R.M. Coulthard, Towards an Analysis of Discourse (Ox-

ford: Oxford UP, 1975).

j4 C.N. Candlin, C . J . Bruton, and J.H. Leather. Docror-Parienr Communica-

tions Skills (Lancaster:University of Lancaster, 1975).

j5 H.G. Widdowson, Teaching Language as Communication (0xford:Oxford

UP, 1978).

j6 Randolph Quirk, and Sidney Greenbaum, A University Grammar of English

(1,ondon:Longman. 1973).

j' G . Leech, and J . Svar tv ik , A Communicative Grammar of English

(London:Longman, 1975).

j8 A.J. Thompson, and A .V. Martinet, A Practical English Grammar, 3rd ed

(0xford:Oxford UP. 1980).

j9 It is useful here to draw attention to Stern's distinction between L (linguis-

tic and formal) and P (psychological and pedagogic ) approaches.

H.H. Stern, "Communicative Language Teaching and Learning: Towards a

64

S! nthesis," Tile Second Lunglrage Class-room - Directions for the 198O's, eds.

James E . Alatis, et a l . (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1981) 134

The vlew taken here is that the communicative approach as known in Britain is L

whereas that of American tradition is P, and the concept of 'communicative teach-

ing' as a decontextualised phrase is ambiguous as between L and P .

60 In the 1960s and 1970s Chomsky and others claimed that every normal

human being was born with an LAD (Language Acquisition Device). Thus a child's

capacity to acquire his first language came to be thought of as a sort of mechanism

which helped him develop competence in his first language in a relatively short

tlme, merely by being exposed to it.

6' Leon A.Jakobovits, and Barbara Gordon , The Context of Foreign Language

Truching (Row1ey:Newbury House, 1974).

'' Sandra J . S a v ~ g n o n . Co?nrnunicative Competence: An Experiment in Foreign

Lungltage Teaclzing (Paris: Marcel Diolier, 1972).

6 3 R.L.Allwright. "Language Learning through Communication Practice, "

ELT Documents 3 (1976):2-.14.

- - - , Interference and Inrervention in Language Learning (Mimeo:University

of Essex, 1977).

64 J.Asher, "The Total Physical Response Approach to Second Language

Learning, " Modern Languuge Journal 53 (1969):24-32.

'j Valerian Postovsky, "Why not Start Speaking Later?" Viewpoints on Eng-

lish as a Second Languuge, eds. M.Burt et ai . (New York: Regents, 1977) 43-55.

65

66 N . Krishnaswamy. and T . Sriraman, English Teaching in India (Madras:

T . R . Publications, 1994)77.

67 - - -, English Teaching in India (Madras:T.R. Publications. 1994)78.

H.H. Stern, Fundamenral Conceprs of Language Teaching (Oxford: Oxford

IJP, 1983)455.

69 Wilga M . R ~ v e r s . Teaching Foreign-Language Skills (Chicago:The Univer-

sity of Chicago Press, 1981)28.

H . H . Stern, Fundnrnental Concepts of Language Teaching (Oxford: Oxford

UP, 1983)455.

" J .O . Gauntlett, Teaching English as a Foreign Language (London:Macmillan,

i961)18.

-, ' - N.Krishnaswamy, and T . Sriraman, English Teaching in India (Madras:

T . R . Publicat~ons. 1994)XO.

" J.Dona1d Bowen, Harold Madsen, and Ann Hilferty, TESOL Techniques

and Procedures (Rowley :Newbury House Publishers, 1985)25.

l4 J.O. Gauntlett, Teaching English a s a Foreign Language(London: Macmillan,

1961)22.

7 5 H . H . Stern. Fundamenral Concepts of Language Teaching (Oxford: Oxford

UP, 1983)459.

76 Wilga M. Rivers. Teaching Foreign-Language Skills (Chicago:The Univer-

sity of Chicago Press, 1981)33.

66

77 N . Krishnaswarn). and T. Sriraman, Englislz Teaching in India (Madras:T.R.

I'ublications. 1994)82

78 It was in 1881 that W. Vietor published his pamphlet in German the title of

which may be translated as Lang~iage Teaching rnusr Srarr Afresh. In 1899, Sweet's

work followed.

H . Sweet, The Practical Study of Languages: A Guide for Teachers and Learn-

ers (London:Dent. 1899).

The works of these linguists along with the efforts of such practising teachers like

P.Passy, who set up in 1886 'Phonetic Teachers' Association', provided the impe-

tus for the direct method movement.

'' Both the audiolingual and the audiovisual methods in the 1950s and 1960s

adopted many of the techniques first developed by direct method teachers.

Wilga M . R i v e r s , Teach ing Foreign-Language Ski l l s (Chicago:The

University of Chicago Press, 1981)46.

Nelson Brooks. "The Meaning of Audiolingual," Modern Language Journal

59.5-6 (1975):237

82 Pattern drills were not unknown before but they became essential features

of audiolingualism and as such were " diversified and refined as a technique of

language learning beyond anything previously known."

H.H. Stern, Fundarnenral Concepts of Language Teaching (Oxford: Oxford

UP, 1983)465.

67

83 Anne C Sewton. "Current Trends in Language Teaching," Teaching Eng-

lish as a Second or Foreign Language, eds. Marianne Celce-Murcia, and Lois Mc

lntosh (Rowley -Newbury House Publishers, 1979) 18.

Wilga hI. Rivers, The Psychologist and the Foreign Language Teacher

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964)38.

Noam Chomsky, "1,inguistic Theory," Northeast Conference on the Teach-

ing of Fore~gn Lung~tages, ed. R.G. Mead (Menasha, W1:George Banta, 1966)

43-49.

86 George Yule, The Study of Language : An Inrroducrion (Cambridge:

Cambridge UP, 1985)154.

Wilga M. Rlvers, Teaching Foreign-Language Skills (Chicago:The Univer-

slty of Chicago Press, 1981)47.

88 It was 1963 when Caleb Gattegno first put forward his unique methodology

of 'Silent Way' in his work: Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent

Way. Its second edition appeared in 1972.

89 Harold S . Madsen points out that "not only is the teacher silent more than

90 percent of the time but there are frequent occasions when the students, too, are

silent . . . . "

Harold S . Madsen, "Innovative Methodologies Applicable to TESL," Teach-

ing English as a Second or Foreign Language, eds. Marianne Celce-Murcia, and

Lois Mc Intosh (Rowley: Newbury House Publishers, 1979)31.

90 Caleb Gattegno. Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way

(New York:Educational Solutions, Inc., 1963)20

91 In the 'Silent Way' methodology, the teacher doesn't repeat the instruc-

tions. For example. the teacher says, " Take the green rod, " only once.

92 'The Silent Way' regards it as a principle that learning will continue outside

the classroom, even during sleep, as the learner's brain 'sorts out ' the learning

input of the day. Thus learning is seen as a two-part process - first, conscious

effort, second, a s s ~ m ~ l a t i o n of the results of the conscious effort

93 Using the rods. the teacher can make statements like "The blue rod is be-

tween the green one and the yellow one", or ,"If you give me a blue rod, then I'll

give you two red ones" . Here, the former statement introduces the preposition

'between'. and the latter ' the conditional clause'.

9J Diane Larsen-Freeman, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching

(New York:Oxford UP. 1986)68.

95 Caleb Gattegno, Teaching Foreign Languages in Schoo1s:The Silent Way

(New York: Educational Solutions, Inc., 1972)22.

96 Its emphasis on shared task-oriented activity has led some practitioners,

including Curran himself, to refer to the method as 'Community learning', later

on. For Curran, such activity is far more than a group process; it involves a deep

commitment to others

97 Charles A . Curran. Counselling Learning :A Whole-person Model for Edu-

cation (New York:Grune & Stratton, 1972)113.

69

" Jennybelle Rardin, "A Counselling-Learning Model for Second Language

Learning, " TESOL Neivslerter 10.2 (1976):7.

99 The teacher gives the students the target language version in appropriate-

sized chunks. Each chunk is tape-recorded, giving students a final tape recording

with only the target language on it. Larsen-Freeman appreciates this teaching tech-

nlque for two of its pedagogical possibilities:

(i) A transcript can be made of the conversation which in turn can function as

a text in the classroom. Thus the students in effect generate their own syllabus and

text.

(ii) It gives the opportunity for ' the community learning' to come about

Diane Larsen-Freeman, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (New

York:Oxford UP. 1986)104.

loo Particular grammar points, pronounciation patterns and vocabulary are

worked with based on the language the students themselves generate in the class-

room during the conversation.

lo' Earl Stevick. "Review Article: Curran," Language Learning 23 (1973):261

'02 Harold S . Madsen. "Innovative Methodologies Applicable to TESL," Teach-

i n g English as a Second or Foreign Language, eds. Marianne Celce-Murcia, and

Lois McIntosh (Rowley:Newbury House Publishers, 1979)36.

lo3 Paul La Forge . "Community Language Learning: A Pilot Study, "

L~inguage Learning 2 1 (1971):60.

70

'04 H . H . Stern. F~rndutnentul Cotlceprs of Latzguage Teaching (0xford:Oxford

U P , 1983)473.

lo' Peter Strevens. Nnv Orienrarions in the Teaching of English (Oxford :

Oxford UP. 1977) l l

'06 The Coleman Report (1929) in America , Carroll 's advocacy of the synthe-

sis of Audiolingual habit theory and the Cognitive Code learning theory (1965),

and the support extended to eclecticism by Henry Sweet (1899) and Harold Palmer

( 1 922) are worth noting here.

'07 The process by which a person learns his mother tongue is sometimes called

';tcquisition' instead of ' learning'. The term 'acquisition' refers to the gradual

development of ability in a language by being exposed to examples of the language

naturally in communicative situations. The term 'learning' however applies to a

conscious process of accumulating knowledge of the vocabulary and grammar of a

language.

George Yule. The Srudy of LanguagetAn Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge

IIP, 1985)151.

lo* D.A. Wilkins, Linguistics in Language Teaching (London: Edward Arnold,

1972)208.

' 0 9 William Francis Mackey, Language Teaching Analysis (London : Indiana

IJP, 1967) 138.

Clifford H . Prator, "The Cornerstones of Method," Teaching English as a

Second or Foreign Language, eds. Marianne Celce-Murcia, and Lois Mc Intosh

(Rowley: Newbur! House. 1979)6

That is to say, it has been largely intuitive, dependent on the personal skill

and convictions of the teacher, and hence subject to changes.

' ' I C . Brereton. Modern Language Teaching in Day and Evening Schools with

Special Rrferrrlce to London (London:University of London Press, 1930)180.

" ? Wilsd > I . Rivers, Teaching Foreign-Language Skills (Chicago : The

L.niversity ot Chicago Press, 1981)27.

' I 3 Michael Swan, "A Critical Look at the Communicative Approach, " ELT

Journal 39.1 (1985):5.

"4 Aims are defined as general objectives, the underlying reasons for a course

of instruction. They are the long-term goals , usually described in very general

terms. They 3re dist inpished from 'specific objectives' (or simply objectives)

which are particular descriptions of what is to be achieved at the end of a given

course. Widdowson makes the distinction explicit: "what the learner has to do

with the l a n p a g e once (s)he has learned it" specifies the ' a ims ' , and "what the

learner has to do in order to learn" defines the 'objectives'.

H.G.Widdowson. Learning Purpose a n d Language Use(0xford:Oxford UP:

1083)20.

" 5 LOUIS G . Kelly, 25 Centuries of Language Teaching (Rowley: Newbury

House, 1969) 396.

'I6 Peter Strevens, New Orientarions in the Teaching of English (0xford:Oxford

U P , 1977)89.

72

"' The term literature here refers to the writings valued as works of art - drama,

f~ct ion , essay. poetry. biography etc - contrasted with technical and journalistic

writings.

The revival of interest in literature as one of the resources for language

learning, witnessed in the present day, owes much to the redefining of what litera-

ture is: the term literature gets a broader meaning now, not necessarily limited to

the classical or serious literature.

H.G. Widdowson, Explorarions in Applied Linguistics 2 (Oxford : Oxford

J P 1984)160.

''O Ramesh Mohan. Let me Say (Meerut: Shalabh Publishing House, 1996)3