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METHODOLOGY

Week Three &week Four

Prepared by :
Afrah Mahmood & Raghad Qaydar
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Methodology

A seminar on:

"Methods in Language Teaching "

Part one

Course Instructor:
Dr. Omar Ilyas

Prepared by:
Raghad Qaydar

Contents:
* Grammar-Translation Method
* Direct Method
Week 3
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The Grammar-Translation Method

Introduction
The Grammar-Translation Method is traditional. It has been used by
language teachers for many years. This is because tests of grammar rules
and of translations are easy to construct and scored. It is a method for
which there is no theory and no literature that gives reasons to relate it
to issues in linguistics, psychology or educational theory .

Once it was called the classical method as it was used firstly in the
teaching of the classical languages, Latin and Greek. The heritage of
language was written in Latin. Also It was the principal language of
commerce and politics. That is why they needed to learn Latin. GTM
method was invented to teach this language. But this method was
unsatisfactory; therefore it failed and another methods appeared after
that although it was the corner stone of teaching language.

Language skills are either receptive (listening & reading) or productive

(speaking & writing). Since language is oral, we can say that speaking is
the most important skill in teaching language. For this reason GTM
,which has no focus on speaking, failed to be a successful method of
teaching language. It cannot fulfill the needs of learners to speak and
communicate using the target language.

Q_ what were the main purposes behind GTM?

The purposes behind this approach were :

1_ to help students read the foreign language literature through learning

grammatical rules and vocabulary in order to get benefit from the
intellectual development that results from foreign language study
although students would probably never use the target language. Target
language learning was considered as a beneficial mental exercise of
learning which helps to develop their mind.
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2_ to help students become more familiar with the grammar of their

native language through studying target language grammar. It was
thought that this familiarity would help them speak and write their
native language better.

This method involves teaching the target language through analysis of its
grammar rules and translating sentences and texts of the target
language into native language. It depends on memorizing rules in order
to learn morphology and syntax of the foreign language. Thus, the native
language is considered the reference system to acquire the foreign
language.

Q-On which aspects does GTM focus?

GTM focuses on the following aspects:

1_ grammatical rules.

2_ memorization of vocabulary and grammatical Paradigms such as

conjugations.

3_ translations of texts.

4_ doing written exercises.

These aspects show that there is no communication, so that is why it is

failed.

Q _what are the main characteristics of GTM ?

The main Characteristics of Grammar- Translation method are:

1_ Major focus is given to reading and writing skills, while little

attention is given to speaking and listening. Vocabulary and grammar
are emphasized while pronunciation is neglected .

2_ Vocabularies are selected through reading texts, they are taught

through bilingual word lists. Students should memorize them .
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3_ Translation each language into the other is one of its important goal.
If students can translate from one language into another, they are
considered successful language learners.

4_ Grammar is taught deductively. Rules are presented, they should be

memorized and then they are applied to examples.

5_ Students' native language is used in class as a medium of instruction

and explaining the meaning of new items of foreign language .So, there
is no interaction in the target language. Most of the interaction in the
classroom is from the teacher to the students. There is little student-
student interaction.

6_ Literary language is taught and it is considered superior to spoken

language .Culture is viewed as consisting of literature and the fine arts.

7_ The teacher is the authority in the classroom. He decides whether an

answer is correct or not. If it is incorrect, he selects another student to
give the correct answer or the teacher himself gives the correct answer.

8_ Learning is done through showing similarities between the two

languages. They memorize native language equivalents for target
language vocabulary words.

9_ There is a focus on grammar of form of the target language. Students

should be conscious of the grammatical rules of the target language.
Grammatical rules and verb conjugations should be memorized.

Q What are GTM teaching techniques?

Teaching is done through the following techniques:

1_ Reading passage:

Students are given a reading passage in which they focus on vocabulary

and grammar rules. This passage is either taken from the target
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language literature or designed by the teacher to include particular

grammar rules and vocabulary. The passage is translated into students'
native language. The translation may be written or spoken or both.
Idioms are not translated literally, but in a way that shows their
meanings.

2_ Cognates:

One feature of GTM is to show similarities between the two languages

and "cognates" is one of the ways of showing similarities. Cognates
mean the words that have correspondence in the spelling or sound
patterns between the two languages. Students should memorize words
that look like cognates but have different meanings in the target
language from those in the native language. This technique is only useful
in languages that share cognates.

3 _Reading Comprehension Questions:

Students answer questions in the target language according to their

understanding of the reading passage. These questions can take many
forms:

_ questions ask for information given within the reading passage.

_ questions depend on the students' inferences of the passage.

_ questions require students to relate the passage to their own

experience.

4_ Antonyms/Synonyms:

Students can be asked to give antonyms or synonyms of particular set of

words presented in the reading passage. Or students are asked to define
a set of words according to their understanding of the reading passage.
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5- Deductive application of rules:

Grammar rules are presented, memorized and then applied to examples.

Exceptions should be noted.

6_ Fill-in-the-blanks exercise:

Students are given a number of sentences with words missing and are
asked to fill each blank with new vocabulary items or items of a
particular grammar type, such as prepositions or verbs with different
tenses.

7_ Memorization:

Students are asked to memorize vocabulary words, grammatical rules

and grammatical paradigms such as verb conjugation of the target
language.

8_ Using words in sentences:

Students are asked to use the new vocabulary words in sentences to

show that they understand the meanings and uses of these new words.

9_ Composition:

Students may require to write about a topic relating to the reading

passage, or to write a précis of the reading passage.

Q_ In the seminar, it is said that "In GTM, there is no theory

and no literature that gives reasons to relate it to issues in
linguistics, psychology or educational theory " while we know
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that GTM is purely structural. Is there a contradiction

between the two?
You might see that there is a contradiction between the two, but
actually there isn't because the GTM was in the era before the structural
school or the functional school or these theories. The advocates of the
GTM weren't really thinking of theory but later on when they analyse
the GTM, they find that it is purely structural and this is why later on we
said that the GTM is structural.

The theory of GTM is structural which assumes teaching grammar and

practising translation.

Q_ How is it structural?
There is no literature about it but the advocates of the GTM believed in
a concept which is the universality of grammar. They believe that
grammar is universal in the sense that grammar is applicable in all
languages, so we have grammar which is universal for all languages and
what is going to be different then is only words. Now when I talk about
grammar, I am talking about patterns of sentences, for example when
we say "he is nice" which is subject + verb+ complement(which is
adjective), they believe that this pattern is universal but what is going to
be different is the words of each language and this is why they believe if
you want to learn a language, you only have to translate from and into
that language. Grammar is universal, you are only going to substitute
words from English to Arabic and Arabic to English and this is how you
are going to learn a language and this is not correct. I do agree that
grammar is universal in the sense that each language has its own
grammar, each language in the world has grammar, but what differ is it
has its own grammar and you can't apply the grammatical rules or the
grammatical patterns of English, Latin, Greek, Hindi, Arabic into another
language and this is when they went wrong . This is the idea or the
theory underlying the GTM.
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The Direct Method

Introduction
The Direct Method is not new. It appeared as a result for a need to
communicate using the target language. Translation is not used at all.
This method is called "Direct" because meaning is conveyed directly in
the target language without using the students' native language, but
through the use of :

1_ Demonstration

2- Visual aids (pictures, realia, maps, etc. )

3- Pantomime

These three ways are used to teach concrete vocabularies; while

abstract vocabularies are taught by association of ideas.

Also it is called "natural method" as it assumes teaching the foreign

language in the same way the child acquires his mother tongue.

Q_ what is the main purpose behind the Direct Method?

The main purpose behind the Direct Method is communication by using
the target language.

Q- On which aspects does the Direct Method focus?

The Direct Method focuses on the following aspects:

1- Lots of oral interaction.

2- Spontaneous use of the language.

3- No translation between first and second languages.

4- Little or no analysis of grammatical rules.

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These aspects show that communication in the target language is the

corner stone of this method.

Q- What are the main characteristics of the Direct

Method ?
They are:

1_ Major focus is given to speaking. Reading, listening and writing in the

target language should be taught from the beginning of language
instruction and reading will be developed through practice with
speaking. Pronunciation is given a great attention from the beginning of
language instruction.

2_ Vocabularies are acquired naturally through using them in full

sentences rather than memorizing them. This can be done through
thinking in the target language.

3_ Translation is not allowed. The native language should not be used in

the classroom.

4_ Grammar is taught inductively. No rule is given or memorized.

Examples are presented and students realize the rule from the
examples.

5_ Objects (e.g. realia or pictures) are used to help students understand

meaning. The teacher should demonstrate, not translate. So students
make a direct association between form and meaning of the target
language. The interaction in the classroom can be from teacher to
students or from students to teacher. Students can also interact with
each other.

6_ Language is primarily spoken, not written. Therefore, students study

everyday speech in real contexts in the target language. Culture is
viewed as consisting of:

_ the history of the people who speak the target language.

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_the geography of the country/-ies where the language is spoken.

_ and the information about the daily lives of the speakers of the foreign
language.

7_ The teacher directs the class activities. The teacher and students are
partners in the teaching – learning process. The purpose of language
learning is communication; therefore, students ask and answer
questions. If the student's answer is incorrect, the teacher tries not to
correct the answer, but to get students to self-correct whenever
possible.

8_ No reference is made for the native language. It should not be used in

the class.

9_ There is a focus on vocabulary over grammar. There should be

conversational activity , therefore, the syllabus is based on real
situations (e.g. the language used at bank , at airport, etc.) or topics (e.g.
money, weather, customs, etc.) not on linguistic structures.

Q- What are the factors that determine the success of

the Direct Method?
A number of factors play an important role in the success of the Direct
Method, such as:

1- Small classes.

2- Individual attention.

3- Intensive study; all of these factors beside the personality and

background of the teacher.

The Direct Method is considered rather unsuccessful in public education

because of the constraints of budget, classroom size and time.
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Q- What are the Direct Method teaching techniques?

Teaching is done through the following techniques:

1_ Reading aloud:

Students take turns reading aloud sections of a passage or a dialogue. At

the end of each student's turn, the teacher explains the meaning of the
section using pictures, realia or other means.

2_ Question and answer exercise:

Students are asked questions and answer in full sentences in the target
language, so that they practise new words and grammatical structures.

3_ Getting students to self-correct:

The teacher has to get students to self-correct. This is done by some

ways:

1- Making a choice between what they said and an alternative answer

the teacher supplied.

2- Repeating what a student said, using a questioning intonation to

indicate that there is something wrong.

3- Repeating what a student said, stopping just before the error to

indicate that the following word was wrong.

4_ Conversation practice:

The teacher asks students questions in the target language which they
have to answer correctly.

The teacher asks students individually questions containing a particular

grammar structure about themselves. Then the students can ask each
other using the same grammatical structure.
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5_ Fill-in-the-blanks exercise:

Students are given a number of sentences with missing items and are
asked to fill each blank with items of a particular grammar structure. The
students have to induce the grammar rule that they need to fill the
blanks from examples given at earlier parts of the lesson.

6_ Dictation:

The teacher reads a passage three times doing the following:

- At the first time, he reads it at normal speed while the students just
listen.

- At the second time, he pauses at the end of each sentence in order that
the students write what they have heard.

- At the third time, he reads it at normal speed while the students check
their writings.

Q_ Is dictation a good technique?

It is important for teaching spelling. The most important feature about
dictation is that it improves listening comprehension and spelling.
Listening is the most important skill and it comes first before the other
skills. In order to make your students better communicators, you have to
make them listen for authentic materials which are not prepared for the
sake of teaching and learning, for example, a song, because authentic
materials are socially and culturally loaded.

7_ Map drawing:

It is a listening comprehension exercise. The students are given a map

with geographical features unnamed. The teacher gives the students
directions in order to find one geographical feature. Then students can
exchange turns with their teacher asking him for directions.
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8_ Paragraph writing:

The teacher can ask the students to write a paragraph by using their own
words on a certain topic. They can do this from memory or by using a
relating reading passage as a model.

Q_ What is the theory underlying the DM?

The theory underlying DM is functional as it mainly focuses on
communication.

Q_ Do you think this is true?

The DM is totally opposite to GTM. The GTM has failed in language
teaching and when the DM appeared, they thought that if they did the
opposite to the GTM, they might succeed. So when the GTM
concentrated on translation or the use of native language, they totally
eliminated the use of native language inside the classroom.

When the GTM neglected the speaking and listening, the DM tried to
concentrate on speaking and listening. The question here is:

Q_ Have they really concentrated on speaking and listening?

They claimed that this method is functional. What is functional? The
function of language is communication. In fact DM is purely structural,
the techniques used inside the classroom are almost identical to GTM.
The only technique that involves some communication is asking and
answering questions and it is only one skill, it is a skill you learn which is
part of the communicative competence. So this is only one skill of
communicative competence, so this method cannot be considered as
functional. So it is not functional, it is purely structural, it only involves
one aspect of communicative function which is asking and answering
questions.
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Q_ What really distinguishes the DM from all other methods?

It is that it totally eliminated the use of native language inside the
classroom.

Q_ What do you prefer the use or nonuse of native language

inside the classroom?
communication is about decoding a message. We have a message and
we have a listener, and the circle goes around and around decoding and
encoding . What happens for us as foreign learners is that we add
another stage, another level to this circle which is the translation.

Sometimes a student wants to encode a message, he thinks in Arabic,

then he speaks English in Arabic structure, the thing which is called
interference, which is the impact of the native language on the target
language. We want this in between phase which is translation to be
eliminated. I want my students to think in English and speak English.
How can I do that? By practising a lot, and this would get us back to the
habit. When I speak in English, when I think in English, this should be
automatic and spontaneous. The important thing that they listen, I make
my students always listen…

References:

- Brown, H. D. (2000). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to

language Pedagogy. California: Longman.

- Larsen-free man, D. & Anderson, M. (2011). Techniques and Principles

in Language Teaching (3rd Ed.). Oxford; New York: Oxford University
Press.

- Richards, J. C. & Rodgers, T. S. (2001). Approaches and Methods in

Language Teaching. (2nd Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Methodology
A seminar on:

Course instructor
Prepared & to be presented by Afrah Mahmood

Contents of the seminar:

(week 4)
• Audio-Lingual Method.
• A comparison among the three methods (GTM,
DM, ALM).
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Introduction
The increased attention given to foreign language teaching in the U.S
in the 1950s , led to the emergence of the Audio-Lingual
Method(ALM).(Richards&Rodgers,2010:53).After the World War II
America became an international power, so thousands of students entered
the U.S to study in universities and many of them required training in
English before starting their studies. So America felt the need to teach
foreign languages in order not to be isolated from scientific advances in
other countries. The language was taught by given systematic attention to
pronunciation, and by intensive oral drilling of its basic patterns with
none of the grammar and translation found in traditional methods. It is
also known as the “army method” and as the “Michigan method” as it
was developed by Fries at Michigan University.(Brown,2001:22-23)

Design
In this method a complete reorientation of the foreign language
curriculum is demanded .like when the nineteenth-century reformers
support a return to speech-based instruction with the primary objective of
oral proficiency and dismissed the study of grammar or literature as the
goal of foreign language teaching.(Richards&Rodgers,2010:58)

Objectives
According to Brook there are two types of objectives:

1. Short –range objectives which involve training in listening

comprehension, accurate pronunciation,recognition of speech
symbols on the printed page and the ability to reproduce these
symbols in writing .there are three other objectives within these
immediate objectives :

•control the structures of sound,form and order the new language;

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•acquaintance with content vocabulary;

•meaning in terms of the significance these verbal symbols have for
those who speak the language natively.

2. Long-range objectives that is to use the language as native speakers

do.This means that oral skills are focused from the very beginning
of learning, with gradual links to other skills as learning
develops.Reading and writing may be taught, but they are
dependent on prior oral skills.(Richards&Rodgers,2010:58)

The syllabus
Audio-lingual Method is Linguistic approach to language
teaching.Its syllabus contains key items of phonology, morphonology,
and syntax arranged according to their presentation .So the order of
the skills which are taught is that of listening,speaking,reading and
writing. At first language may be presented only orally.Later when
reading and writing are introduced, students are taught to read what
they have already learned to say orally.(Richards and
Rodgers,2010:59)

Q/What were the main purposes behind ALM?

•The main purpose of this method is to enable students to use the target
language communicatively. In other words to use it automatically.

•To help students to overcome the habits of their native language and
to form new ones in the target language by using only the target
language in the classroom.Learning process is similar to the
acquisition of the native language.(Larsen & Anderson,2011)

Q/Which aspects does ALM focus on?

•ALM focuses mainly on sound system (oral skills);
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•acquiring the structural patterns;

•vocabulary also are presented(but they are kept to minimum).

The main Characteristics of ALM :

1.New material is presented through a dialogue.

2.It depends mainly on imitation and repition (memorization)of a set

of phrases.

3.The main focus is given to pronunciation.

4.Grammar is taught inductively rather than deductively,which means

no direct rules are given.

5.Cultural information is contextualized in the dialogues.

6.Vocabulary is limited and also presented in context.

7.Only the target language is used in the class.

8.Positive reinforcement help students to develop correct

habits.(Brown,2001:23)

Q/What are the types of activities and drills used

in ALM?
The basis of audio-lingual classroom practices are dialogues and
drills.Dialogues are used for repetition and memorization.Also correct
pronunciation,stress,and intonation are emphasized.After memorizing
the dialogues, specific grammatical patterns in the dialogue are
selected to become the focus of various kinds of drills:

1)Repetition: means repeating an utterance as accurately and as

quickly as possible so students memorize the dialogue through
mimicry.
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2)Transformation: students are given a certain kind of sentence

pattern. atahen they are asked to transform this sentence into a
negative or interrogative or through changes in tense , mood, voice,
aspect,or modality.

3)Replacement: the student is asked to replace one word in an

utterance by another.

e.g:They gave their teacher a present.

-They gave him a present.

4)Question and answer drill:students should answer the teacher’s

questions very quickly.

5)Restatement:the student rephrases an utterance and addresses it to

someone else according to instructions

e.g:Tell him to wait for you.

-Wait for me.

6)Completion:the student hears an utterance with a missing word ,then

he repeats the utterance in a completed form.

e.g:I’ll do my homework and you do........ .

-I’ll do my homework and you do yours.

7)Expansion: a word is added to its correct place in the sequence.

e.g:He plays tennis(always)

-He always plays tennis.

8)Contraction: a single word stands for a phrase or clause.

e.g: He wears his jacket.

-He wears it.

9)Single/ Multiple-slot Substitution drills: the student repeat the line

the teacher has given them ,substituting the cue (a new word/words)
into the line in its proper place.(Richards & Rodgers,2010:16)
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Theory of Language
By the 1930s,the scientific approach to the study of language was
thought to consist of collecting examples of what speakers said and
analysing them according to different levels of structural organization
rather than according to categories of Latin grammar.(Richards &
rodgers,2010:54)

Q/What did the term structural refer to?

It referred to these characteristics:

a)Elements in a language were thought of as being linearly produced

in a rule-governed way;

b)Language samples could be described at any structural level of

description(phonetic,phonemic,morphological,etc.)

c)Linguistic levels were thought of as systems within systems.

According to structural linguistics , the primary medium of language

is oral: speech is language. It was assumed that speech had a priority
in language teaching because many languages do not have a written
form and we learn to speak before we learn to read or write.Language
is a set of habits, teach the language ,not about the language also a
language is what its native speakers say, not what they out to
say.(Richards & Rodgers,2010:55)

So The ALM is psychological, it is based on a psychological

theory.The theory is called behaviorism. . It is based on the work of
Russian psychologist Pavlov. Pavlov was experimenting the theory of
stimulus response theory. He thought that behaviors can be modified
by providing the certain stimulus to get a certain response, and this
should be accompanied by feedback or reinforcement. He
experimented on dog, the dog was encaged and whenever it is time to
feed the dog, he would ring a bell. When he repeated this over and
over again, he noticed that whenever the bell is ringing, the dog would
drool and the tongue would come out of his mouth. Then he stopped
feeding the dog, he just ringing the bell, the dog would automatically
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drool and get a habit. So the stimulus is the bell, the food was the
reinforcement and the drooling is the response. This is called
conditioning. So this theory is adopted by the ALM and they say that
if you have a stimulus, you will get a response with reinforcement, a
stimulus would be learning the language through the teacher, the
response is imitation, and the feedback we are going to talk about it
later. So they thought that Learning a language is a behavior, it is a
behavior just like any other human behavior and it can be modified.
So this extensive practice of the conditioner theory or behaviorist
theory would make this drooling, for example, a habit, it is automatic
with certain stimuli. So the ALM advocates assume that with
imitation, extensive practice, repetition over and over again, the
language since it is a behavior, it would be a habit.

Q/ What is a habit?

-A habit is a behavior that is so automatic and you do it even without

thinking about it because you do it over and over again, it is recurrent
and this is how they thought the language is. It is just like a routine,
they want to make the language learning like a habit by repetition and
extensive practice, but we have of course to imitate the teacher.
Imitation, repetition and extensive practice until this language is a
habit.

Comparison:
1_ Theories underlying these methods of teaching

Each method appeared with its own underlying theoretical basis.

GTM relied heavily on structural theory which assumed teaching
grammar and practising translation. This theory focused on reading and
listening while little attention was given to writing. For DM, it relied on
functional theory as it mainly focused on communication.

• While (ALM) borrowed principles from behavioral psychology or we

can say that it exists as a result of the behaviourist models of learning.
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According to behaviorist theory language was seen as a system of habits

that can be taught and learned depending on three elements:

•a stimulus, which serves to elicit behavior;

•a response triggered by a stimulus;

•reinforcement, which serves as a feed back to mark the answer as

appropriate or not.

Q_ What do we mean by reinforcement or feedback?

-reinforcement for language teaching and learning means that you

provide the learner with positive reinforcement, e.g., you have to
encourage your students, so they would participate over and over again,
with children: if you teach children, you can give them presents, candies,
whatever, just to make them motivate. So this is the idea of ALM.

2- Did these methods fail or not? and why?

-Although they were used for many years to teach foreign languages
and each one had its own advantages that made it spread and widely
used ,yet each had certain disadvantages that made it fail and cause
another method to appear. GTM, for example, failed because of the
following reasons:

1_ Language is about communication. If you neglect communication,

there would be no language.

If you think about it from the perspective of use and usage: it is about
usage not use. If you think about the competence: it is about the
linguistic competence not performance. If you think about it from utility,
it is about accuracy not about appropriacy and so many dichotomies. But
the main idea behind its failure is that it did not concentrate on
communication.

2_ Another reason is that they believe in the concept of universality of

grammar. Grammar is universal yet in the sense that every language has
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its own grammar and you can't apply the rules of one language into
another.

3_ The third reason and the most important one is about translation.
The GTM used translation as a tool for teaching while translation is not a
tool for teaching, translation is a skill that you acquire after learning
both languages. You have to be competent in both languages not to use
it to learn, but to acquire this skill after learning the foreign language.

Concerning DM, it failed because

1_ It is conditioned by certain constraints as : (small classes, individual

attention, intensive study, the personality and background of the
teacher). Thus it is difficult to be applied to teaching in public schools.

2_ The other reason is that the advocates of the DM claimed that it is

functional while actually there is no communication. There is little
communication in the form of asking and answering questions.

• Although ALM gained popularity for years yet it failed to continue. One
of several reasons is that it viewed the learner as a passive entity .It
dismissed the possibility that learners can add any useful contribution
from their mind to the learning process, when it prevented them from
committing mistakes and using only the correct forms of language and it
is one of the drawbacks of ALM . This is in contrast to many theorists
beliefs that to acquire a new language it is preferable to let the learners
making errors. The other point is that ALM failed to teach long-term
communicative aspects as the structural linguistics tell us only a part of
what we want to know about certain language .ALM should provide a
good model and this is one of the difficulties.

ALM depends on situations and we have so many social factors in

such situations.When we talk about context in ALM Students are going
to imitate their teacher. When we talk about language we have what is
called functions of language such as greeting ,refusal,etc. “phatic
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communion” .Each one of them has many linguistic forms to express the
same phatic communion. For example “greetings” they would be
accustom to one way of achieving greeting.What is going on in the
classroom in ALM is that they stick to only one and this is a criticism to
the situational curriculum. It is restricting and restricted. It is restricted
because we have roles, the customer, the waiter, the restaurant
manager and each one of them is going to play his role with certain
expressions. You cannot get all the expressions in one situation .
Although situations are very helpful they are socially loaded,culturally
loaded, you have to add to them.(In ALM they didn’t give students the
chance to add to situations)this is mentioned as creativity or the novelty
of the situation.

3_The use of native language

We should use the target language as much as possible to eliminate

translation, and the native language is used whenever it saves time and
effort. But the goal should be to deduce or to keep the native language
to minimum.

For GTM, it depends totally on translation. It involves using the native

language in teaching, explaining and interacting in the class. Oppositely
DM depends totally on communication in the target language, i.e., no
translation at all. It includes teaching, explaining and interacting in the
class using the target language only.

•In ALM while students keep trying to acquire the target language.
Native language should not be used in the classroom so as to avoid the
possible interference of the habits of the students’ native language with
the target one. This means that no translation is used, they
communicate only in the target language after they induced the
necessary rules from examples.

4_ Cultural and social factors effect on language learning

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One of the psychological principles is "attitude towards language

learning". Some societies have attitudes to certain languages

like, for example , some Arab consider English as disbelievers ‫لغة الكفار‬
language

On the opposite, we can see people who want to learn language just to
be cool. Both of them are social factors.

Nowadays learning English to speak is a fashion or modern thing and it is

wanted.

Social aspect is very important, it is crucial in communication. You have

to take into consideration when you want to learn a language, you have
to take aspects that surrounding that language. One of the most
important aspects is the social life of the English people, you have to
take it into consideration. It might affect you, How?? Nowadays If
someone goes to England for a couple of years, he would return like half
Arabic half English, his behavior would be affected and this might not be
acceptable.

Q_ What is the ultimate goal of language learning?

- It is that when the language learner uses English, he would not be
recognized as a foreigner and this is why he tries firstly to improve his
pronunciation. Take for example, whenever a Hindi person speaks, he
would be immediately recognized as a foreigner, Egyptians ,for example,
they all have recognizable accent. In order not to be recognized as a
foreigner , after developing your speaking skill, you have to take into
consideration the social factors because social factors would really affect
communication.

Give you a small example: In our society, we respect older people, when

you talk to someone older than you, you say ,for example, "uncle ‫ "عمو‬,

he would take it as a kind of respect but in English speaking society, they

would be offended if you make a hint or reference to how old they are.
If you do not know this, it would cause you miscommunication because
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in your mind you are respecting him while according to their social
knows, this is not respect, in the contrary, you are insulting him or
offending him and you are going to have miscommunication, he would
not understand that you are respecting him. So social aspect, cultural
aspect are important in understanding communication or to be
appropriate as far as communication is concern.

Also, culture has a great influence, if you want to learn a language, you
have to know about the culture.

For example, all of us have seen ‫مدرسة المشاغبين‬

so when you speak your daily life speech, sometimes you would make a
reference taken from a speech of this play. Someone who is American,
he has been studying Arabic for a long time, if you make a hint to this
play which is a part of our cultural structure, he would not really
understand it unless he has seen it. It would make no sense to him what
he is talking about.

Culture has a great influence on language teaching methods. When GTM

viewed culture as consisting of literature and fine arts, they limited
teaching foreign language to read literature without any interest to
speak that language. In contrast, the Direct Method viewed culture as
consisting of the history of the people speaking the foreign language, the
geography of their country and the information about the daily lives of
the speakers. Thus this method depends on teaching the target language
in real situations and topics taking from everyday life speech. As a result
communication and speaking become the base of this method.

• In ALM language is seen as having a finite number of patterns or as a

system of systems and the system of one language is different from
others. Each system can be subdivided into different levels:
phonological, morphological ,and syntactic. Culture is seen as consisting
mainly of everyday behavior and lifestyle of people who use the target
language in addition to literature and the arts. In other words they use
situations which are socially and culturally loaded.
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5_ Memorization

One may ask if memorization is useful in teaching language! We can

say that it is useful in the case of memorizing vocabulary. The more
vocabulary you memorize the more able you are to understand and
communicate in the target language. But this is not applicable to
grammatical rules. It is not useful to memorize them. It is useful to teach
them inductively. The thing which helps students to think and infer rules
by themselves; therefore, they will have critical mind.

As for GTM, it depends on memorizing both of vocabulary and

grammatical rules.

DM has no memorization, it depends on demonstrating vocabulary and

inferring grammatical rules.

In ALM the learners should memorize the introduced dialogue by

imitating the teacher or the tape through repetition. There is no lists of
vocabulary to memorize, but the new words are introduced within
phrases to understand their meaning before memorizing them.

6_ Deductive vs Inductive

There are two ways of teaching grammar: deductive and inductive.

Each way has some advantages and disadvantages. For example,
deductive approach to teach grammar is easier, clearer, and saves time.
Concerning inductive approach, it consumes more time and effort. But in
general, we can say that inductive approach is better because when you
involve the student in the learning process, he is going to work hard and
the information would stick in his mind.

Deductive way implies memorizing patterns and apply them to

examples. The thing which makes students away from thinking critically.
This way is followed in GTM.

While inductive way implies inferring patterns from examples. This helps
students to think, infer and analyze things critically away from just
memorizing without understanding. This way is followed in DM.
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• while learning a new language no rules are given at all in ALM and if
they are needed the learners will figure them out from the given
examples.In this way(inductive) rules will be stick in their minds easily.

* Note that we use the word "pattern" not "rule". The word "rule" is not
preferred because this term refers to something fixed and we do not
have a fixed rule in language, we have so many irregularity and
exceptions. Thus, we should use the term "pattern". There are seven
main patterns for sentences. There are unlimited number of sentences
out of one pattern.

7_ Errors correction

It is better to make the students correct their errors by themselves.

The thing which is called self-correction. One advantage of this way is
that the students will be conscious of their errors and never repeat them
at other time. They will think fussily in order to find and correct their
errors. Also the students will be more self-reliant and self-confident. This
way is followed in DM.

Concerning GTM, the student's error is corrected by the teacher or by

another student. This way is not preferred in teaching. It makes the
students away from thinking carefully. It makes them dependent on
others. In addition, they will be rather careless about their errors and
will not learn from them, as a result they will be reoccurred later.

• For those who follow ALM, errors are to be avoided from the
beginning as it leads to the formation of bad habits .And if they occur,
they should be immediately corrected by the teacher.

8_ Communication

Communication is like a sea for teachers, like something which is very

broad, but you have to concentrate on it.

Remember we have the idea of delivering a message, on the textual

level, on the level of a sentence, of a word, a word might have different
 29

meanings. If you want to deliver the target / the wanted/ the desired
meaning, you have to be appropriate to understand the different
meanings of these words. According to the context, some words would
mean something in this context, while mean something else in a
different context. this is very important, you have to pay attention when
you teach.

These three methods view communication from different perspectives.

In GTM, there is no communication at all. Concerning DM, its advocates

claimed that the DM is based on communication, while in reality, it is
purely structural. So they misunderstood communication.

•What happens in ALM is that they missing the social and the cultural
aspects that should be included in teaching . We have linguistic
competence (language knowledge),Communicative competence and an
interactional competence. how you interacts with speaker of English .we
have so many factors to interact. In all of them the learner should be
appropriate .He would understand what is saying , when ,who ,and how
,etc. All these things are missed in the ALM ,but it is much better than
DM ,you can use it in teaching but it is mainly now used in teaching
pronunciation.

•To sum up, we can say that each of the three methods (GTM,DM ,ALM)
achieved its specific goal in a certain period of time and each of
them had its merits and demerits. So it is not a matter of which one is
better than others as each one of them focused on a particular area of
language teaching depending on the theory it followed. It is necessary to
understand that each of them when appeared, it tried to avoid the
difficulties of the previous one to discover later that its theory was also
inadequate to satisfy the learners’ needs. Still you can use these
methods whenever they suit you. Leave the drawbacks and you are
going to enhance the strong points of each method.
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Aspects GTM DM ALM

Theory structural functional Behavioral
Efficiency Somehow not Somehow not Somehow not
Native language Used Not used Not used

Culture Literature/fine History and Everyday

arts geography of behaviour/lifestyle
people of that
language/
everyday speech
Memorization Used Not used Limited to context

Deductive deductive Inductive Inductive

/Inductive
Errors Teacher’s/others Self-correction Avoided/teacher’s
correction correction correction
Communication No misunderstood Limited
communication communication

References:

- Brown, H .D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive

approach to language pedagogy. White Plains , NY:Longman.

-Larsen-Freeman , D ., & Anderson, M. (2011). Techniquies and

principles in language teaching (3rd Ed). Oxford : New York: Oxford
University press.

-Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (2010) . Approaches and methods in

language teaching. Cambridge :Cambridge University press.