● THE AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD

The Audio-Lingual Method is an oral-based approach and it drills students in

the use of grammatical sentence patterns. It has a strong theoretical base in
linguistics and psychology.

The theory of language latent Audiolingualism was acquired from a

structural linguistic view proposed by American linguists in the 1950s.
It was assumed that speech had a priority in language teaching. This was
contrary to popular views of the relationship of the spoken and written forms
of language, since it had been widely assumed that language existed
principally as symbols written on paper, and that spoken language was an
imperfect realization of the original written version. This scientific approach
to language analysis appeared to offer the foundations for a scientific
approach to language teaching.
Otherwise, the language teaching theoreticians and methodologists who
developed Audiolingualism not only had a convincing and powerful theory
of language to draw upon but they were also working in a period when a
prominent school of American psychology - known as behavioral psychology
- claimed to have tapped the secrets of all human learning, including
language learning. Behaviorism, like structural linguistics, is another
antimentalist, empirically based approach to the study of human behavior.
To the behaviorist, the human being is an organism capable of a wide
repertoire of behaviors. The occurrence of these behaviors is dependent
upon three crucial elements in learning: a stimulus, which serves to elicit
behavior; a response triggered by a stimulus; and reinforcement.
Moreover, reinforcement is a vital element in the learning process, because it
increases the likelihood that the behavior will occur again and eventually
become a habit. To apply this theory to language learning is to identify the
organism as the foreign language learner, the behavior as verbal behavior,
the stimulus as what is taught or presented of the foreign language, the
response as the learner's reaction to the stimulus and the reinforcement as
the extrinsic approval.
In order to use the audiolingual method in class it is required a complete
reorientation of the foreign language curriculum. Like the nineteenth-
century reformers who advocated 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.
What is more, reading and writing skills may be taught, but they are
dependent upon prior oral skills as Language is primarily speech in audio
lingual theory, but speaking skills are themselves dependent upon the ability
to accurately perceive and produce the major phonological features of the
target language, fluency. Additionally, there is a wide variety of activities
which teacher can use, such as, repetition, inflection, replacement,
restatement, completion, transposition, expansion, contraction, integration,
and restoration.
The main role of the learners is to play a reactive role by responding to
stimuli and thus have little control over the content, pace, or style of learning.
They are not encouraged to mitate interaction, because this may lead to
mistakes.
Otherwise, the teacher role is central and active as he is expected to keep
the learners attentive by varying drills and tasks and choosing relevant
situations to practice structures.
On balance, it is a method in which the language skills are introduced, and
the focus on accuracy through drill and practice in the basic structures and
sentence patterns of the target language, might suggest that these
methods drew from each other. In fact, however, Situational Language
Teaching was a development of the previous Direct Method and does not
have the strong ties to linguistics and behavioral psychology that
characterize Audiolingualism. The similarities of the two methods respect
similar views about the nature of language and of language learning, though
these views were in fact developed from quite different traditions.

There are some principles that underlie this method:

1. Language occur most naturally within a context.

2. The native language and the target language have separate linguistic
system.
 3. Teachers should provide students with a good model. By listening to
how it its supposed to sound, students should be able to mimic the
model.
4. Language learning is a process of habit formation.
5. It is important to prevent learners from making errors as they lead to
the formation of bad habits.
6. The purpose of language learning is to learn how to use the language
to communicate
7. Particular parts of speech occupy particular ‘slots’ in sentences.
8. Positive reinforcement helps the student to develop correct habits.
9. Students should learn to respond to both verbal and non-verbal
patterns.
10. Pattern practice helps students to form habits which enable the
students to use the patterns.
11. students should overlearn.
12. The teacher conducts, guides, and controls the students’ behaviour in
the target language.
13. The major objective of language teaching should be for students to
acquire the structural patterns.
14. The learning of a foreign language should be the same as the
acquisition of the native language.
15. The major challenge of foreign language teaching is getting students
to overcome the habits of their native language.
16. Speech is more basic to language than written form.
17. Language cannot be separated from culture. Culture is not only
literature and the arts, but also the everyday behaviour of people who
use the target language.

Techniques and materials

● Dialog memorization: students memorize dialogs through mimicry.
Certain sentence patterns and grammar points are included within
the dialog. These patterns and points are later practiced in drills based
on the lines of the dialog.
● Backwards build-up drill: used when a long line of a dialog is giving
students trouble. The teachers breaks down the line into several parts.
● Repetition drill: students are asked to repeat the teacher’s model as
accurately and as quickly as possible. This drill is often used to teach
the lines of the dialog.
● Chain drill: the chain of conversation that forms around the room as
students, one-by-one, ask and answer questions of each other. This
technique allows some controlled communication, even though it is
limited. In addition, it allows teachers to check each student’s speech.
● Multiple-slot substitution drill: the teacher gives cue phrases, one at a
time, that fit into different slots in the dialog line. The students have to
recognize what part of speech each cue is, or at least, where it fits into
 the sentence, and make any other changes, such as subject-verb
agreement. They then say the line, fitting the cue phrase into the line
where it belongs.
● Transformation drill: the teacher gives students a specific type of
sentence pattern, an affirmative sentence, for example. Students are
asked to transform this sentence into a negative sentence,
● Question-and-answer drill: students practice with answering
questions. The students should answer the teacher’s questions very
quickly.
● Use of minimal pairs: the teacher works with pairs of words that differ
in only one sound. Students are first asked to perceive the difference
between the two words and later to be able to say the two words. The
teacher selects the sound to work on after she has done a contrastive
analysis, a comparison between the students’ native language and the
language they are studying.
● Complete the dialog: selected words are erased from a dialog
students have learned. They complete the dialog by filling the blanks
with the missing word.
● Grammar game: the games are designed to get students to practice a
grammar point within a context. Students are able to express
themselves, although it is rather limited in this game. Also, it is a lot of
repetition in this technique.

● The Silent Way

The Silent Way method was introduced by Caleb Gattegno. This method
shares certain characteristics with the Cognitive Approach, which is based
on learners’ ability to be in control of their own language.
Gattegno, the silent way method proponent makes extensive use of his
understanding of first language learning processes as a basis for deriving
principles for teaching foreign languages to adults. Gattegno recommends,
for example, that the learner needs to "return to the state of mind that
characterizes a baby's learning.”
One of the main concepts of the Silent Way is that “Teaching should be
subordinated to learning”. This means that teaching should serve the
learning process instead of dominate it. By looking at babies and young
children learn, Gattegno deduced that we begin the learning process by
ourselves by mobilizing our inner sources, like the way we perceive, our
awareness, cognition, imagination, intuition and creativity. While we learn,
we integrate new things that we create, and we use it to shape our learning.
On the other hand, having referred to these processes Gattegno states that
the processes of learning a second language are radically different from
those involved in learning a first language. The second language learner is
unlike the first language learner and "cannot learn another language in the
same way because of what he now knows.” The "natural" or "direct"
approaches to acquiring a second language are thus misguided, says
Gattegno, and a successful second language approach will "replace a
'natural' approach by one that is very artificial and, for some purposes, strictly
controlled". The "artificial approach" that Gattegno proposes is based on the
principle that successful learning involves commitment of the self ro
language acquisition through the use of sIlent awareness and then active
trial. Gattegno's repeated emphasis on the primacy of learning over teaching
places a focus on the self of the learner, on the learner’s priorities and
commitments.
The general objective of the Silent Way is to give beginning level students
01':11 and aural facility in basic elements of the target language. The general
goal set for language learning is near-native fluency in the target language
and correct pronunciation and mastery of the prosodic elements of the
target language are emphasized. An immediate objective is to provide the
learner with a basic practical knowledge of the grammar of the language.
This forms the basis for independent learning on the learner's part. Gattegno
discusses the following kinds of objectives as appropriate for a language
course at an elementary level.
In this chapter, Larsen and Freeman make reference to an observation of the
first day of an English class in secondary school in Brazil. In it, after the
teacher has explained how the Silent Way works, he grabs a metal pointer
and points to a chart covered with small rectangular blocks disposed in in
rows. He points out to five blocks of color without saying anything. Each
block of color represents the sounds of five English vowels. This is done in
order to start with something that is familiar to students, and from that build
new knowledge.
Then, the teacher points again to the five blocks of color, but the students
say nothing, so he decides to point to the first block of colors and
pronounces the vowel /a/. Many students follow the teacher by saying the
next vowels: /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/ as he points to the other blocks. Learners are
intelligent and have plenty of experience in learning a new language, so the
teacher only gives them what help is necessary.
Next, the teacher does not pronounce the new sounds showed at the chart,
but uses gestures to indicate the students how they can modify the
Portuguese sounds. This way, learners develop their own principles for
precision, to be confident and responsible for their own production.
Then, the students take turns tapping out the sounds and this shows the
teacher whether they are learning properly or not. In most cases, students
help each other by giving clues.The teacher then makes use of what
students already know, so students learn the sounds of new blocks of color
by tapping out the name of their classmates.
After several activities, the students ability to pronounce English sounds has
improved, but some of them still do not reach the expected pronunciation
target, so the teacher works a bit more with them. The teacher looks for
progress, not perfection. He is able to understand that every student has its
own learning rhythm.
Later, the teacher tells the students to take rods of different colors and the
students take turns dealing with commands to take a rod of a specific color.
This helps to pay attention in order not to miss what he says. Then they
continue with other silent activities.
The teacher asks the students to give feedback to the lesson, in order to
learn what to include in the next lesson and to hear their reactions to the
lesson. The teacher does not assign homework because students will work
on the days lesson.
During the next lessons, the students will work on their own sounds and
learn how to produce accurate intonation and stress patterns with words
and sentences. They will continue working with the sound-color chart.

Principles of Silent Way

● There are certain goals of teachers in the Silent Way method.
Students must be capable of use language as a way of self-
expression, to convey their thoughts, perceptions and feelings.
They should develop independence from the teacher, to develop
their own principles for rightness. The teacher should provide the
needed tools to promote their learning and to learn to rely on
themselves.
● The role of the teacher is of a technician or engineer, by providing
the help needed, focus on the student perceptions and insure their
facility with the language. The teacher should encourage the
autonomy of the learners. The role of the students is to make use of
what they know, to overcome possible obstacles that could
interfere with the tools he has been given.
● The teacher must observe students constantly, to help them
overcome negative feeling which may interfere with the process of
learning.
● Students will always have their own culture, which is inseparable
from language.
● Pronunciation and structures of language must be worked on
from the beginning. Vocabulary is restricted at first. There is no
fixed or specific syllabus; instead, the teacher builds up the lesson
from what the students already know. All four language skills are
worked on from the beginning.
● The students' native language can be used to give instructions
when needed and to help students improve their pronunciation.
Also, the teacher can use the students' native language similar
characteristics in order to add new sounds in the target language.
● In terms of evaluation, the teacher assesses students all the time,
so he should observe students' behavior. The teacher does not
criticize student behavior since this may interfere with their own
criteria development.
 ● Student errors are viewed as natural, indispensable for their
learning process, inevitable. The teacher uses these errors in order
to decide whether to add further work, and also works with
students in getting them to self-correct.

Techniques and Materials

● The sound-color chart allows students to produce sound

combinations in the target language, draws their attention and
allows them to concentrate on the language, not on the teacher.
Also, the chart presents all the sounds of the target language, so
students know what they have learned so far and what they yet
need to learn.
● The teacher gives the needed help, and then is silent. He/she sets a
particular situation or language structure into circulation and then
is silent.
● Rods can be used in order to provide situations or visible actions for
any language structure to enable students to practice using it. The
rods promote meaning, since situations with rods can be planned
in a way that the meaning is clear, and the language is connected
to the meaning. Rods can be used at first to teach colors and
numbers. Eventually, they can be used for more complicated
structures, like statements with prepositions and conditionals. The
rods can be very adaptable. They allow students to be creative and
imaginative.
● Gestures are part of the Silent Way: for example, teachers can
indicate if students have to lengthen a particular sound.
● Students are encouraged to help each other when other is
experiencing difficulty. This help has to be given in a cooperative
way, not in a competitive one.
● Students always have the possibility to give feedback and to make
observations about the lessons and what they have learned. The
teacher hears the student's comments in a non defensive manner,
 accepting things that will help give him/her direction for where he
should work on.

To sum up, despite the philosophical and sometimes almost metaphysical

quality of much of Gattegno' s writings, the actual practices of the Silent Way
are much less revolutionary than might be expected. Working from what is a
rather traditional structural and lexical syllabus, the method exemplifies
many of the features that characterize more traditional methods, such as
Situational Language Teaching and Audiolingualism, with a strong focus on
accurate repetition of sentences modeled initially by the teacher and a
movement through guided elicitation exercises to freer communication. The
innovations in Gattegno' s method derive primarily from the manner in
which classroom activities are organized, the indirect role the teacher is
required to assume in directing and monitoring learner performance, the
responsibility placed upon learners to figure out and test their hypotheses
about how the language works, and the materials used to elicit and practice
language.