Approach, method, procedure and technique

The difference between approach, method, procedure, and technique

English Language Teaching (ELT) terminology can be sometimes confusing.
This post tries to describe the difference
between approach, method, procedure, and technique. It is important, for us
teachers, to be informed about what exactly each of these terms means.
For the difference between methodology and method see this post:

What is the difference between method and methodology in teaching?

Methodological organization of teaching practices
Methodology informs teachers about different ways to organize teaching
practices. Harmer (2001), for example, suggests that there are four levels of
organization at the level of methodology, namely, approach, method,
procedure, and techniques. The following description is inspired by this
framework. Many elements of this framework are also discussed by Anthony
(1963) and Richards and Rodgers (1986).

Before, describing our framework of the organization of teaching practices,

let’s first review briefly Anthony’s and Richards & Rodgers’ models.

The following table shows how approach, method, procedure, and technique
have been viewed by Anthony (1963) and Richards & Rodgers (1986):

 Theory of language
Approach
 Theory of language

 An overall plan for the orderly presentation of language material,

Method no part of which contradicts, and all of which is based upon, the
selected approach
Anthony’s  The actual implementation in the language
model Technique
classroom/Techniques/activities to be carried on in the lesson.

Richards and Metho  Theory of language teaching/ Theoretical Assumption

Approach
Rodgers model d  Philosophy of language teaching

Design  Objectives
 Syllabus type
  Activity types
 Learner Roles
 Teacher Roles
 Role of materials
 Techniques
Procedur
 Practices
e
 Behaviors

For the sake of the simplification of the above models, approach, method,
procedure, and technique are viewed in the following description as flowing in
a hierarchical model. First, an approach, which provides theoretical
assumptions about language and learning, informs methods. Each method
shouldn’t contradict the approach on which it is based. Similarly, procedures
are ordered sequences of techniques that have to be aligned with the
theoretical assumption a method aspires to put into practice.

Approach
An approach refers to the general assumptions about what language is and
about how learning a language occurs (Richards and Rodgers, 1986). It
represents the sum of our philosophy about both the theory of language and
the theory of learning. In other words, an approach to language teaching
describes:
1. The nature of language,
2. How knowledge of a language is acquired,
3. And the conditions that promote language acquisition.
For example Behaviourism is a theory of learning a language. A teacher can use this
theory to design his Method and Techniques of teaching a language.

Method
A method is a practical implementation of an approach. A theory is put into
practice at the level a method. It includes decisions about:
 The particular skills to be taught,
 The roles of the teacher and the learner in language teaching and
learning,
  The appropriate procedures and techniques,
 The content to be taught,
 And the order in which the content will be presented.
It also involves a specific syllabus organization, choices of the materials that
will boost learning, and the means to assess learners and evaluate teaching
and learning. It is a sort of an organizing plan that relies on the philosophical
premises of an approach.

For example: Mimcry-memorisation; rote-learning; learning rules of grammar; GTM;

Reading and Writing principal activities.

Procedures
Jeremy Harmer (2001) describes ‘procedures’ as “an ordered set of
techniques.” They are the step-by-step measures to execute a method. A
common procedure in the grammar-translation method, for example, is to start
by explaining the grammar rules and exemplifying these rules through
sentences that the students then had to translate into their mother tongue.
According to Harmer, a procedure is “smaller than a method and larger than a
technique.”

Technique
Implementing a procedure necessitates certain practices and behaviors that
operate in teaching a language according to a particular method. These
practices and behaviors are the techniques that every procedure relies on.
Techniques, in this sense, are part and parcel of procedures. They are the
actual moment-to-moment classroom steps that lead to a specified
outcome. Every procedure is realized through a series of techniques/activities.
They could take the form of an exercise or just any activity that you have to do
to complete a task. For instance, when using videos, teachers often use a
technique called “silent viewing” which consists of playing the video without
sound and asking students to figure out what the characters were saying.
Other examples include, teacher dictates, students write; teacher set a text,
student read; teacher asks questions on the text, students answer.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, according to this framework, an approach informs methods with
both the theory of language and the theory of learning. Methods are actual
implementations of approaches in terms of a detailed plan/design as to how
teachers implement the approach—actually a plan which includes the
description of procedures, steps, actions etc. They are theories put into
practice. Procedures, in turn, are informed by methods. They are ordered
step-by-step events that have specified outcomes. Procedures rely on
techniques/ lesson activities to achieve aims and objectives of the lesson set
in the lesson plan’

References
Anthony, Edward M. 1963. Approach, Method, and Technique. English Learning. 17:63-
67. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Brown H. Douglas (1987). Principles of language learning and teaching. Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice Hall
Harmer, J. (2001). The practice of English language teaching. Essex, England:
Longman.
Richards, Jack C. and Theodore S. Rodgers (1986). Approaches and methods in
language teaching: A description and analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press