THE AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD

Q. Look at the phrase ‘The Audio-lingual method’.

What do you think are the goals of this method?
The audio-Lingual Method
General goals
•Use the target language for communication

•Develop the same language abilities that native

speakers have, that is to use the language automatically

•Students achieve this by forming new habits in the

target language

•See learning language as learning a system and

subsystems

•Emphasise learning structures

The audio-Lingual Method
Learning theory

•Theoretically grounded in behaviourism

•Learning languages is like other forms of learning
•Language learning is mechanical habit formation

Three key elements

•Stimulus
•Response
•Reinforcement
The audio-Lingual Method
The human being = organism with a set of
behaviors, which occur, depending on three key
elements:

•Stimulus= serves to elicit behavior

•Response: trigged by a stimulus

•Reinforcement: serves to mark the response as

being appropriate (or inappropriate) and encourage
the repetition (or suppression) of the response
(Richards & Rodgers, 2014, p. 63)
The audio-Lingual Method
Stimulus

Organism

Response behavior

Reinforcement
(behavior likely to occur again
and become a habit)

No reinforcement/
Negative reinforcement
(Behavior not likely to occur
again)
The audio-Lingual Method
The role of the teacher and learners

The teacher
•monitors the learning process
•plays a central and active role

The learner
•Plays a reactive role
•Responds to stimulus, and repeat
The audio-Lingual Method
• Emphasise the audio-visual use

• Emphasise listening and speaking before reading and

writing

• Emphasise pronunciation

• Draw on dialogs as the main form of language

presentation and drills as the main technique

• Discourage use of mother tongue in the classroom

• Language learning occurs through training and

conditioning.
The audio-Lingual Method
• Emphasise accuracy and practice using techniques
such as drills, mimicry, memorization; errors are
avoided.

• No explicit grammar rules are taught; rules are

induced from examples.

• New vocabulary and structures are presented

through dialogs. The syllabus is mainly a structural
one.

• Dialogs are remembered through drilling and

repetition.
Techniques
(Coursebook, pp. 42-44)
Read and share your understanding. Demonstrate
the technique via relevant examples.

Group 1. Techniques 1-3

Group 2. Techniques 4-6
Group 3. Techniques 7-9
Group 4. Techniques 10-12
Techniques
Technique 1: Dialog memorization

•Students memorize through mimicry.

•Students usually take the role of one person in the
dialog, and the teacher the other.
•Half of the class take one role, and the other half take
the other role.
•After the dialog has been memorized, students might
perform the dialog for the rest of the class.
•In the Audio-Lingual Method, certain structures or
grammar points are included in the dialog. These
patterns and points are later practiced in drills.
Techniques
Technique 2: Dialog memorization

Jane: What are you doing this weekend?

Mary: I’m going to the beach.
Jane: What are you doing there?
Mary: I’m building sandcastles with my friends.
Techniques
Technique 3: Backward build up/ Expansion Drill

•Is used when a long line of a dialog is giving students

trouble.
•The teacher breaks down the line into several parts.
•The teacher begins with the part at the end of the
sentence and work backward from there.
•The students repeat a part of the sentence, usually the
last phrase of the line.
•Following the teacher’s cue, the students expand what
they are repeating part by part until they are able to
repeat the line.
Techniques
Technique 4: Backward build up/ Expansion Drill

Jane: What are you doing this weekend?

Mary: I’m going to the beach.
Techniques
Technique 5 : Repetition drill

•Students are asked to repeat the teacher’s model as

acccurately, and as quickly as possible.
Techniques
Technique 6: Chain drill

•Students, one by one, ask and answer questions.

•The teacher begins the chain by greeting a particular

student, or asking him a question.

•That student responds, then turns to the student sitting

next to him, who greets or asks a question of the next
student and the chain continues.
Techniques
Technique 7: Single-slot Substitution Drill
Jane: What are you doing this weekend?
Mary: I’m going to the beach.

Jimmy: What are you doing this weekend?

Lauren: go simming

Jimmy: What are you doing this weekend?

Lauren: play football
Techniques
Technique 8: Multiple-slot Substitution Drill

•Similar single-slot substitution drill.

•The difference is that the teacher gives cue phrases,
one at a time, that fits into different slots in the dialog
line.
•The students must recognize what parts of speech each
cue is, where it fits into the sentence, and make any
other changes such as subject-verb agreement.
•They say the line, fitting the cue phrase into the line
where it belongs.
Techniques
Technique 8: Multiple-slot Substitution Drill
Jane: What are you doing this weekend?
Mary: I’m going to the beach.

Tom: tomorrow?
Andy: visit my grandparents

James: next week?

Micheal: go to the cinema
Techniques
Technique 9: Transformation drill

Students are asked to

•transform an affirmative sentence into a negative

sentence.

• change a statement into a question, an active sentence

into a passive one, or direct speech into reported
speech.
Techniques
Technique 10: Question-answer drill

•This drill gives students practice with answering

questions

•Students should answer the teacher’s questions very

quickly.
Techniques
Technique 11: Use of minimal pairs
hit/heat
ship/sheep
thick/ though, …

Technique 12: Complete the Dialog

Jane: What ___________ you doing this weekend?

Mary: I ___________ going to the beach.
Techniques
Technique 13: Grammar games

•Games are designed to get students to practice a

grammar point within a context.
•Students are able to express themselves, though it is
rather limited.
•There is a lot of repetition in this game.
PRACTICE

Use some of the techniques above to teach this

structure “Would you like to …?”
Discussion: Work in groups of four,
discussing the advantanges and
disadvantages of the Audio-Lingual method.
Advantages

•Students learn chunks of language

•Make it possible to teach a large group of
learners
•Develop sentence production and oral ability
Disdvantages
•Weak theoretical foundation; humans have inate
abilities to learn a language, and learn language
through experience of using it .
•What students learn in the classrom does not
transfer to real life communication.
•Boredom and disatisfaction due to overlearning,
extensive repetition and drilling
•Teacher dominates the class; students play a
passive, reactive role and have little control over
their learning.
•Teacher-oriented materials
REFERENCES
Brown, H. D., & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by
principles: An interactive approach to language
pedagogy (4th ed.). NY: Pearson.

The slides presented here draw mainly on

Methodology 4: Theory of Teaching and Learning
by Faculty of English, University of Foreign
Languages, Hue University.