THE AUDIO-LINGUAL

METHOD
DR. LIZZETE ACOSTA
FEBRUARY 28TH, 2024
HISTORY
• World War II
• Army Specialized Training
Program (ASTP) 1942
• Leonard Bloomfield ‘informant
method’
– 10 hours / 6 days
– 15 hours of drill
– 20 – 30 hours private study
• 2 years – 10 years
• Audiolingualism 1950s
• University of Michigan – Charles
Fries
• Behaviorist psychology
• Fall in the late 1960s
 APPROACH
THEORY OF LANGUAGE THEORY OF LEARNING
• American linguists 1950s • Behaviorism
• Structural linguistics – Stimulus
• Phonetics, phonology, morphology and – Response
syntax – Reinforcement
• Language: a system of structurally related • Language mastery
elements for the encoding of meaning • Learning principles
• Mastering the elements – Mechanical habit formation
• Grammatical system – Language presented in spoken form
• Speech is language – Analogies
– Language in linguistic and cultural context
PRINCIPLES
• Use target language

• Modeling

• Students repeat the dialogue

• Errors corrected immediately

• Single/multiple-slot substitution drills

• Spoken/picture cues
PRINCIPLES
• Transformation/Question & Answer drills

• Teacher poses the questions rapidly

• Limited vocabulary

• No grammar rules

• Contrastive analysis

• Limited written work

 OBJECTIVES

• The accurate pronunciation and grammar

• The knowledge of vocabulary

• The responding ability

• The habits of learning language

DESIGN
 TECHNIQUES OF THE AUDIO-LINGUAL
METHOD
• Dialogue Memorization
• Backward Build-up (Expansion) Drill
• Repetition Drill
• Chain Drill
• Transformation Drill
• Single-slot Substitution Drill
• Multiple-slot Substitution Drill
• Question-and-answer Drill
• Use of Minimal Pairs
• Complete the Dialogue
• Grammar Game
TECHNIQUES OF AL –
DIALOG MEMORIZATION

Person 1 Person 2
TECHNIQUES OF AL –
DIALOGUE MEMORIZATION
T: Hello. How are you?
S: Fine, thanks. And you?
T: Fine. Where are you going?
S: I’m going to the school. Would you like to come?
T: Sure. Let’s go together.
TECHNIQUES OF AL –
BACKWARD BUILD-UP DRILL
• Teaching long lines of dialogues
• Breaking down the line into several parts
• Repeating a part of the sentence
I’m to the
I’m going to the post office.
going post office
BACKWARD BUILD-UP DRILL
T: Repeat after me: post office.
S: Post office.
T: To the post office.
S: To the post office.
T: Going to the post office.
S: Going to the post office.
T: I’m going to the post office.
S: I’m going to the post office.
TECHNIQUES OF AL –
REPETITION DRILL
TECHNIQUES OF AL –
CHAIN DRILL
• To make students ask and answer
questions with each other.
TECHNIQUES OF AL – SINGLE/MULTIPLE-
SLOT SUBSTITUTION DRILL

• To give cue phrases

• To make other changes

• To fit cue phrase into line

SUBSTITUTE DRILL- USE THE CUE.
‘I’m going to the post office.’
1. single-slot substitution drill:
S: ‘I’m going to the bank.’
The bank
2. multiple-slot substitution drill:
S: ‘She is going to the post office.’
the park She
S: ‘She is going to the park.’
TECHNIQUES OF AL –
TRANSFORMATION DRILL
To change a certain kind of sentence pattern
to another form.
Statement Question

Active Passive

Affirmative Negative
TRANSFORMATION DRILL

T: ‘They are going to the bank.’

S: ‘Are they going to the bank?’
or
T: Giang buys a new car.
S: A new car is bought by Giang.
 TECHNIQUES OF AL –
QUESTION & ANSWER
DRILL
Practicing the target language with answering
questions and the question patterns.
 TECHNIQUES OF AL –
QUESTION & ANSWER DRILL

• Bank
T: Are you going to the bank?
S: Yes, I am. I’m going to the bank
• Library
T: Are you going to the zoo?
S: No, I’m not going to the zoo. I’m going to the library
ROLES
PROCEDURE
 THE DECLINE OF AL
• Practical results – short in expectation
• Unable to transfer skills
• Noam Chomsky – Language is not a habit structure
• Sentences are not learned by imitation and repetition but generated from
competence
• 1970 – cognitive code theory
 ADVANTAGES

• Effective to the beginners

• Listening and speaking skills

• Vocabulary learning

• Quickly communicate
 DISADVANTAGES

• Make advanced students bored

• Limited language environment

• Many students in the class