Language Teaching Approaches and Methods

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Language Teaching Approaches and Methods

• Dr. Desmond Thomas,
• International Academy,
• University of Essex

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Why do people learn English?

• Communication with native speakers
• Work
• Career prospects
• Academic study
• Travel
• Access to information
• Access to literature and culture
• Prestige?

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What do they need to learn? (1)

• Pronunciation of individual sounds
• Word and sentence stress
• Intonation
• Grammar
• Vocabulary
• Language functions

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What do they need to learn? (2)

• Appropriacy in discourse
• Structure of discourse
• Language varieties
• And they need to develop reading, listening,
  speaking, writing skills

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How languages are learned theories

• Behaviourism. "Verbal behaviour" by B.Skinner
  (1957)
• Cognitivism (Innatism) . "Review of Verbal
  Behaviour" (1959) and "Syntactic Structures"
  (1957) by N.Chomsky.
• Interactionism (Socio-constructivism) See works
  by Piaget and Vygotsky.

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Which approaches lead to success?

1. The structural approach?
2. The notional-functional approach?
3. The communicative approach?
4. The lexical approach?
5. The task-based approach?
6. An eclectic approach?

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Approaches leading to methods

• Grammar-translation (RR p.3)
• The direct method (p.9)
• Situational language teaching (p.31)
• The audiolingual method (p.44)
• Communicative language teaching (p.64) and
  post-CLT
• Alternative methods TPR, CLL, Silent Way,
  Suggestopedia, Natural Approach

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Characteristics of CLT

• Based on the idea of 4 types of communicative
  competence (grammatical, sociolinguistic,
  discourse, strategic) and therefore ...
• Focus on function rather than form
• Focus on linguistic appropriacy
• Focus on actual language use

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Implications for the CLT classroom

• Communicative speaking activities
• Communicative writing activities
• Use of authentic materials
• Emphasis on S-S interaction and on learner
  autonomy
• Attitude to error-making changes
• Role of the teacher changes

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Further reading

• Lightbown, P. Spada,N. 1999, How Languages are
  Learned, OUP.
• Littlewood, W. 1981, Communicative Language
  Teaching, CUP
• Richards, J. Rodgers, T. 1986, Approaches and
  Methods in Language Teaching, CUP