3Main Part: a brief history of language teaching

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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2. Different approaches and activities in teaching English language 

The changing rationale for foreign language study and the classroom
techniques and procedures used to teach languages have reflected responses to a
variety of historical issues and circumstances. Tradition was for many years the
guiding principle. The Grammar-Translation Method reflected a time-honored and
scholarly view of language and language study. At times, the practical realities of
the classroom determined both goals and procedures, as with the determination of
reading as the goal in American schools and colleges in the late 1920s. At other
times, theories derived from linguistics, psychology, or a mixture of both were used
to develop a both philosophical and practical basis for language teaching, as with
the various reformist proposals of the nineteenth century. As the study of teaching
methods and procedures in language teaching assumed a more central role within
applied linguistics from the 1940s on, various attempts have been made to
conceptualize the nature of methods and to explore more systematically the
relationship between theory and practice within a method. In this chapter we will
clarify the relationship between approach and method and present a model for the
description, analysis, and comparison of methods [7.p.1118].
Approach and method
- In describing methods, the difference between a
philosophy of language teaching at the level of theory and principles, and a set of
derived procedures for teaching a language, is central. In an attempt to clarify this
difference, a scheme was proposed by the American applied linguist Edward
Anthony in 1963. He identified three levels of conceptualization and organization,
which he termed approach, method, and technique. According to Anthony's model,
approach is the level at which assumptions and beliefs about language and language
learning are specified; method is the level at which theory is put into practice and at
which choices are made about the particular skills to be taught, the content to be
taught, and the order in which the content will be presented; technique is the level at
which classroom procedures are described. Anthony's model serves as a useful way
of distinguishing between different degrees of abstraction and specificity found in
different language teaching proposals. Thus, we can see that the proposals of the

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Reform Movement were at the level of approach and that the Direct Method is one

method derived from this approach. The so-called Reading Method, which evolved
as a result of the Coleman Report should really be described in the plural - reading
methods - since a number of different ways of implementing a reading approach that
have been developed.
Although Anthony's original proposal has the advantage of Simplicity and
comprehensiveness and serves as a useful way of distinguishing the relationship
between underlying theoretical principles and the practices derived from them, it
fails to give sufficient attention to the nature of a method itself. Nothing is said about
the roles of teachers and learners assumed in a method, for example, nor about the
role of instructional materials or the form they are expected to take. It fails to account
for how an approach may be realized in a method, or for how method and technique
are related. In order to provide a more comprehensive model for the discussion and
analysis of approaches and methods, we have revised and extended the original
Anthony model. The primary areas needing further clarification are, using Anthony's
terms, method and technique. We see approach and method treated at the level of
design, that level in which objectives, syllabus, and content are determined, and in
which the roles of teachers, learners, and instructional materials are specified. The
implementation phrase (the level of technique in Anthony's model) we refer to by
the slightly more comprehensive term procedure. Thus, a method is theoretically
related to an approach, is organizationally determined by a design, and is practically
realized in procedure. In the remainder of this chapter we will elaborate on the
relationship between approach, design, and procedure, using this framework to
compare particular methods and approaches in language teach mg. In the remaining
chapters of the book we will use the model presented here as a basis for describing
a number of widely used approaches and methods [8.p.228].