UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGÓGICA DE EL SALVADOR

FACULTAD DE EDUCACIÓN

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE AUDIO-LINGUAL TEACHING METHOD FOR THE

SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILLS IN ENGLISH IN SEVENTH GRADE IN

CENTRO ESCOLAR SALARRUE, SAN RAFAEL , CHALATENANGO, 2010-2012

GRADUATION WORK PRESENTED IN ORDER TO GET THE DEGREE OF

BACHELOR OF ART AND EDUCATION, SPECIALITY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

PRESENTED BY:

NORMA ELIZABETH CARDOZA MEJÍA

SARA DE JESÚS FERMÁN SOSA

CLELIA MARIBEL PÉREZ LÓPEZ

SAN SALVADOR ,2012

INDEX

CHAPTER I

I. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

1. OBJECTIVES………………………………………………………………. 1

2. BACKGROUND……………….…………………………………………… 2- 13

3. JUSTIFICATION………………………………………….…….………… 13- 15

4. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM………..………………….……………16- 17

5. ACHIEMENTS AND LIMITATIONS…………………………..……………18- 22

6. CONCEPTS AND CATEGORIES……………………………..……… … 23- 25

CHAPTER II

II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

7. METHODOLOGICAL AND THEORETICAL FUNDAMENTATION….... 26-33

8. EMPIRICAL FRAMEWORK ………………………………………........... 34-47

9. FORMULATION OF THE METHODOLOGICALTHEORY OF

THE RESEARCH ………………………………………………………..48-50

10. THEORETICAL DEFINITON AND DEVELOPMENT………………… 50-52

CHAPTER III

II. OPERATIVE FRAMEWORK

.11. DESCRIPTION OF THE INVESTIGATION SUBJECT……..….......53

12. PROCEDURES FOR GATHERING DATA………….……………… 53-66

13. SPECIFICATION OF THE TECHNIQUE FOR THE

DATA ANALYSIS………………………………………..……………..….. 66-67

14. CRONOGRAM…………………………………………………………..68-70

15. DESCRIPTION OF THE RESOURCES…………………...………… 71

16. PRELIMINARY INDEX ABOUT REPORT…………………..………..72-73

17. RECOMMENDATIONS…….…………………………………………...74

17. BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………...……….….........75

INTRODUCTION

This project shows the different steps the researchers follow in order to

study the contributions of the Audio-lingual method in students of seventh grade in

Centro Escolar Salarrue, San Rafael, Chalatenango.

It contains the General and Specific objectives which are the leading of this

work. The Background of the work is presented to know what has been happening

previously in relation to this research, such as: the teaching approaches, teachers

used to teach from books containing short reading passages in the foreign

language, preceded by lists of vocabulary. In the techniques, the listening and

speaking skills are kept at a high level by continual practice and the dialogues are

learned by a process of mimicry-memorization. Evaluation of this method,

paralleling this linguistic aim is the endeavor to develop understanding of the

foreign culture and the foreign people through experience with their language. And

finally this method shows how Audio-lingual Method emerges.

In the same way in this work appears the justification based on the

importance of the research, it explains the factors why students in public school

do not achieve the standards set up by the Ministry of Education (MINED) in oral

and listening skills in English. The statement of the problem presents some

reasons why in public school students do not achieve the goals set up by (MINED)

regarding to the listening and speaking skills in English such as: English classes in

most of the public schools are not taught in English at all affecting the personal

motivation of the students, and the style and attitude of the English teacher.

This project also contains the achievements and limitations that show the

studies already done by other authors that have contributed in the study of the

audio-lingual method, such as: Wilga M.Rivers who stated that language was not

really acquired through a process of habit formation and overlearning, that errors

were not necessarily to be avoided at all cost, and that structural linguistics did not

tell us everything about language that we need to know;

Douglas H. Brown who mentions many educational institutions adopted a

new methodology that was known as Audio-lingual Method. This method grounded

in linguistic and psychological theory; Jeremy Harmer who says that the Audio-

lingual owed its existence to the Behaviorist models of the learning using the

Stimulus-Response-Reinforcement model through continuous positive

reinforcement to engender good habits in language learning; and Jack C.Richards

and Theodore S. Rodgers who mentioned that in typical audio-lingual lessons the

following procedures, among other, would be observed: Students first hear a

dialogue, the teacher pays attention to pronunciation and the dialogue is

memorized gradually, line by line. Besides this research contains concepts and

categories that will facilitate the relation with the theoretical elements in the

investigation.

The second part is The Theoretical Framework. This part contains a

Methodological and Theoretical Fundamentation which describes the Audio-lingual

Method (elements, techniques, activities) in a greater detail. The Empirical

Framework which describes the place where the research will be done. Also, it has

a Methodological and Theoretical research Formulation where the reader can find

a comparison and an analysis between the theory and the real situation. Besides,

there is a Theoretical definition and Development which contains the researchers´

point of view about the problematic and the theory presented.

The third part is the operative framework. It contains a description of

investigation subject. Besides there is a specification of the technique for the data

analysis which explains the instruments used in order to know the contributions of

the Audio-lingual method. Then there is a description of the resources used during

the development of the research. The last topic in this chapter is the preliminary

index about the final report, which explains the information of each chapter.

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1.1. OBJECTIVES.

1.2. GENERAL OBJECTIVE:

To evaluate the contributions in the listening and speaking skills with the

Audio-lingual method for teaching English in the seventh grade at the

Salarrué School located in San Rafael, Chalatenango during the years

2010 and 2012.

1.2. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:

To find out the teaching methods being used in the English classes in

seventh grade at Salarrue School and its relation with the Audio-lingual

one.

To analyze the contributions of the Audio-lingual method in the development

of the listening and oral expression skills in English classes in the students

of 7th grade, at Salarrue School.

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2. BACKGROUND

The Audio-Lingual Method of teaching English as a second language had

its origins during World War II when it became known as the Army method. It

was developed as a reaction to the Grammar-Translation Method of teaching

foreign languages. Grammar-translation had been used to teach for thousands

of years, but the method was perceived as taking too long for learners to be

able to speak in the target language. The Audio-Lingual method set out to

achieve quick communicative competence through innovative methods. From

about (1947-1967) the Audio-Lingual approach was the dominant foreign

language teaching method in the United States. The Audio-Lingual Method

(ALM) is based on the theory that language learning is a question of habit

formation. It has its origins in Skinner’s principles of behavior theory. Since

learning is thought to be a question of habit formation, errors are considered to

be bad and to be avoided. Further, teachers “reward” students by saying

“Good!” and praising the class when they perform well. ALM addresses a need

for people to learn foreign languages rapidly.

The Coleman Report in 1929 recommended a reading-based approach to

foreign language teaching for using in American schools and colleges. This

emphasized teaching the comprehension of texts. Teachers taught from books

containing short reading passages in the foreign language, preceded by lists of

vocabulary. Rapid silent reading was the goal, but in practice teachers often

resorted to discussing the content of the passage in English. Those involved in the

teaching of English as a second language in the United States between the World

War II. It was used either a modified Direct Method approach, a reading-based

approach, or a reading-oral approach (Darian 1972).1

1. Richards, J.C. and Rogers, T.S. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. pp 44-63

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Unlike the approach that was being developed by British applied linguists

during the same period, there was little attempt to treat language content

systematically.

Sentence patterns and grammar were introduced at the whim of the

textbook writer. There was no standardization of the vocabulary or grammar that

was included. Neither was there a consensus on what grammar, sentence

patterns, and vocabulary were most important for beginning, intermediate, or

advanced learners.

But the entry of the United States into World War II had a significant effect

on language teaching in America. To supply the U.S. government with personnel

who were fluent in German, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Malay, and other

languages, and who could work as interpreters, code-room assistants, and

translators, it was necessary to set up a special language training program. The

government commissioned American universities to develop foreign language

programs for military personnel. Thus the Army Specialized Training Program

(ASTP) was established in 1942. Fifty-five American universities were involved in

the program by the beginning of 1943.

The objective of the army programs was for students to attain conversational

proficiency in a variety of foreign languages. Since this was not the goal of

conventional foreign language courses in the United States, new approaches were

necessary. Linguists, such as Leonard Bloomfield at Yale, had already developed

training programs as part of their linguistic research that were designed to give

linguists and anthropologists mastery of American Indian languages and other

languages they were studying. Textbooks did not exist for such languages. The

Technique Bloomfield and his colleagues used was sometimes known as the

"informant method," since it used a native speaker of the language the informant -

who served as a source of phrases and vocabulary and who provided sentences

for imitation, and a linguist, who supervised the learning experience. The linguist

did not necessary know the language but was trained in eliciting the basic structure

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of the language from the informant. Thus the students and the linguist were able to

take part in guided conversation with the informant, and together they gradually

learned how to speak the language, as well as to understand much of its basic

grammar.

Students in such courses studied ten hours a day, six days a week. There

were generally fifteen hours of drill with native speakers and twenty to thirty hours

of private study spread over two to three six-week sessions. This was the system

adopted by the army, and in small classes of mature and highly motivated

students, excellent results were often achieved.

The Army Specialized Training Program lasted only about two years but

attracted considerable attention in the popular press and in the academic

community. For the next ten years the "Army Method" and its suitability for use in

regular language programs was discussed. But the linguists who developed the

ASTP were not interested primarily in language teaching. The "methodology" of the

Army Method, like the Direct Method, derived from the intensity of contact with the

target language rather than from any well-developed methodological basis. It was a

program innovative mainly in terms of the procedures used and the intensity of

teaching rather than in terms of its underlying theory. However, it did convince a

number of prominent linguists of the value of an intensive, oral-based approach to

the learning of a foreign language.

Linguists applied linguists during this period were becoming increasingly

involved in the teaching of English as a foreign language. America had now

emerged as a major international power. There was a growing demand for foreign

expertise in the teaching of English. Thousands of foreign students entered the

United States to study in Universities, and many of these students required training

in English before they could begin their studies. These factors led to the

emergence of the American approach to ESL, which by the mid-fifties had become

Audiolingualism.

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In 1939 the University of Michigan developed the first English Language

Institute in the United States; it specialized in the training of teachers of English as

a foreign language and in teaching English as a second or foreign language.

Charles Fries, director of the institute, was trained in structural linguistic, and

he applied the principles of structural linguistics to language teaching. Fries and his

colleagues rejected approaches like those of the direct Method, in which learners

are exposed to the language, use it, and gradually absorb its grammatical patterns.

For Fries, grammar, or "structure," was the starting point. The structure of the

language was identified with its basic sentence patterns and grammatical

structures. The language was taught by systematic attention to pronunciation and

by intensive oral drilling of its basic sentence patterns. Pattern practice was a basic

classroom technique. "It is these basic patterns that constitute the learner’s task

they require drill, drill, and more drill, and only enough vocabulary to make such

drills possible" (Hockett 1959).

Michigan was not the only university involved in developing courses and

materials for teaching English. A number of other similar programs were

established, some of the earliest being at Georgetown University and American

University, Washington, D.C., and at the University of Texas, Austin. U.S. linguists

were becoming increasingly active, both within the United States and abroad, in

supervising programs for the teaching of English (Moulton 1961).

In 1950 the American Council of Learned Societies, under contract to the

U.S. State Department, was commissioned to develop textbooks for teaching

English to speakers of a wide number of foreign languages. The format linguists

involved in this project followed was known as the "general form". A lesson began

with work on pronunciation, morphology, and grammar, followed by drills and

exercises. The guidelines were published as Structural Notes and Corpus: A Basis

for the Preparation of Materials to Teach English as a Foreign Language

(American Council of Learned Societies 1952). This became an influential

document and together with the "general form" was used as a guide to developing

6

English courses for speakers of ten different languages (the famous Spoken

Language series), published between 1953 and 1956 (Moulton 1961).

In many ways the methodology used by U.S. linguists and language teaching

experts at this period sounded similar to the British Oral Approach, although the

two traditions developed independently.

The American approach differed, however, in its strong alliance with

American structural linguistics and its applied linguistic applications, particularly

contrastive analysis. Fries set forth his principles in Teaching and Learning English

as a Foreign Language (1945 structural systems (i.e., differences between the

grammatical and phonological patterns of the native tongue and the target

language). Contrastive analysis of the two languages would allow potential

problems of interference to be predicted and addressed through carefully prepared

teaching materials. Thus was born a major industry in American applied linguistics

- systematic comparisons of English with other languages, with a view toward

solving the fundamental problems of foreign language learning.

The approach developed by linguists at Michigan and other universities became

known variously as the Oral Approach, the Aural-Oral Approach, and the Structural

Approach. It advocated aural training first, then pronunciation training, followed by

speaking, reading, and writing. Language was identified with speech, and speech

was approached through structure. This approach influenced the way languages

were taught in the United States throughout the fifties. As an approach to the

teaching of English as a foreign language the new orthodoxy was promoted

through the University of Michigan's Journal Language Learning.

This was a period when expertise in linguistics was regarded as a necessary

and sufficient foundation for expertise in language teaching. Not surprisingly, the

classroom materials produced by Fries and linguists at Yale, Cornell, and

elsewhere evidenced considerable Linguistic analysis but very little pedagogy.

They were widely used, however, and the applied linguistic principles on which

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they were based were thought to incorporate the most advanced scientific

approach to language teaching. If there was any learning theory underlying the

Aural-Oral materials, it was a commonsense application of the idea that practice

makes perfect.

There is no explicit reference to then-current learning theory in Fries’ work. It

was the incorporation of the linguistic principles of the Aural- Oral approach with

state-of-the-art psychological learning theory in the mid-fifties that led to the

method that came to be known as Audiolingualism.

The emergence of the Audio-Lingual Method resulted from the increased

attention given to foreign language teaching in the United States toward the end of

the 1950s. The descriptive practices of structural linguist suggest a number of

hypotheses about language learning, and hence about language teaching as well.

For example, since linguists normally described languages beginning with the

phonological level and finishing with the sentence level, it was assumed that this

was also the appropriate sequence for learning and teaching. Out of these various

influences emerged a number of learning principles, which became the

psychological foundations of Audiolingualism and came to shape its

methodological practices. Among the more central are the following:

1. Foreign language learning is basically a process of mechanical habit formation.

Good habits are formed by giving correct responses rather than by making

mistakes. By memorizing dialogues and performing pattern drills the chances of

producing mistakes are minimized. Language is verbal behavior - that is, the

automatic production and comprehension of utterances - and can be learned-by

inducing the students to do likewise.

2. Language skills are learned more effectively if the items to be learned in the

target language are presented in spoken foreign therefore they are written form.

8

Aural-oral training is needed to provide the foundation for the development of other

language skills.

3. Analogy provides a better foundation for language learning than analysis;

analogy involves the processes of generalization, discrimination, explanation of

rules are therefore not given until students have practiced a pattern in a variety of

contexts and are thought to have acquired a perception of the analogies involved.

Drills can enable learners to form correct analogies.

Hence the approach to the teaching of grammar-is essentially inductive rather than

deductive.

4. The meanings that the words of a language have for the native speaker can be

learned only in a linguistic and cultural context and not in isolation. Teaching a

language thus involves teaching aspects of the cultural system of the people who

speak the language (Rivers 1964: 1922).2

In advocating these principles, proponents of Audiolingualism were drawing

on the theory of a well-developed school of American psychology behaviorism: The

prominent Harvard behaviorist B. F. Skinner had elaborated a theory of learning

applicable to language learning in his influential book Verbal Behavior (1957), in

which he stated, "We have no reason to assume that Verbal Behaviorist differs in

any fundamental respect from non-verbal behavior, or that any new principle must

be invoked to account for it" (1957).

2. IBIDEN

9

APPROACHES AND METHODS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Suddenly the whole audio-lingual paradigm was called into question: pattern

practice, drilling, memorization. These might lead to language like behaviors, but

they were not resulting in competence. This created crisis in American language

teaching circles from which a full recovery has not yet been made. Temporary relief

was offered in the form of a theory derived in part from Chomsky - cognitive code

learning.

In 1966 John B. Carroll, a psychologist who had taken a close interest in

foreign language teaching, wrote: The audio-lingual habit theory which is so

prevalent in American foreign language teaching was, perhaps fifteen years ago

in step with the state of psychological thinking of that time, but it is no longer a

breast of recent developments. It is ripe for major revision, particularly in the

direction of joining it with some of the better elements of the cognitive-code

learning theory (Carroll 1966: 105).

This referred to a view of learning that allowed for a conscious focus on

grammar and that acknowledged the role of abstract mental processes in learning

rather than defining learning simply in terms of habit formation. Practice activities

should involve meaningful learning and language use. Learners should be

encouraged to use their innate and creative abilities to derive and make, explicit

the underlying grammatical rules of the language.

For a time in the early seventies there was a considerable interest in the

implication of the cognitive-code theory for language teaching. But no clear-cut

methodological guidelines emerged, nor did any particular method incorporating

this view of learning.

10

The term cognitive-cord is still sometimes invoked to refer to any conscious

attempt to organize materials around a grammatical syllabus while allowing for

meaningful practice and use of language.3

TECHNIQUES OF THE AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD

Since the audio-lingual method aims at teaching the language skills in the

order of listening, speaking, reading and writing, the emphasis in the early years is

on the language as it is spoken in everyday situations, moving at advanced levels

to the more literary forms of expression as the last two skills receive increasing

emphasis. At no stage, however, are the listening and speaking skills neglected.

These are kept at a high level by continual practice and the dialogues are

learned by a process of mimicry-memorization. Students learn the dialogues

sentences by heart one by one. First they listen carefully to the teacher, or a native

model on tape, until they can distinguish the sounds and intonation of the phrase to

be learned. Then they repeat the phrase after the model until they are repeating it

accurately and fluently.

After a dialogue has been learned, adaptations of the dialogue, with a more

personal application to the student’s own situation, provide further consolidation of

learning and give opportunity for more flexible use of the material.

The dialogue sentences being by now very familiar, pattern drills based on

the structures in the dialogues usually become the main activity. Some authors of

audio-lingual texts prefer to develop drills on structures apart from those in the

dialogues, believing in this way they can provide a more logical development of

basic language requirements. Pattern drills are practiced orally first, with a

classroom technique similar to that for dialogues.

_______________________________

3. IBIDEN

11

Choral repetition is followed by small-group practice and then individual

response, with a return to the larger group when the smaller group of the individual

falters. When the student has achieved a certain facility in manipulating a particular

structure, he is given, in some texts, a generalization sets out in organized form

what he has been doing in the drill, rather than acting as a rule telling him what he

should do.

EVALUATION OF THE AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD

The objectives of the audio-lingual method are clearly stated to be the

development of mastery, at various levels of competency, in all four skills

beginning with listening and speaking, and using these as a basis for the teaching

of reading and writing. Paralleling this linguistic aim is the endeavor to develop

understanding of the foreign culture and the foreign people through experience

with their language.

These aims are undoubtedly appropriate in the present age when ability to

sue foreign language actively and to understand people of the other cultures is

thrust upon us, in no matter what country live.

By the techniques we have described, audio-lingualists do achieve success in

developing comprehension and fluency in speaking the foreign language, very

early in the student’s learning experience, although, as they readily admit, this is

within a limited body of language which could be of immediate use for

communication in a foreign-language situation, and he is trained to understand and

produce foreign-language utterances with recognizable and acceptable sound

patterns and at a normal speed of delivery.

Since audio-lingual teaching materials are more scientifically and systematically

designed than most one-author texts, the student spends more time on the

features of the foreign language which contrast with those already familiar to him,

and less time on areas in which his native-language habits cause a minimum of

interference. Student motivation in audio-lingual classes is on the whole, high.

12

Students enjoy learning to use a language from the very first days of their

introduction to it. A successful application of the audio-lingual method requires

inventiveness and resourcefulness on the part of the teacher, who must be

continually alert for opportunities to vary the presentation of material and to force

the students into interesting and intriguing situations where they will feel a

spontaneous desire to express themselves through what they have learned.

Finally, objections have been raised to the advocated time lag between the

presentation of foreign-language material orally and the presentation of the same

material in printed or written form. Some audio-lingual experimenters have

suggested period of as twenty-four weeks of purely oral work before students see

anything in graphic form, although period of from six to ten weeks are more

common.

It is believed that this time lag obviates the interference of native-language habits

of pronunciation associated with the printed symbols where these are the same for

the two languages, and also that it forces the students to concentrate his attention

accurate and thorough learning of the foreign language material.

The audio-lingual method makes considerable demands upon the teacher. It

demands of him a near-native articulation and intonation if he is to model

utterances for the students. The method calls for considerable energy is the

teacher is to keep oral practice moving smartly, and imagination and enterprise in

using persons and situations in the classroom if foreign-language material is to

acquire reality and relevance. It also demands of the teacher careful preparation

and organization of material.

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Some teachers have hesitated to adopt the audio-lingual method because

they fear it may not train students in four languages skills; others have accused

teachers using the method of producing languages illiterates. These teachers are

therefore waiting for experimental evidence of the efficacy of the audio-lingual

method, before they are willing to adopt it themselves and the effectiveness of any

method in a particular situation is a function of the actual classroom performance of

the individual teacher.4

4 Wilga M. Rivers, Teaching Foreign Language Skills. pp. 37

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3. JUSTIFICATION

This research intends to find out and study the contributions of the Audio-

Lingual Method regarding the listening and speaking skills in the 7th grade students

at Centro Escolar Salarrue in San Rafael, Chalatenango. Different instruments

such as class observation check list, interview and surveys will be carried out or

submitted in order to get the required data to find out the effectiveness and

contributions of the Audio-lingual Method in the teaching-learning of English in the

students.

To carry out this research project is not only important, but necessary in order

to contribute to a better and more effective teaching learning process of the English

language in the Salvadoran Educational System. The authors of this research

consider, based on their own and other peers’ experience, that English students,

not only in most public schools but also in some private ones, do not achieve the

standards set up by the Salvadoran Ministry of Education (MINED) regarding the

command of the English language at different levels. For example, students who

finish 7 th grade do not show the command of the English language required by the

MINED at that stage regarding the listening skill, and they do not handle short

conversations that involve the contents they are supposed to master at the end of

seventh grade the way they are expected to.

This situation could be due to some factors that affect the learning process,

one of them is the teacher. The profile of the English teacher is crucial in the

process of learning the English language: His/her knowledge, communication

skills in English and teaching skills positively or negatively affect the learning

process in the students. The teacher`s methodology and performance is so

important since his or her pronunciation, fluency. accent, lexicon, syntax must be a

model for his/ her students, so wrong modeling of such aspects of the language he

/she teaches will result in deficient acquisition of the English language by the

students.

15

The students` attitude especially regarding motivation, towards the English

class is also another important element in the teaching learning process of the

language; Audio lingual method helps students to improve listening and speaking

skills if they have the opportunity to listen different tapes good pronunciation from

the teacher, and they build and practice dialogues with the new vocabulary, these

motivate them to practice the new language. how much motivated the students are

towards learning will result in the students` better proficiency of English; if they do

not care about learning or are not committed to it, the results will be poor.

The teaching resource the school counts is also important because the

teacher must be provided with appropriate and updated resources to do his job.

Up-to- date English text books, flashcards, language laboratory, computers,

internet, CD players and others are so necessary nowadays for better

achievements in the teaching of languages. Last, but not least is the classroom

environment. Having classes in a well ventilated, illuminated and located

classroom is important for the teaching-learning of any subject matter.

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4. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Nowadays, English is one of the most important spoken languages not only in

our country but also all over the world. In El Salvador, English is mandatory due to

the fact that in working places and companies (Call Centers, Hotels, Airline

Companies, etc.) demand that employees have certain command of English in

order to communicate properly or perform well at work. But then, a question arises:

Are public Salvadoran schools devising the appropriate teaching methods, and are

these methods such as the audio-lingual one contributing to achieve the expected

results, especially in listening and speaking?

There are a lot of reasons why in public schools students do not achieve the

goals of the MINED, in listening and speaking skills in English. One of these

reasons is because English classes in most of the public schools are not taught in

English at all. Then Students do not acquire enough vocabulary to express

themselves in the target language. Another reason is the personal motivation of the

students; they do not feel motivated to speak English either in class or outside the

classroom. They feel afraid to make mistakes at the moment of doing it. To awaken

students’ motivation, teachers must be motivated too, so that they will awake

students` motivation as well.

The English teacher’s teaching style and attitude is also important. If he/she

teaches his/her classes providing all explanations in Spanish instead of in English

like it happens in most of the Salvadoran public schools, students have very little

chances to acquire the lexicon to express themselves in English. Not having the

necessary resources such as CD players, a good language laboratory and if the

teacher is not a good model when teaching his/her classes will not facilitate the

acquisition and improvement of the students’ listening and speaking skills.

As a result, students show a low level in English language command

(especially in the oral and listening skills) compared with the level the MINED

wants to achieve in students of seventh grade.

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The Audio-lingual Method helps students to get a better command of listening

and oral expression because it gives them the chance to practice the new

language (English). The acquisition of rich vocabulary is very important in this

method so they can handle short conversations during exposure. but the problem

is that in many public schools teachers do not count with the necessary resources

such as CD players, TV. Flashcards, text books, posters, DVDs, etc. that can help

to improve the acquisition of the new language and in other cases the teacher is

not specialized in teaching English he/she does not have any idea of how to

implement methods that he/she does not even know about.

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5. FINDINGS AND LIMITATIONS

The Audio-Lingual Method, like the Direct Method, has a goal very different from

that of the Grammar-Translation Method. The Audio-Lingual Method was developed

in the United States during World War II. At that time there was a need for people to

learn foreign languages rapidly for military purposes.

As we have seen, the Grammar-Translation Method did not prepare people to

use the target language. While communication in the target language was the goal of

the Direct Method, there were at the time exciting new ideas about language and

learning emanating (produce or show) from the disciplines of descriptive linguistics

and behavioral psychology. These ideas led to the development of the Audio-Lingual

Method. Some of the principles are similar to those of the Direct Method, but many

are different, having been based upon conceptions of language and learning from

these two disciplines.

Theory of language

The theory of language underlying Audiolingualism was derived from a view

proposed by American linguists in the 1950s - a view that came to be known as

structural linguistics. Linguistics had emerged as a flourishing academic discipline in

the 1950s, and the structural theory of language constituted its backbone. Structural

linguistics had developed in part as a reaction to traditional grammar.

Some nineteenth-century language scholars had viewed modern European

languages as corruptions of classical grammar, and languages from other parts of

the world were viewed as primitive and underdeveloped.es from other parts of the

world were viewed as primitive and underdeveloped

By the 1930s, the scientific approach to the study of language was thought

to consist of collecting examples of what speakers said and analyzing them

according to different levels of structural organization rather than according to

19

categories of Latin grammar. In 1961 the American linguist William Moulton, in a

report prepared for the 9th International Congress of Linguists, proclaimed the

linguistic principles on which language teaching methodology should be based:

1. Language is speech, not writing.

2. Language is a set of habits.

3. Teach the language, not about the language.

4. Language is what its native speaker’s say, not what someone thinks they

ought to say.

5. Languages are different (quoted in Rivers 1964: 5).

But a method cannot be based simply on a theory of language. It also needs

to refer to the psychology of learning and to learning theory. It is this aspect of

Audiolingualism that we now turn.

The Audio-Lingual Method is focused to develop students speaking and

listening skills to acquire the foreign language they are learning by grabbing

vocabulary which they have memorize and shape a new knowledge for

communicating among them.

Many researchers have given their own point of view about this method. For

Jeremy Harmer Audio-Lingualism owed its existence to the Behaviourist models of

learning using the Stimulus-Response-Reinforcement model, it attempted, through

a continuous process positive reinforcement, to engender good habits in language

learners. Students are shielded from the possibility of making mistakes by the

design of the drill. Indeed Audio-lingual methodology seems to banish all forms of

language processing that help students sort out new language information in their

minds.5

5. Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman. Third Edition. P. 79

20

Later, H. Douglas Brown mentions: the success of the Army Method revived

national interest in foreign languages spurred educational institutions to adopt the

new methodology. The Audio-Lingual Method ALM) was firmly grounded in

linguistic and psychological theory. Structural linguists of the 1940s and 1950s

were engaged in what they claimed was a ´´scientific descriptive analysis´´ of

various language; teaching methodologists saw a direct application of such

analysis to teaching linguistic patterns [Fries 1954]. At the same time, behaviorist

psychologists advocated conditioning and habit-formation models of learning.

Materials were carefully prepared, tested, and disseminated to educational

institutions. ´´Success´´ could be overtly experienced by students as they practice

their dialogues in off-hours. But challenged by Wilga Rivers ´s 1954 eloquent

criticism of the misconceptions of the ALM and by its ultimate failure to teach long-

term communicative profiency, ALM´s popularity. She discovered that language

was not really acquired through a process of habit formation and overlearning, that

errors were not necessarily to be avoided and the structural linguistics did not tell

us everything about language that we need to know.

The age of audiolingualism, with its emphasis on surface forms and on the

rote practice of scientifically produced patterns, began to wane when the

Chomskyan revolution in linguistics turned linguist and language teachers toward

the ´´deep structure´´ of language. Increasing interest in generative

transformational grammar and focused attention on the ruled-governed nature of

language. Arguing that the children subconsciously acquire a system of rules,

proponents of a cognitive code learning.

Cognitive code learning was not so much a method as it was an approach

that emphasized a conscious awareness of rules and their applications to second

language learning.6

6 H. Douglas Brown. Teaching by Principles an Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy.

21

In the late 1950s, the theoretical underpinnings of the method were

questioned by linguists such as Noam Chomsky, who pointed out the limitations of

structural linguistics. The relevance of behaviorist psychology to language learning

was also questioned, most famously by Chomsky's review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal

Behavior in 1959. The audio-lingual method was thus deprived of its scientific

credibility and it was only a matter of time before the effectiveness of the method

itself was questioned.

In 1964, Wilga Rivers released a critique of the method in her book, “The

Psychologist and the Foreign Language Teacher. “ Subsequent research by

others, inspired by her book, produced results which showed explicit grammatical

instruction in the mother language to be more productive.[citation needed] These

developments, coupled with the emergence of humanist pedagogy led to a rapid

decline in the popularity of audiolingualism

Philip Smith's study from 1965-1969, termed the Pennsylvania Project,

provided significant proof that audio-lingual methods were less effective than a

more traditional cognitive approach involving the learner's first language.

One methodology that makes more emphasis in sounds and practice and

speaking is “The Audio-lingual Method”, which refers how students can learn

practicing reading different materials. This method emerges as a regulated form to

increase the attention given a foreign language teaching in the United States

toward the 1950´s but that started to be implemented when the United Stated

came into World War II because it was necessary to have specialized personnel in

translating different languages and codes into English.

The Americans thought that “Language is primarily speech in Audio-lingual

theory, but speaking skills are themselves dependent on ability to accurately

perceive and produce the major phonological features of the target language,

fluency in the use of the key grammatical patterns in the language, and knowledge

of enough vocabulary to use with these patterns”.

22

This methodology is based in the belief that students must develop and

acquire habits through pronunciation and phrases, repetition drills and then

practicing with sentences until they are able to produce the correct sound

automatically. The method makes emphasis also on the reading of small

paragraphs but before reading it, it is important to have passed through the

pronunciation side because both parts are going together, listening in the target

language is fundamental to acquire practice and have the knowledge to pronounce

when reading with no fear to make any mistake.

This kind of methodology can be applied when teachers want to make

students to practice good habits, memorizing some paragraphs and speaking

without any fear, acting like this, students will have more opportunities for success

without making any mistakes

23

6. CONCEPTS AND CATEGORIES

EDUCATION is a collection of previous learning experiences which causes

several effects reflected on students’ behaviour.7 An important stage to achieve the

educational process is a PUBLIC SCHOOL that is a place where formal instruction

is given and where students can get their knowledge in a gradual form. Then, a

public school puts in practice these two processes teaching and learning.

TEACHING is guiding and facilitating learning to the learners and LEARNING is

acquiring or getting knowledge of a subject or skill by study or experience. Among

the direct agents to develop the learning process, it is found the ENGLISH

TEACHER who has studied at the university for three years and is certificated by

MINED (Ministerio de Educacion) to teach English as a foreign language.

Another direct agent in the process is the ENGLISH STUDENTS who have

studied at school and are taking an English subject as a foreign language.

BEGINNERS LEARNERS are those who have little or no prior knowledge of the

target language. INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS students who have progressed

beyond stages to an ability to sustain basic communicative tasks, to establish

some minimal fluency, to deal with a few unrehearsed situations ADVANCE

LEARNERS they already know a lot of English students move up the

developmental ladder, getting closer and closer to their goal, developing fluency

along with a greater degree of accuracy, able to handle virtually any situation in

which target language is demanded.

7. Harmer, Jeremy. (2001). The Practice of English language teaching. England, Pearson education Limited

24

LANGUAGE is a system of communicating ideas or feeling by the use of

conventionalized signs, sounds or gestures. It is an important tool for students who

are learning a second language.8 FOREING LANGUAGE LEARNING means to

acquire basic skills of any language (listening, speaking, reading, and writing). So,

an ENGLISH CLASS is a subject. And it is a stage where students can acquire

these skills, and where teachers can use different types of methods to develop the

students`abilities to get a foreign language.

METHODOLOGY is the study of the pedagogical practices; it is a theoretical

research that can be found in all kind of books, magazines, and Internet. Besides,

a methodology is also considered by activities that students do, and the resources

that the teachers could apply in an English class.

ACTIVITY is the process of acting or doing something to perform the

learning in English students; so that, they can be used in an English class to get

the acquisition of a second language, and resources are tools that can help,

support or supply in an English class to improve the students ‘abilities.

TECHNIQUE any of wide variety of exercises, activities or tasks used in the

language classroom for realizing lesson objectives. DRILL type of repetition

commonly done chorally or individually

8. Hadley, Alice Omaggio. (2001) Teaching Language in Context, Third edition. University of Illinois at Urbana

Champaign.

25

METHOD is a way to do something and it is a procedural practice that

teachers can use in an English class to develop the students`abilities of a foreign

language. AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD called Army Method is a style of teaching

used in teaching foreign languages. It based on behaviorist theory, which

professes that certain traits of living things, and in this case humans would be

trained through a system or reinforcement correct use of a trait would receive

positive feedback while incorrect use of that trait would receive negative feedback.

SKILL proficiency, facility, or dexterity that is acquired or develops through training

or experience ORAL COMMUNICATION is a way to facilitate the understanding

between two or more people ORAL EXPRESSION is a way to know abilities,

informative or academic level experiences.9

STRATEGY is a plan to coordinate the action, and the need of getting a

good result.10 it is understood that strategy is the way how to use a group of

resources to obtain better results.

CURRICULUM refers to a set of competences, objectives, content,

methodology and evaluation criteria that students must obtain a certain educational

level. In general, the curriculum responds to the questions what to teach? How to

teach? When teaching and what, how and when to evaluate? The curriculum in the

educational sense is the design that allows planning academic activities.11

9. Brown, Douglas H. (1994). Principle of Language learning and Teaching, third edition. United state of

America, Prentice Hall Regents.

10. Diccionario Enciclopédico de Educación Editorial CEAC 2003, Barcelona (España) p.94

11. IBIDEN

26

II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK.

7. METHODOLOGICAL AND THEORETICAL FUNDAMENTATION

The Audio-lingual Method is derived from "The Army Method," so called

because it was developed through a U.S. Army program devised after World War II

to produce speakers proficient in the languages of friend and foes. In this method,

grounded in the habit formation model of behaviourist psychology and on a

Structural Linguistic theory of language, the emphasis was on memorization

through pattern drills and conversation practices rather than promoting

communicative ability.

WHAT IS AUDIOLINGUAL METHOD?

Based on the bibliography and on-line research it can be said that

the Audio-lingual Method or Army Method (ALM) is a style of teaching used in

teaching foreign languages. It is based on the behaviorist theory, which professes

that certain traits of living things, in this case humans could be trained through a

system of reinforcement—correct use of a trait would receive positive feedback

while incorrect use of that trait would receive negative feedback12.

This approach to language learning was similar to another earlier method called

the direct method. Like the Direct Method, the Audio-lingual Method advised that

students be taught a language directly, without using the students' native language

to explain new words or grammar in the target language. However, unlike the direct

method, the Audio-lingual Method didn’t focus on teaching vocabulary Rather, the

teacher drilled students in the use of grammar.

______________________________

12. IBIDEN

27

Applied to language instruction, and often within the context of the language

lab, this means that the instructor would present the correct model of a sentence

and the students would have to repeat it. The teacher would then continue by

presenting new words for the students to sample in the same structure. In audio-

lingualism, there is no explicit grammar instruction—everything is simply

memorized in form. The idea is for the students to practice the particular construct

until they can use it spontaneously.

In this manner, the lessons are built on static drills in which the students

have little or no control on their own output; the teacher is expecting a particular

response and not providing that will result in a student receiving negative feedback.

This type of activity, for the foundation of language learning, is in direct opposition

with communicative language teaching.

In the early 60s the audio-lingual method had raised hopes of ushering in a

new age of language learning and teaching. Its major contributions are evident.

First, it recommended the development of a language teaching theory on the basis

of linguistic and psychological principles. Second, it attempted to make possible

language teaching to large numbers of ordinary learners outside the classroom.

Third, it stressed syntax while previous methods had only been preoccupied with

vocabulary and morphology. Fourth, it led to the development of simple teaching

techniques; lastly, it separated the language skills for teaching purposes.

28

The Audio-lingual Method has important principles which allow students to develop

the oral expression and listening skill, these principles are:13

The native language and the target language have separate linguistic

systems. They should be kept apart so that the students' native language

interferes as little as possible with the students' attempts to acquire the

target language.

One of the language teacher's major roles is that of a model of the target

language. Teachers should provide students with a native-speaker-like

model. By listening to how it is supposed to sound, students should be able

to mimic the model.

Language learning is a process of habit formation. The more often

something is repeated, the stronger the habit and the greater the learning

(The students repeat each line of the new dialogue several times).

The purpose of language learning is to learn how to use the language to

communicate (The teacher initiates a chain drill in which each student

greets another).

Positive reinforcement helps the students to develop correct habits (The

teacher says, "Very good," when the students answer correctly).

The major objective of language students should learn to respond to both

verbal and nonverbal stimuli (The teacher uses spoken cues and picture

cues).

Each language has a finite number of patterns. Pattern practice helps

students to form habits which enable the students to use the patterns.

________________________________

13. IBIDEN

29

Students should "over learn," i.e., learn to answer automatically without

stopping to think.

The teacher should be like an orchestra leader-conducting, guiding, and

controlling the students' behavior in the target language.

The major objective of language teaching should be for students to

acquire the structural patterns. New vocabulary is introduced through lines

of the dialogue; vocabulary is limited.

It is important to prevent learners from making errors. Errors lead to the

formation of bad habits. When errors occur, they should be immediately

corrected by the teacher.

Here are some characteristics of the Audio-lingual method

New materials are presented in dialogue form. There is dependence on

mimicry, memorization of set phrases and over-learning. Also Structures are

sequenced by means of contrastive analysis and taught one at a time. The

Structural patterns are taught using repetitive drills. There is little or no grammatical

explanation. Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context. There is much

use of tapes, language labs, and visual aids. Great importance is attached to

pronunciation.

Very little use of the mother tongue by teachers is permitted. Successful responses

are immediately reinforced. And there is a great effort to get students to produce

error-free utterances.14

______________________________________

14Brown H. Douglas, Teaching by principles, an Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, Second Edition, Longman, 2001

30

The first one is Dialogue Memorization. In this technique Students memorize

an opening dialogue using mimicry and applied role-playing. The second one is

Backward Build-up in this technique the teacher breaks a line into several parts,

students repeat each part starting at the end of the sentence and "expanding"

backwards through the sentence, adding each part in sequence.

The third technique is Repetition Drill and in this technique students repeat

teacher's model as quickly and accurately as possible. The fourth technique is

Chain Drill, in this technique students ask and answer each other one-by-one in a

circular chain around the classroom. The fifth technique is Single Slot Substitution

Drill, in this technique the teacher states a line from the dialog, and then uses a

word or a phrase as a "cue" that students, when repeating the line, must substitute

into the sentence in the correct place. The sixth technique is Multiple-slot

Substitution Drill; this technique is almost the same as the Single Slot drill, except

that here there are multiple cues to be substituted into the line.

The seventh technique of the Audio-lingual Method is Transformation Drill,

in this technique the teacher provides a sentence that must be turned into

something else, for example a question to be turned into a statement, an active

sentence to be turned into a negative statement, etc. The eighth technique is

Question-and-answer Drill, in this technique students should answer or ask

questions very quickly.

Finally, the technique of Minimal Pairs; in this technique is used

contrastive analysis, teacher selects a pair of words that sound identical except for

a single sound that typically poses difficulty for the learners - students to

pronounce and differentiate the two words15.

________________________________

15. IBIDEN

31

Complete the Dialog is another technique in which the teacher erases

selected words from a line in the dialogue; students must find those words and

insert them in the dialogue, and the last technique is Grammar Games, various

games designed to practice a grammar point in context, using lots of repetition.

The Audio-lingual method intends to develop the oral and listening

proficiency. For Wilga M. Rivers, language was not acquired through a process of

habit formation and that structural linguistics did not tell us everything about

language; But something from the very failure of the Audio-lingual method was

learned “cognitive code learning”.

It was not so much a method as it was an approach that emphasized a

conscious awareness of rules and their applications to second language learning.

Douglas H. Brown, variations and adaptations such as: ground in linguistic and

psychological theory, behaviourist psychologists and the interest in educational

institutions to adopt the new methodology.16 According to Jeremy Harmer when

behaviourist accounts of language learning became popular in the 1920s and

1930s, the Direct method morphed, especially in the USA, into the Audiolingual

method. In the behaviourist theory, conditioning is the result of a three-stage

procedure: stimulus, response and reinforcement, the influence of behaviourism

was and is directly responsible for audiolingualism, with its heavily emphasis on

drilling.17

________________________________

16 Brown H. Douglas, Teaching by principles, an Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, Second Edition, Longman, 2001.

17 The Practice of English Language Teaching Third Edition Pearson Education 2001.

32

For JACK C. RICHARDS and THEODORE S. RODGERS. The Audio-

lingual method is based in the belief that students must develop and acquire habits

through pronunciation and phrases, repetition drills and then practicing with

sentences until they are able to produce the correct sound.18

Charles Fries, the director of the English Language Institute at the University

of Michigan, believed that learning structure or grammar was the starting point for

the student. According to him it was the students’ job to orally recite the basic

sentence patterns and grammatical structures. Noam Chomsky questioned the

theoretical underpinnings of the method, and pointed out the limitations

of structural linguistics. The relevance of behaviorist psychology to language

learning was also questioned, by him. The audio-lingual method was thus deprived

of its scientific credibility and it was only a matter of time before the effectiveness of

the method itself was questioned.

Wilga Rivers critiqued the Audio-lingual method in her book, “The Psychologist

and the Foreign Language Teacher. “ Subsequent research by others, inspired by her

book, in this book she sowed explicit grammatical instruction in the mother language

to be more productive. These developments, coupled with the emergence

of humanist pedagogy led to a rapid decline in the popularity of audiolingualism.19

Philip Smith’s, provided significant proof in the Pennsylvania project that audio-lingual

methods were less effective than a more traditional cognitive approach involving the

learner's first language.

_________________________

18 Richards, Jack, C.; Rodgers, Theodore S., (1995) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching´ Cambridge University.

19Teaching Foreign Language Skills.

33

Although time has gone still, there are reasons why the method is popular,

and perhaps even appropriate in certain educational contexts. In countries where

one of the prime objectives of learning English is to take and achieve successful

results in a variety of tests, and where many learners are not intrinsically motivated

to learn English but do so because they feel they have to, the method is not without

merits.

Teacher of any discipline is to actively create and there are ways in which

the practice involved in the Audio-lingual Method can be applied to approaches

that have a bigger picture in mind. Audio-lingual-based drills can be adapted and

used in combination with effective error correction techniques to create an

approach that is sensitive to affective factors, and can be followed up with

techniques designed to create more independent experimentation and application.

Based on the investigation some contributions of the Audio-lingual Method

are:

Students acquire the oral expression in English through the repetition drills.

They understand easy commands.

The use of records helps the students in the development of listening skills

Visual aids facilities the acquisition of the new vocabulary and students understand

in a better way.

Mistakes are corrected immediately.

Activities like: dialogue memorization, repetitions drill, chain drill, transformation

drill, question and answer drill, help to devise the class in an effective way.

34

8. EMPIRICAL FRAMEWORK

8.1 MONOGRAPH

I. Geographic facts

a. Department: Chalatenango

b. Municipality: Dulce Nombre de Maria

c. Ruling Political Party: PCN

d. Number of cities: 14 cantones and 15 hamlets

e. Population: 4,264 inhabitants

II. Historical Data:

The Municipality of Dulce Nombre de Maria in San Rafael, Chalatenango

according to Antonio Gutierrez y Ulloa, in 1807 there was a Ladino village called

´´Grande or Llano Grande´´ 20 acres of fertile land. It was one of the main farms of

Chalatenango and it was owned by the Orellana family.

During the administration of Rafael Zaldivar by Legislative Decree 31 of

January 1881; it was erected in town with the name of San Rafael the ancient

village of Grande or Llano Grande and the valley of Desemparados, Morritos and

Ojo de Agua were incorporate into the new Municipality Dulce Nombre de Maria

Jurisdiction, Tejutla district.

Other cantones such as Tobias, Rastro, Chilamates and Las Flores that

belonged to Santa Rita were incorporated by a Legislative decree on May, 12,

1902, but later in April 28th, 1903 such as cantones were incorporated back to

Santa Rita. The district of Tejutla was incorporated to Dulce Nombre de Maria by

Law on June 15th, 1919. Even since its very foundation Dulce Nombre de Maria

has belonged to the municipality of Chalatenango.

35

III. Demography:

Dulce Nombre de Maria is a municipality located in San Rafael, Chalatenango.

Its area is 23.72 square kilometers and its population is 4,264 inhabitants. Dulce

Nombre de Maria is divided into 14 cantones and 15 hamlets. Cantons: Los

Desamparados, Ojos de Agua, San Antonio Buena Vista and San Jose los Sitios.

Hamlets: Los Desamparados, Los Guardado, El Palo Verde, Ojos de Agua, San

Jose Ojos de Agua, Las Parvitas, Los Alarcon, San Antonio Buena Vista, San Jose

los Sitios, El Morrito Nuevo, El Morrito Viejo, Los Vados, La Gloria and El Morrito.

IV. Hydrography

The Hydrography of the municipality of Dulce Nombre de Maria, includes the

rivers: El Potrero or La Canoa and Las Minas; the streams: Ojushte, El Achiotal, El

Limon, La Calera and Chinta.

V. Geography:

Dulce Nombre de Maria borders to the North with San Francisco Morazan, to

the East with Santa Rita and El Paraiso, to the South with the Cerron Grande dam.

36

VI. Economic and social structure, according to access to service:

1. Basic services:

A) Electricity

B) Water

C) Paving

D) Garbage collector

E) Telephone

2. Local resources

A) Parks and squares

B) Government offices

C) Post office

D) Sport fields

3. Indicators of Education Services:

1. Public Schools:

A) Centro Escolar “Salarrue”

B) Centro Escolar “Las Brisas”

C) Centro Escolar “Las Deras”

D) Centro Escolar “San Antonio Buena Vista”

E) Centro Escolar “Canton Ojos de Agua”

F) Centro Escolar “Canton Los Guardados”

G) Centro Escolar “Canton Los Sitios”

H) Instituto Nacional de San Rafael

37

4. Clinics:

1. Clinica San Jose

2. Clinica Medica San Rafael

5. Drugstores:

1. Nueva Guadalupe

2. Gavidia

3. San Jose.

8.2 DESCRIPTION OF THE SCHOOL

This research will be carried out at the Salarrué School located in San

Rafael, Chalatenango. This school´s teacher staff consists of 24 teachers, and 505

students attend classes. The school´s infrastructure consists of three buildings,

one has 4 classrooms, another one has three classrooms and the last one has two

classrooms. These classrooms are big and clean enough for students to have

their classes. Also they are adequately decorated and illuminated to stimulate

student’s learning.

In this school students attend classes in two different shifts: the morning

shift from 7:00 am to 12:00 m. and the afternoon shift from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm.

This school has a vision and mission to provide the students with significative

learning and education.

Mision: Salarrue School is an educative institution that provides its

community with integral education. We prepare our students so that they achieve

levels of excellence, and we teach them to live under moral values, protect the

environment and practice sports. Vision: The vision of Salarrue School is framed

in the idea of integral academic formation, the practice of moral values as well as

sports, the updating of technological advances without putting aside the protection

38

of our environment, all this in order to achieve high quality education to guide our

community towards living a useful life in our society.

Salarrue School has a population of 505 students. From Pre-School to 6th

grade there are 338 students, from 7th to 9th there are 167. The school counts on a

teacher staff as twenty four teachers, but only one teacher teaches English as a

Foreign Language. The English classes in the morning shift are taught 3 hours per

week.

8.2.1 Description of the Course

In order to develop the research “Contributions of the Audio-lingual teaching

method for speaking and listening skills in English in seventh grade in Centro

Escolar Salarrue, San Rafael, Chalatenango, 2010-2012”, it was necessary to

follow a process to obtain all the possible information to support everything related

to the contributions of the Audio-lingual method. In that way, there are different

elements that are shown to understand their own importance and the relation

among each of them. It is important to mention that every single element is a

complement of all, as a learning process that is determined by the efficacy or good

function of their parts. Each element in the process has given the research a big

support. These elements are: the teacher, the students and didactic resources.

In the following paragraph, it will be developed in detail a deep description of the

main factors that constitute the empirical framework.

THE TEACHER

A teacher is responsible for providing an educational atmosphere where

students have the opportunity to fulfill their potential for emotional, intellectual,

physical, spiritual and psychological growth. This person is responsible for

organizing and implementing an instructional program that will result in students

39

achieving academic success. In this case, the responsible in charge the English

teacher.

The English teacher teaches English classes from seventh grade to nineth

grade. He is not specialized in the English field. His specialty is Social Studies but

up to now he only teaches English at the school. He has been teaching English for

9 years there. He masters English only at basic level, but he has received training

from others teachers that teach English in others schools.

THE STUDENTS

In the English class of seventh grade there are 35 students. They are

around thirteen and seventeen years old. Not all of them live near the Salarrue

School. Their families live on money their relatives send them from the U.S.A.

Some of the students work in the market, others in the farm with their parents in

their free time. Students show different behaviors during the English class. Some

of them pay attention to the class, but other students do not, they speak during the

class, when they are bored they start to do other activities such as: write massages

on pieces of paper, do homework of other subjects or only draw on a piece of

paper. This clearly indicates that do not enjoy the English class, or at least that

they are not motivated.

DIDACTIC RESOURCES

During the development of the class, the teacher uses an English book in

order to have a consistent guide to use his teaching performing and his students´

learning.

40

BOOK

For the seventh grade English class at Salarrue School, the students as well

as the teacher count on the textbook named: “Welcome to the English

Language”. The book is made of 6 units and each unit has four lessons each of

which starts with a listening practice, there are exercises regarding the listening

practice to check understanding. Then there is the grammar part and new

vocabulary introduction and at the end of each lesson there is a song. From

lessons two to six a reading part is included, there are reading selections that

students read and translate into Spanish on their notebooks.

Finally, at the end of the book there is a Mini-Bilingual Dictionary where

students find the meaning of words they found in the lessons. The Welcome to the

English Language book has the characteristics of the new communicative

curriculum that means it is significant, integrative, cooperative, efficient and

flexible.

8.3 CLASS DESCRIPTION

The English course in seventh grade at the Salarrue School in the years

2010-2011 is taught 3 hours per week in the following schedule: Mondays from

9:00 to 9:45 a.m., Tuesdays from 8:00 to 8:45 am, and Thursdays from 10:30 to

11:15 am. He uses textbooks to teach his classes in 7th grade. The book has 6

units, the first one and, the fifth units have 4 contents, and the second and the sixth

have 3 contents and the third and fourth have 5 contents.

He starts the English class greeting students, writing the date and asking

students feelings in English. Only some students answer him. The teacher accepts

the answer of the students although they have grammatical mistakes or incorrect

pronunciation.

After that, he gives the number of page of the book they are going to work in

class. Then he only teaches a little about the topic they are working on, write two or

three sentences as examples and says the new vocabulary once, and then he asks

41

the students to work with the exercises in the book. Students work in different type

of exercises, for example, they complete grammar exercises, look for meaning in

Spanish of new vocabulary, or they translate readings from the book using their

dictionaries.

They work listening exercises from the book with the teacher in the class

and they cannot practice these listening exercises at home because they do not

have their own CD for the book only the teacher does.

In every class the teacher speaks English and Spanish. For explanation he

speaks in Spanish so that it is easier for the students to understand; he uses

English only to introduce the vocabulary and dialogues or to read from the book.

He explains the topic only once and he asks if there are questions and only in

some cases he answers them or clarifies doubts.

To assess the student´s learning or progress the teacher considers dialogue

memorization and written tests. He reinforces students the acquired knowledge

and vocabulary taught in class; he also provides students with exercises to put into

practice the new grammatical patterns he has already explained.

He gives written quizzes once per month, but in these quizzes he does not

include listening exercises. He administers written tests every three months,

once for each term of the school year. He uses different evaluation techniques:

matching, multiple choice, true and false, filling-the-gap exercises; etc. Only in one

of the three tests the teacher administers he includes listening exercises.

It has been observed that the degree of application of the listening and

speaking skills in the students is very poor. So, the Audio-lingual method is not

being devised totally. Some techniques used in class are focused in grammar

translation consequently; students have little chance to focus on the practice of oral

and listening skills. In evaluations, the teacher rarely includes listening and oral

practice in his tests. Evaluations are centered in the written skill.

42

8.4 TECHNICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FORMS

To accomplish the goals of this research it was necessary to follow a

process. Some elements used in this process were: Classroom observation check

list, teacher’s interview and student’s survey. These elements are going to help to

know the contributions of the Audio-lingual Method.

The classroom-observation check list was a very important element in this

research; the observation was done in English classes from seventh grade at

Salarrue School, Mondays from 9:00 to 9:45 a.m., Tuesdays from 8:00 to 8:45 am,

and Thursdays from 10:30 to 11:15 am. The purpose of the class observation was

to find out if the teacher used the Audio-lingual method in his classes also if the

students practiced listening and speaking skills in class.

According to the English Syllabus by the MINED students at the end of

seventh grade in listening skill have to understand occasional isolated words, such

as cognates, borrowed words, and high-frequency social conventions. And in oral

skill they have to be able to produce isolated words and perhaps a few high-

frequency phrases and have developed certain communicative ability.

8.5 DIAGNOSING THE ELEMENTS OF THE AUDIO-LINGUALMETHOD

In order to find out if the Audio-lingual is devised in the English class in

seventh grade at the Salarrue School, the researchers observed different classes

and used a classroom-observation check list. The list contains eleven items to

identify such method as follow.

43

Classroom observation check list: Criterial Items for the Audio-lingual Method

School: Centro Escolar Salarrue

Teacher: Grade: 7th

Objective: Identify elements or traces of the Audio-lingual Method in English class

of 7th grade at the Salarrue School.

Criterial Check list

Yes

No

Sometimes

Rarely

Dialogues are normally memorized. X

Teacher breaks a line into several parts,

students repeat each part starting at the

end of the sentence.

X

Students repeat teacher's model as

quickly and accurately as possible.

X

Students ask and answer each other one-

by-one in a circular chain around the

classroom.

X

Students substitute a word or a phrase as

a "cue" into a sentence in the correct

place.

X

Students answer or ask questions quickly X

The teacher states a line from the

dialogue, and then uses a word or a

phrase as a "cue" that students, when

repeating the line, must substitute into the

sentence in the correct place

X

Teacher provides sentences that must be

turned into any kind of a sentence. X

44

Students identify words with the same

pronunciation when they listen to them. X

Students complete dialogues. X

Practice a grammar point in context, using

lots of repetition.

X

It has been observed that the teacher of seventh grade rarely uses in the

English class the techniques of the Audio-lingual method for example: dialogue

memorization, chain drill, repetition drill. It is very difficult for students to identify

new vocabulary; Students do not answer or ask questions quickly. They almost

never memorize all the dialogues that the book has, and only sometimes the

teacher works with supplementary exercises. If the teacher used all the activities

that the Audio-lingual method requires, students could improve their oral and

listening skills in the foreign language. The fact that students only have one hour

per class can affect their learning because they only practice English in the class.

The Audio-lingual method demands for oral and listening exercises because

these are the two skills in which Audio-lingual method is focused. Exercises such

as: practicing and memorizing dialogues, repetition drills, completing exercises with

clue words dictated by the teacher or listening from a CD player, help students to

improve their oral and listening skills.

To have better results in student´s oral and listening skills, it is important that

the teacher uses activities focus in Audio-lingual method, repetition and

memorization because in this way students will practice the pronunciation of the

words. Chain Drill, in this activity students practice oral skill and they feel less

afraid of being wrong. The pronunciation in English of the teacher is very important

because students listen to him to acquire the new vocabulary.

The researchers have found out that the teacher knows very little about the

Audio-lingual method, for that reason he rarely uses techniques of the method and

this could be because the teacher’s specialty is not English is Social Studies. He

45

allows students to work in different activities in class ignoring which method he is

using, He does not correct students´ mistakes, and he just ignores them.

8.6 DESCRIPTION OF THE INSTRUMENTS USES IN THE RESEARCH

After some classes the English teacher will implement oral evaluations to

know the effects that the Audio-lingual method has had in the oral and listening

skills in students. Students will have the opportunity to express what they think

about the method through a written survey. All items of this survey have been

elaborated based on Contribution of the Audio-lingual method.

Contributions of the Method:

1. Students acquire the oral expression in English through the repetition drills.

2. They understand easy commands.

3. The use of records helps the students in the development of listening skills.

4. Visual aids facilities the acquisition of the new vocabulary and students

understand in a better way.

5. Mistakes are corrected immediately.

6. Activities like: dialogue memorization, repetitions drill, chain drill,

transformation drill, question and answer drill, help to devise the class in an

effective way.

Besides the English teacher of seventh grade could express how he feels

using the method in an interview using the knowledge that he has acquired about

the method after applying it. These instruments are shown in the following pages.

46

Centro Escolar Salarrue

Alumno:___________________________________Séptimo Grado Objetivo: Conocer la opinión de los estudiantes sobre las clases de Inglés.

Indicaciones: Marca con una “x” si o no según corresponda

1. ¿ Te gustó la clase? (Contribution 6)

Si No

2. ¿Consideras que los recursos utilizados para impartir las clases ayudaron a que comprendieras mejor los temas? (Contributions 3,4 )

Si No

3. ¿Te gustaron las dinámicas usadas en las clases? (Contribution 6)

Si No

4. ¿Consideras que las actividades usadas en las clases ayudaron a mejorar tu expresión oral en inglés y la habilidad de escuchar en inglés? (Contribution 6)

Si No

5. ¿El ambiente en el aula durante la clase te daba confianza para expresarte oralmente en inglés? (Contribution 1)

Si No

6. ¿El maestro está atento en la pronunciación en ingles y corrige los errores inmediatamente? (Contribution 5)

Si No

7. ¿Comprendiste mejor los comandos dados por el maestro en clase? (contribution 2)

Si No

8. ¿Qué tan a menudo escuchas grabaciones? (Contribution 3)

Siempre A veces Nunca

9. ¿Qué tan a menudo te hablan en inglés en la clase? (Contribution 1)

Siempre A veces Nunca

10. ¿Qué tan a menudo escuchas conversaciones en inglés?(Contribution 6)

Siempre A veces Nunca

47

Teacher´s name: _________________________________________

Objective: To know the teacher´s opinion about the contributions of the

Audio-lingual Method in English students of 7th grade.

Instructions: Answer the following questions according your opinion.

1. Do you consider the Audio-lingual Method helps students to improve or

develop their listening and oral skills in English? (Contributions 1,3)

2. Do you think the activities used in class stimulated student´s participation?

How? (Contribution 6)

3. Do you think the records are important in an English class? Why?

(Contribution 3)

4. Do you think visual aids facilitate the acquisition of the vocabulary in the

students? (Contribution 4)

5. Do you think correct mistakes immediately in students can help them to

improve their oral expression in English? (Contributions 5)

48

9.0 FORMULATION OF THE METHODOLOGICAL THEORY OF THE

RESEARCH.

For JACK C. RICHARDS and THEODORE S. RODGERS students must

develop and acquire habits through pronunciation and phrases, repetition drills and

then practicing with sentences until they are able to produce the correct sound. It is

only in some cases that the teacher uses these techniques in classes. Also the

Audio-lingual method does not allow the use of the native language in classes and

the teacher speaks more Spanish than English. Another important thing of this

method is that the teachers “reward” students by saying “Good!” and praising the

class when they perform well, but the teacher at the Salarrue school does not do it

with his students. Jeremy Harmer mentions that in behaviourist theory, conditioning

is the result of stimulus, response and reinforcement.

Authors mention that in a typical audio-lingual lesson the following

procedures, among other, would be observed:

Students first hear a model dialogue (either read by the teacher or on

tape) containing the key structures that are the focus of the lesson.

They repeat each line of the dialogue, individually, and in chorus.

The teacher pays attention to pronunciation, intonation, and fluency.

Correction of mistakes of pronunciation or grammar is direct and

immediate.

The dialogue is memorized gradually, line by line. A line may be

broken down into several phrases if necessary. The dialogue is read

aloud in chorus, one half saying one speaker’s part and the other half

responding. The students do not consult the book throughout this

phase.

49

In Richards and Rodger´s contribution provides an idea of how gradual is

the process of language memorization and that grammar accuracy is encouraged

in class. (Errors are correct in the moment).

Also the Audio-lingual method does not allow the use of the native language

in classes and the teacher speaks more Spanish than English. Another important

thing of this method is that the teachers “reward” students by saying “Good!” and

praising the class when they perform well, but the teacher at the Salarrue school

does not do it with his students. JEREMY HARMER mentions that in behaviorist

theory, conditioning is the result of stimulus, response and reinforcement. If they do

not feel motivated or stimulated they will not have better results in the class.

In the ALM students follow the instructions given by the teacher, repeat

them and their mistakes are corrected by the teacher, step by step. When students

get the idea of how to apply grammatical structures orally they start to practice the

language. For her the most significant principles corresponding to the Audiolingual

Method are the following:

Language forms do not occur by themselves; they occur most

naturally within the context.

The native language and the target language have separate linguistic

systems. They should be kept apart so that the student native

language interferes as little as possible with the student attempts to

acquire the target language.

One the language teacher’s major role is that of a model of the target

language. Teachers should provide students with a good model. By

listening how it is supposed to sound, students should be able to

mimic the model.

Language learning is a process of habit formation. The more often

something is repeated, the stronger the habit and the greater the

learning.

50

Audiolingual method has lot contributions that teachers can take into account to

make more easily the acquisition of the English, but if we look at the reality of today

we face certain problems that determine the direction of the education. Nobody

ignores the lack of educational resources in some public school, lack of clear

objectives from the profile of the students or teacher; teachers not specialized in

English area. e.g. (How they can apply a methodology if they have no any idea of

methods or techniques. All these reasons affect the needs of the student and the

process of learning.

10. THEORETICAL DEFINITON AND DEVELOPMENT

The researchers think that English teachers in public schools in El Salvador

have been using different teaching methods (Grammar and Translation method,

Direct Method, Audio-lingual, etc.) to activate the development and enhance the

four basic skills in English students. However, the MINED´s Publishing20 related to

these methodologies used by teacher’s states that it has been deficient to achieve

the learning in the English students. Since in many public schools, teachers have

not worked with methods that can help to improve the oral and the listening skills in

students.

Thus the Audio-lingual method has represented an option to English

teachers, so they can use this method´s activities, tasks and evaluations; it also

has a variety of techniques and resources to achieve the acquisition of English as

a foreign language by the students.

___________________________

20 http//.www.Mined.gob.sv

51

According to the researchers the Audio-lingual method is focused in the oral

and the listening skills. In this approach, students have to work with tasks to

accomplish by using the target language, instead of studying the native language.

The activities are based in the development of the oral and listening skills

(repetition drills, chain drills etc.) not in grammar development (structure of the

sentences).

Besides in the Audio-lingual method teachers can classify a system of

exercises according to the level of the class, for example: exercises which include

greetings, requests and dialogues about different situations and others are free

dialogues.

The researchers consider in order to apply the Audiolingual method, the

teacher has to be aware of it as well as the techniques, that these are necessary

because in this way students can put in practice their knowledge in the class and

they can demonstrate their abilities in the foreign language.

Thus, they can associate grammar structures, vocabulary, and new

expression with the real life. Besides the teacher has to use oral evaluations which

are important in the Audio- lingual method to know if students are improving their

oral skill. Moreover, the teacher can evaluate listening skill in the students in the

English language.

The researchers consider that the teacher should to be clear with the

objectives in class, activities and techniques he applies in it. Besides, he must be

aware about what he wants to achieve with his students, on the contrary, the lack

of the techniques of Audio-lingual method, the lack of preparation of the teacher,

inappropriate evaluations, tasks, and resources can affect students discourse and

progress.

52

In the application of the Audio-lingual method teaching in the classroom

allows teachers and students have different experiences through English as a

foreign language. Teachers must facilitate communication in the classroom and

during the activities, they must act as advisors, answering student´s questions and

monitoring their performance.

The teacher is a guide and model for students, students follow the teacher.

The teacher also gives students the opportunity to practice using real information,

sharing their ideas and interacting with another student.

53

III. OPERATIVE FRAMEWORK

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVESTIGATION SUBJECT

In the years 2010-2012 in the English classes “The Contributions of the

Audiolingual Method for the speaking and listening skills in English en seventh

grade at Salarrue School is the main objective of this research. There were 15

boys and 20 girls. They were between 13-17 years old. Not all of them live near

the Salarrue School, some work out at the market or in farms with their parents in

their free time. Some of them live on money their relatives send to them from the

U.S.A. At the end of the school year all passed the course.

In the seventh grade class of the Salarrue School, students consider that

they were not motivated to learn a second language; they think that it is not very

important to learn English. They were not conscious about the importance of

learning a second language. The teacher they had did not provide them with

enough materials and he did not use different methodologies to motivate his

students to practice because he is not specialized in English his specialty is Social

Studies.

PROCEDURES FOR GATHERING DATA

In order to accomplish the objectives of the research Contributions of the

Audio-lingual Teaching method for the speaking and listening skills in English in

seventh grade in Centro Escolar Salarrue, San Rafael, Chalatenango 2010-2012, it

was necessary to follow a process. In this process three instruments were used:

Student’s survey, teacher interview and Criterial Check List.

The first thing that was done at the beginning of the research was to ask

permission to the principal at the Salarrue School to do the investigation there.

54

Secondly we asked the teacher in charge of the English courses in order to

observe the development of the classes. Having his permission the class

observation was done from September to November 2010, Thursdays 10:00-11:15.

The second instrument was the student’s survey. The evaluation was for students

of seventh grade at the Salarrue School in the English subject. The evaluation

contained 10 questions. The third instrument used was the interview to the teacher

in charge. The interview contained 5 open questions. All of the questions were

related to the contributions of the Audio-lingual method in English students of

seventh grade.

The last instrument used was the Criterial Check list, which helped identify

elements or traces of the Audio-lingual Method in the English class of seventh

grade at the Salarrue School. We noticed that the teacher used some activities of

the Audio-lingual Method such as: dialogue memorization, backward built-up and

chain drills.

55

The surveys

The surveys have been applied to 35 students to know their experiences with the

Audio-ligual method. Besides, these have been analyzed in graphic way to show in

a more representative form how many students coincide in their answer and to

facilitate the task

#

QUESTIONS

ANSWERS

YES

NO

TOTAL

1 Did you like the class? 35 35

2 Do you consider the resources devised in

class helped you to better understand the

issues?

34 1 35

3 Did you like the activities devised in class? 35 0 35

4 Do you consider the activities used in the

class helped you to improve the oral and

listening skill in English?

32 3 35

5 Did the environment in the class give you

confidence to express yourself orally in

English?

29 6 35

6 Is the teacher attentive in the pronunciation in

English and correct mistakes immediately?

29 6 35

7 Did you understand better the commands

given by the teacher in the class?

32 3 35

# QUESTIONS ALWAYS SOMETIMES NEVER TOTAL

8 How often do you listen to

recording in English?

30 5 35

9 How often does your teacher talk to you in English?

35 0 35

10 How often do you listen to conversations in English?

35 0 35

56

STUDENTS´ SURVEY

ANALYSIS OF THE QUESTIONS

Question 1

Did you like the class?

YES NO

35 0

ANALYSIS

The graphic above shows the answer obtained on question 1. 100% answer YES.

It means all students enjoyed the new classes taught by the teacher applying the

Audio-lingual method.

Question 2

Do you consider the resources used in class helped you to better understand the

issues?

YES NO

34 1

57

ANALYSIS

The graphic above describes the result obtained on question # 2. 97% of the

students answer YES so they consider the resources used in class helped them to

better understand the issues. In contrast, with 3% of them who answered NO to

the same question.

Question 3

Did you like the activities deviced in class?

YES NO

35 0

58

ANALYSIS

According to the graphic the percentage of the students who answered YES was

100%. It means all students enjoyed the activities the teacher applied in his

classes. So she used activities, resources and evaluations that stimulated students

in their learning process.

Question 4

Do you consider the activities devised in the class helped you to improve the oral

and listening skill in English?

YES NO

32 3

ANALYSIS

According to the graphic from thirty two students 91% answered YES. It means the

activities were focused in oral and listening performance which helped students to

improve their oral expression in English. 9% of them did not agree.

59

Question 5

Did the environment in the class give you confidence to express yourself orally in

English?

YES NO

29 6

ANALYSIS

According to the graphic 83% of the students answered YES. It means the

environment in the class gave them the trust to speak in English, but 17% of the

students did not agree.

Question 6

Is the teacher attentive in the pronunciation in English and correct mistakes

immediately?

YES NO

29 6

60

ANALYSIS

According to the graphic 83% of the students answered YES. It means the teacher

tries to pay attention to the students´ mistakes in class, but 17% of the students

did not agree.

Question 7

Did you understand better the commands given by the teacher in the class?

YES NO

32 3

61

ANALYSIS

The graphic showed that from thirty five students 91% of them understood better

commands given by the teacher in class and 9% of the students did not agree with

the question.

Question 8

How often do you listen to recordings in English?

ANALYSIS

According to the graphic 86% of the students answered SOMETIMES and 14%

answered NEVER. It means that students had more opportunity to listen records in

the class.

ALWAYS SOMETIMES NEVER

0 30 5

62

Question 9

How often does your teacher talk to you in English?

ANALYSIS

The result shows that 100% of the students answered SOMETIMES. It means that

the teacher speaks some parts of class in English.

Question 10

How often do you listen to conversations in English?

ALWAYS SOMETIMES NEVER

0 35 0

ALWAYS SOMETIMES NEVER

0 35 0

63

ANALYSIS

According to the graphic, from thirty five students 100% answered SOMETIMES. It

means that activities in classes included more listening conversations.

As a result of all graphics the 90% of the students liked the methodology applied in

the new classes, students considered that the Contributions of the Audio-lingual

Method helped them to develop listening and speaking skills in the English class

and encourage practicing English. Meanwhile, the 10% of the students did not

enjoy the new classes, because for them English is not important.

The information gathered through the student´s survey allowed knowing how the

students felt during the application of the Audio-lingual method. Also, the

researcher could verify the effectiveness of the contributions of the Audio-lingual

method to in the oral and listening skills in English classes in the students of

seventh grade at Salarrue School.

64

TEACHER´S INTERVIEW

In order to know the teacher´s opinion and experiences with the Audio-lingual

method, it was applied an interview with close questions. These questions are

shown with the answers given by the teacher. Besides there is an analysis on each

question.

Teacher´s name:_________________________________________

Objective: To know the teacher´s opinion about the contributions of the

Audio-lingual Method in English students of 7th grade.

Instructions: Answer the following questions according your opinion.

1. Do you consider the Audio-lingual Method helps students to improve or

develop their listening and oral skills in English? Why? (Contributions 1,3)

Answer: Yes, it helps students to develop the oral and listening skills in

English, because they have to express their ideas and opinions in English.

Analysis:

In this question, the English teacher answered YES to the question. So that

when teachers apply this method, students can express their ideas and

opinion in English and better understand short conversations in English.

2. Do you think the activities used in class stimulated student´s

participation? How? (Contribution 6)

65

Answer: Of course, and that´s what teachers should include in every lesson

plan in order to have their students speak English in class and improve their

vocabulary.

Analysis: The teacher agreed that all the activities stimulate students to

participate in his class, and these activities helped students to have

confidence to communicate in English.

3. Do you think the recordings are important in an English class? Why?

(Contribution 3)

Answer: YES, they help students to improve the listening skill and increase

their vocabulary in English

Analysis: The English teacher answered YES to the question, and he said

that the records he applied helped students to understand better the topic.

7. Do you think visual aids facilitate the acquisition of the vocabulary in the

students? (Contribution 4)

Answer: Yes they do. Visual aids facilitate students the acquisition of the

new vocabulary.

Analysis: The English teacher answered YES to the question, and he said

that this kind of resources helped students to understand better the topic.

66

6. Do you think correct mistakes immediately in students can help them to

improve their oral expression in English? (Contributions 5)

Answer: YES, when they listen the correct pronunciation immediately after

the mistake they can keep on mind the right pronunciation of the words.

Analysis: He agreed to correct mistakes immediately to help students in the

correct pronunciation of the vocabulary in English.

The teacher´s interview shows that the English teacher of seventh grade

agrees with the application of the Audio-lingual method, so that, he thinks

that the method allows students express their opinions and participate in an

active way during the activities. Also he considers the resources are

important to encourage students to speak English.

SPECIFICATION OF THE TECHNIQUE FOR THE DATA ANALYSIS

All the instruments used in order to find out the Contributions of the Audio-lingual

Teaching method for the speaking and listening skills in English in seventh grade in

Centro Escolar Salarrue, San Rafael, Chalatenango were enough to achieve the

objectives of this research. But, the main instrument that provided the results was

the student´s check list.

Through this evaluation it was found the degree of the application on the listening

and speaking skills with the Audio-lingual method for teaching English in seventh

grade at Salarrue School and proved to the researchers that the goals were

achieved. It was known that there were 35 students in the English class. In order to

know the outcome result it was taken an evaluation sample of 21 students. It

means that more than half of the class was evaluated.

67

In order to know exactly the level and score of each student it was necessary to:

To check and score each answer of the listening and speaking parts of the test

(good writing and listening understanding).

68

Especialidad: Licenciatura en Idioma Inglés Ciclo: 0-2

Año: 2010

Asesor : Lic. Jorge Oreste Soriano

Tema: Aportes del Método Didáctico Audio-lingual para la expresión oral y la habilidad de escuchar, séptimo grado,

Centro Escolar Salarrue, San Rafael, Chalatenango, 2010-2011

Alumnas: Sara de Jesús Fermán Sosa, Clelia Maribel Pérez López, Norma Elizabeth Cardoza Mejía

Firma de Acuerdo:

Asesor:

Estudiantes:

Actividades : Meses

Agosto Septiembre Octubre Noviembre Diciembre Enero Febrero Marzo Abril Mayo Junio

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

1,0 Investigación documental

1,1 Selección de bibliografía a utilizar

1,2 Lectura y selección de citas bibliográficas

1,3 Fichas bibliográficas y de resumen

1,4 Fichas de conceptos y categorías

2,0 Marco Conceptual

2,1 Introducción

2,2 Antecedentes del problema

2,3 Justificación

2,4 Planteamineto del problema

2,5 Alcances y limitaciones

2,6 Recuento de conceptos y categorias a utilizar

2,7 Reuniones con asesor

2,8 Entrega Primer Avance

2,9 Corrección Primer Avance

2,10 Entrega Primer Avance corregido

69

Actividades : Meses

Julio Agosto Septiembre Octubre Noviembre Diciembre Enero Febrero Marzo Abril Mayo Junio

Julio

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

1

2

3

4

3.0 Marco Teórico

3.1 Fundamentación teórico-metodológica

3.2 Construcción Marco Empírico

3.2.1 Diseño de instrumentos de investigación

3.2.2 Levantamiento de información

3.2.3 Procesamiento de la información

3.2.4 Análisis de la información

3.2.5 Elaboración de informe

3.2.6

Formulación teórico-metodológica de lo investigado

3.3

Desarrollo y definición teórica ( posterior a contraposición de autores)

3.4 Reuniones con asesor

3.5 Entrega Segundo Avance

3.6 Corrección Segundo Avance

3.7 Entrega Segundo Avance Corregido

4.0 Marco Operativo

4.1 Descripción de los sujetos de la investigación

4.2 Procesamiento para recopilación de datos

4.3

Especificación de la técnica para el análisis de los datos

4.4 Cronograma

4.5 Recursos

4.6 Indice preliminar sobre informe final

70

4.7 Reuniones con asesor

4.8 Entrega Tercer Avance

4.9 Defensa Trabajo de Graduación

71

DESCRIPTION OF THE RESOURCES

HUMAN RESOURCES

The human resource is a vital part related to the function of all institution.

The people are the main element, because they interact, prepare, organize

manage and control all the activities to be carried out in a short or long period,

inside schools. Concerning the topic “Contributions of the Audio-lingual

Teaching Method for the speaking and listening skills in English in seventh

grade in Centro Escolar Salarrue, San Rafael, Chalatenango, 2010-2012 there

were a lot of people involved in the research and all of them played an

important role in the development of a process to find out the degree of

application on the listening and speaking skills with the Audio-lingual Method for

teaching English in the seventh grade at the Salarrue School. Some of the

people involved in this research were the English teacher, the thirty-five

students from the seventh grade in the English class at the Salarrue School, the

Principal of School and the advisor. All of them linked to this educative process.

During the development of the research “ Contributions of the Audio-

lingual Teaching Method for the speaking and listening skills in English in

seventh grade in Centro Escolar Salarrue, San Rafael, Chalatenango, 2010-

2012” there were used different resources. One important resource was the

library, because there were found the books, thesis and Internet to support this

research. Another resource was the teacher´s permission to observe the

development of the class because it was an important instrument to achieve the

main objectives of the research.

72

PRELIMINARY INDEX ABOUT REPORT

CHAPTER I

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

In the first of the research “ Contributions of the Audio-lingual method for

speaking and listening skills in English in seventh grade in Centro Escolar

Salarrue San Rafael, Chalatenango, 2010-2012, it is found the introduction and

the objectives of this project. Also it is included the theoretical framework which

contains information about different authors about the Audio-lingual Method.

Then it is the justification, which justifies the reasons why the research has

being done. The Statement of the Problem shows the main problem of the

research. Achievements and Limitations show the differences author`s point of

view related to the Audio-lingual Method. The Concepts and Categories section

contains some meanings and explanations of some words used in the research.

CHAPTER II

The second part of this research refers to the contributions of the Audio-

lingual Method, evaluations, extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Besides that in this

chapter, it is included the monograph of the Salarrue School, description of the

course, technical and methodological forms, description of the instruments.

These instruments are the student`s survey, the class observation (check list)

and the teacher`s interview. All these instruments were used in order to

accomplish the main goal of the research. Also it is included the formulation of

the methodological theory of the research (this part contains a contrast of theory

and reality) and the development and theoretical definition.

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CHAPTER III

OPERATIVE FRAMEWORK

In the last part, there is a description of the subjects of this research, the

procedures to get the information in the development of the research, the

techniques used, and the chronogram where it is mentioned the differences

activities carried out and the resources used which human and didactic.

The human resources are the ones that have helped in the development

of this research, such as the students, the teacher and the adviser. The didactic

resources are the ones which have been used in the development of the

research for example: books and internet.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

This research was carried at Salarue School located in San Rafael

Chalatenango in students of seventh grade.

We as researchers found that is very important apply methods in the

English classes that can help students to better understand the foreign

language, in this case English language. Among these methods we focused in

Audio Lingual Method that help students in the acquisition of the new language

in listening and speaking skills.

The recommendation that we do is that the teacher can follow the

principles and techniques of the Audio Lingual method and applying them in the

English classes to have better result in the class, for example: the use of

records help students to train the ear and they can listen the pronunciation of

the language from a native speaker.

The use of visual aids helps students in the acquisition of the new

vocabulary. The repetition helps them to keep the vocabulary and pronounce

the words accurately. The substitution of words in dialogues and to use own

information help them to be able to apply the language with real situations.

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11.BIBLIOGRAPHY

Harmer, Jeremy. (2001). The Practice of English language teaching.

England, Pearson education Limited

Hadley, Alice Omaggio. (2001) Teaching Language in Context, Third edition. University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

Brown, Douglas H. (1994). Principle of Language learning and

Teaching, third edition. United State of America, Prentice Hall

Regents

Richards Jack C. and Rodgers Theodore S. Approaches and

Methods in Language Teaching Second edition. Cambridge

language Teaching Library.

Algemon Coleman, The teaching of Modern Foreign Languages

T. Earle Hamilton , The Audio-lingual Method in the University; Fad

or Panacea?

Audio-lingual Teaching and Reading by Francis J. Dannerbeck.