A Brief History of Language

Teaching

Many theories about the learning and teaching of languages have been proposed. These theories, normally influenced by developments in the fields of linguistics and psychology, have inspired many approaches to the teaching of second and foreign languages.

History of Language Teaching

• In the Western world back in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, foreign language learning was associated with the learning of Latin and Greek, both supposed to promote the speakers’ intellectual. At the time was very important to focus on grammatical rules, syntactic structures, along with rote memorization of vocabulary and translation of literary texts.

• Latin and Geek were not being taught for oral communication but for the sake of speakers becoming scholarly or creating an illusion of sophistication. Knowledge of Latin was needed for the study of the bible and for academic purposes like the study of medical books and legal documents.

Ancient time

After all, speaking Latin played a subordinate role because it was a “dead Language” and because there were no authentic living people who could serve as a model for its phonetically correct pronunciation. It was not before the year 1886 that linguists like Wilhelm Vietor, Henry Sweet, and Daniel Jones created the International Phonetic Alphabet for the phonetic description of sounds in different languages.

• Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors, Medieval Latin should not be confused with Ecclesiastical Latin. There is no real consensus on the exact boundary where Late Latin ends and Medieval Latin begins

16TH

CENTURY

Starting in late medieval times, Italian language variants replaced Latin to become the primary commercial language for much of Europe (especially the Tuscan and Venetian variants). This became solidified during the Renaissance with the strength of Italian banking and the rise of humanism in the arts.

French was the language of diplomacy in Europe from the 17th century until its recent replacement by English, and as a result it is still a working language of international institutions and it is seen on documents ranging from passports to airmail letters. For many years, until the accession of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark in 1973, French and German were the only official working languages of the European Economic Community.

French was also the language used among the educated in many cosmopolitan cities across the Middle East and North Africa.

French as a lingua franca

Most famous language methodologist of 17th century was J A Comenius (1592-1670).

Languages at this time were being taught by oral methods for communicative purposes. The works of Comenius stress the importance of the senses rather than the mind, the importance of physical activity in the classroom. He is best known for his use of pictures in language teaching. Much in Comenius is surprisingly modern. "The exemplar should always come first, the precept should always follow".

                 

 JAN AMOS COMENIUS

Karl Julius Ploetz (1819-1881) was a German author of scholarly works, most notably his Epitome of History published in the English language in 1883. He is credited with the idea of arranging historic data by dates, geographic location, and other factors. As later used in the English language, Encyclopedia of World History credited with being one of the most complete and comprehensive academic tools available before the electronic revolution.

18TH CENTURY

His work was a compilation of factual world events designed to help the students and the general reader. The first English translation was in the U.S. in 1883 by William H. Tillinghast and published by Houghton Mifflin Company. The name of the original work (in a form of a handbook) was Auszug aus der alten, mittleren und neueren Geschichte.

• Started to be known as the classical method. Proponents of this method believe that learning a foreign language is achieved through the constant and fast translation of sentences from the target language into the learner’s first language and vice versa. Word by word translation were popular because by them students could demonstrate that they understood the grammatical constructions underlying a specific sentence.

• It is typical of this approach, therefore, to play emphasis on the rote memory learning of lists of bilingual “vocabulary equations” and on the learning of explicit rules of grammar, frequently in form of tables for the declension and conjugation of nouns and verbs.

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Grammar Translation Method (1840 to 1940s)

• This method teaches a foreign language in a deductive way. It considers literary language as the most important thing in language teaching, and it also emphasizes on reading skills. Classes that follow this method are conducted in the student’s native language

• Techniques used in this method are: Translation of Literary Passages, Reading Comprehension Questions, Antonyms/ Synonyms, Deductive Applications of Rules, Fill in the Blanks, Memorization, Use of Words in Sentences and Compositions.

It began in the late 19th century, at the formation of the association and its declaration of creating a phonetic system used for describing the sounds of spoken language. The association was formed by French and British language teachers (led by Paul Passy) and established in Paris in 1886 (both the organisation and the phonetic script are best known as IPA). The first official version of the alphabet appears in Passy (1888). These teachers based the IPA upon the Romic alphabet of Henry Sweet (1881,-1971), which was formed from the Phonotypic Alphabet of Isaac Pitman and Alexander John Ellis

International Phonetic Alphabet

The Frenchman Marcel (1793-1896)

•Conection between child learning and his/her language and foreign language teaching .

• Importance of meaning

•Reading taught before others skills

The Englishman T. Predengarst (1806-1886)

• The first to record the observation that children use contextual and situational cues to interpret utterance and they memorize phrases and routines in speaking.

Pre-Reform Movement

The Frenchman Gouin (1831-1896) He attempted to build a methodology around observation of child language learning Other Reformers focus on naturalistic principles of language learning "Natural" method

• For more information: • http://esl.aladdin.shu.edu.tw/ezcatfiles/esl/download/attach/3/TESL

%20histiory.ppt#262,7,Gouin’s (Frenchman) contribution

The Reform Movement Reformers sought to organize and simplify the

traditional exposure to texts by using specimen sentences and emphasizing practice by translating in both directions. Through translation of specially constructed sentences that were keyed to lessons centred on particular grammatical points, learners could be exposed to the grammatical and stylistic range of the target language in an economical and systematic way. The reform was not, however, complete, and for the next 200 years the grammar–translation method and the less systematic literary method coexisted and often blended. The Reform Movement Dissatisfaction with the practice of teaching modern languages by such text-based methods came to a head in the Reform Movement of the 1880s–90s, among scholars and teachers in Germany, Scandinavia, France, and Britain who were interested in the practical possibilities of a science of speech. It began with the publication in 1877 of Henry Sweet .

With its analysis of different sound systems, opened up the prospect of teaching speech systematically and escaping from the ancient dependence on texts. In 1882, the German phonetician Wilhelm Viëtor expressed the growing impatience in the pamphlet “Language teaching must start afresh”, initially published under a pseudonymin. It was credited with inventing the term la méthode directe (the Direct Method) to sum up the aims of the reformers; other names are the Natural Method, New Method, and Phonetic Method.

L. Sauveur (1826-1907)

• He used intensive oral interaction in the target language

• A foreign language could be taught without translation or the use of the L1

• Meaning was conveyed directly through demonstration and action

Harold E. Palmer (1877 -1949)

• Unlike Natural Methodologists, Palmer felt that language teachers needed training in all balances of linguistics and not simply in phoneticsHe advocated oral and conversational approaches to language teaching

• His sequencing or graduation included ears before eyes, receptions before production, oral repetition before reading, group work before individual work, drill exercise before free production, concrete before abstract meaning

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F. FrankeHe provides a theoretical

justification for a monolingual approach to teaching. Teacher must encourage direct and spontaneous use of the foreign language in the classroom (avoid analyzing and explaining grammar rules). Students would be able to induce rules of grammar Speaking began with systematic attention to pronunciation. Known words could be used to teach new vocabulary, using mine, demonstration, and pictures

LANGUAGE TEACHİNG METHODOLOGY

Language Teaching Methodology

Theories of Language and Learning

Instructional Design Features

Observed Teaching Practices

ObjectivesSyllabusActivities

Roles of TeachersRoles of Learners

Materials

Your understanding of what language is and how the learner learns will determine to a large extent, your philosophy of education, and how you teach English: your teaching style, your approach, methods and classroom technique.

• A method is theoretically related to an approach, is organizationally determined by a design, and it is practically realized in procedure

ELEMENTS AND SUB-ELEMENTS OF A METHOD

• Approach– Assumptions and

beliefs about language teaching and learning

• Design – Objectives– Syllabus– Activities– Roles of Teachers– Roles of Learners– Materials

• Procedure– Implementational Phase

REFERENCES

• Cambridge Study of Language 4th edition

• Cambridge Language Typology and Syntatctic Description 2nd Edition

• Cambridge . Nunan. Task-based language Teaching

Direct Method This method was proposed by Charles

Berlitz, in the last two decades of the 19th century. According to this method second language learning is similar to first language learning. In this light, there should be lots of oral interaction, spontaneous use of the target language, no translation is allowed, and little, if any, analysis of grammatical rules and syntactic rules.

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• The Direct method is not new, most recently it was revived as a method that has as the most important goal how to use a foreign language to communicate. This method’s name comes from the fact that meaning is to be conveyed directly in the target language through the use of demonstrations and visual aids, without using the student’s native language.

• Its main features are: only the use of target language is allowed in class, the learner should be actively involved in using the language in realistic everyday situation, students are encouraged to think in the target language, first speaking is taught and then reading and writing, the teacher should demonstrate not explain or translate.

• This method uses some techniques like: Reading Aloud, Question and Answers Exercises, Getting Students to self Correct, Conversation Practice, Dictations, Map Drawing, and Paragraph Writing.

The Coleman ReportThe Coleman Report in 1929 recommended a reading-

based approach to foreign language teaching for use 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 cotent of the passage in English. Those involved in the teaching of English as a second language in the United States between the two world wars used either a modified Direct Method approach, a reading-based approach, or a reading-oral approach (Darian 1972). 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. There was no standardization of the vocabulary or grammar that was included.

Reading Method 1920-1930s

The reading method was prominent in the U.S. following the Committee of Twelve in 1900 and following the Modern Foreign Language Study in 1928. The earlier method was similar to the traditional Grammar/Translation method and emphasized the transference of linguistic understanding to English. Presently, the reading method focuses more on silent reading for comprehension purposes. 

Basic English is an auxiliary international language of 850 words comprising a system covering everything necessary for everyday purposes..The language is based on a simplified version of English, in essence a subset of it.

Ogden did not put any words into Basic English that could be paraphrased with other words, and he strove to make the words work for speakers of any other language. He put his set of words through a large number of tests and adjustments. He also simplified the grammar but tried to keep it normal for English users.

Charles Kay OdgenBasic English

• The concept gained its greatest publicity just after the Second World War as a tool for world peace.

• Ogden said that it would take seven years to learn English, seven months for Esperanto and seven weeks for Basic English. Thus Basic English is used by companies who need to make complex books for international use, and by language schools that need to give people some knowledge of English in a short time

• To promote Basic English, Ogden founded the Orthological Institute, from orthology, the abstract term he proposed for its work

The English Language Institute was established in 1941 as the first English language research and teaching program of its kind in the United States. Since its founding, the ELI has become a leader in language teaching, learning, and assessment, in applied linguistics research, and in teacher education at the University of Michigan and throughout the world.

Charles Fries:The English Language Institute

• "Until this Institute was founded, there was no oral methodology for teaching English. A fast method was desired, and Fries developed the Oral Approach, which presented grammatical forms and patterns as exercises that were listened to, repeated and varied in a series of drills."

Bloomfield’s work in 1942 inspired both the massive US wartime programme of language teaching and postwar theories of teaching and learning. The audio-lingual method In the US in the 1950s there developed a movement based on the precepts of structural linguistics and behaviourist psychology and known variously as the audio-lingual method (ALM), audio-lingual teaching, audiolingualism, the structuralist approach, and structuralism.

Audiolingual Method• The outbreak of world War II heightened the need for

Americans to become orally proficient in the languages of their allies and enemies alike. To this end, bits and pieces of the direct method were appropriated in order to form and support this new method, “the Army Method” which came to be known in the 1950s as the Audio – lingual Method.

• This method was based on linguistics and psychological theory, and one of its main premises was the scientific descriptive analysis of a wide assortment of languages.

• On the other hand conditioning and habit – formation models of learning put forward by behaviouristics psychologists were married whit the pattern practices of the Audio – lingual method.

• This method is characterized because of the very little use of the mother tongue in the classroom, lessons begins with dialogues, use of tapes and visual aids, learning vocabulary in context, it is focused on pronunciation, dependence on mimicry and memorization, According to this method speaking and listening competence preceded reading and writing competences.

At the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 70s, as a reaction against the defects of the audio-lingual method, and taking as its theoretical base the transformational and generative grammar of Chomsky, the so-called cognitive-code approach became popular. According to this approach, the learning of a language consists in acquiring a conscious control of its structures and its phonetic, lexical and grammatical elements, by means of, above all, the study and analysis of these structures, organised into coherent groups of knowledge. Once the student has reached a certain level of cognitive command of these elements, he will develop almost automatically the ability and capacity to use the language in realistic situations.

The Cognitive Code approach

REFERENCES

• Cambridge Study of Language 4th edition

• Cambridge Language Typology and Syntatctic Description 2nd Edition

• Cambridge . Nunan. Task-based language Teaching