The audiolingual method

1. Monge,Valentina
Morán, Ana

2.  Background
 Approach
 Design
 Procedure
 The decline of Audiolingualism
 Conclusion

3.  The Audio-Lingual Method was developed in the
United States during WorldWar II. At that time there
was a need for people to learn foreign languages
rapidly for military purposes - also known as the
“Army Method”.
 Similar to the earlier Direct Method.
 Doesn’t focus on teaching vocabulary.
 Students are drilled in the use of grammar.

4.  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.
 The term structural referred to these characteristics:
a) Elements in a language were thought of as being linearly
produced in a rule-governed (structured) way.
b) Language samples could be exhaustively described at any
structural level of description.
c) Linguistic levels were thought of as systems within
systems.

5.  Theory of learning: to the behaviorist, the
human being is an organism capable of a wide
repertoire of behaviors. The occurrence of these
behaviors is dependent on three crucial elements
in learning: a stimulus, which serves to elicit
behavior; a response triggered by a stimulus; and
reinforcement, which serves to mark the
response as being appropriate (or inappropriate)
and encourages the repetition (or suppression) of
the response in the future.

6. Theory of Learning : Principles
1. Foreign language learning is basically a process of
mechanical habit formation.
2. Language skills are learned more effectively if the items
to be learned in the target language are presented in
spoken form before they are seen in written form.
3. Analogy provides a better foundation for language
learning than analysis.
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.

7.  Objectives:
Short-range objectives include training in listening
comprehension, accurate pronunciation, recognition
of speech symbols as graphic signs on the printed
page, and the ability to reproduce these symbols in
writing.
Long-range objectives “must be language as the
native speaker uses it. There must be some
knowledge of a second language as it is possessed by
a true bilingualist.”

8.  The Syllabus
 Audiolingualism is a linguistic, or structure- based,
approach to language teaching.
 A Linguistics syllabus contains the key items of
phonology, morphology, and syntax of the language
arranged according to their order of presentation.
 The language skills are taught in the order of
listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening is
viewed largely as training. At more advanced levels,
more complex reading and writing tasks maybe
introduced.

9.  Repetition: The students repeat a brief utterance
aloud as soon as they have heard it, without
looking at a printed text.
 Inflection: One word in an utterance appears in
another form when repeated.
 Replacement: One word in an utterance is
replaced by another.

10.  Restatement: the students rephrase an utterance
and address it to someone else, according the
instructions.
 Completion: the students hear an utterance that is
complete except for one word, then repeat the
utterance in completed form.
 Transposition: a change in word order is necessary
when a word is added.

11.  Expansion: when a word is added it takes a certain
places in the sequence.
 Contraction: a single word stands for a phrase or
clause.
 Transformation: a sentence is transformed by being
made negative or interrogative or through changes in
tense, mood, voice, aspect, or modality.

12.  Integration: two separate utterances are integrated into
one.
 Rejoinder: the student makes an appropriate rejoinder to a
given utterance, after being told in advance to respond in a
certain way.
 Restoration: the student is given a sequence of words that
have been selected from a sentence but still bear its basic
meaning and uses those words to restore the sentence to
its original form (some changes and additions are allowed).

13.  Learner roles: learners play a reactive role by
responding to stimuli, and thus have little control
over the content, pace, or style of learning.
 Teacher roles: the teacher’s role is central and active;
it’s a teacher-dominated method. The teacher
controls the direction and pace of learning, and
monitors and corrects the learner’s performance.
Roles

14.  Instructional materials in the Audiolingual method
assist the teacher to develop language mastery in
the learner.
 A students textbook is often not used.
 Tape recorders and audiovisual equipment often
have central roles in an Audiolingual course.
Provides accurate models for dialogues and drills.

15. 1) Hearing a model dialogue and repeating it
individually and in chorus. Correction. Memorizing
the dialogue. Reading aloud the dialogue. –
without consulting their books.
2) The dialogue is adapted to the students’ interest
or situation and then acted out by them.
3) Selecting key structures of the dialogue and
using them as the basis for patterns drills of
different kinds. First in chorus, then individually.

16. 4) The students may refer to their textbook, and
follow-up reading, writing, or vocabulary activities
based on the dialogue may be introduce.
5) Follow-up activities may take place in the
language laboratory, where further dialogue and
the drill work is carried out.
Procedure

17.  The theoretical attack on Audiolingual beliefs resulted from
changes in American linguistic theory in the 1960s.
 Students unable to transfer skills acquired through
Audiolingualism to real communication outside the
classroom, and Audiolingual procedures to be boring and
unsatisfying.
 Chomky’s theory of transformational grammar proposed
that the fundamental properties of language derive from
innate aspects of the mind and from how human’s process
experience through language.

18.  Audiolingualism holds that language learning is
like other forms of learning.
 Audiolingualism focuses on accuracy through drill
and practice in the basic structures and sentences
patterns of the target language.