Business English and Rubrics Testing in ELT, Dr. R. Ramesh [popular ebook readers TXT] 📗

foreign language study is to learn a language. Grammar Translation is a way of studying a language that approaches the languages through detailed analysis of its grammar rules
2. Reading and writing are the major focus.
3. Vocabulary is taught in the form of lists of isolated words.
4. Accuracy is emphasized.
5. Grammar is taught deductively.
By the end of the 19th century, the opposition to the Grammar Translation method was gradually increases, due to the lack of proficiency in foreign language. This reform movement laid the foundations for the development of new methods of teaching languages.
The Reform Movement:
The reformers and language teaching specialist like Marcel, Prendergast and Govin had done much to promote alternative approaches to language teaching. According to Krishnaswamy and Sriraman, “the major drawbacks of Grammar Translation method, which provoked the reformist action by the end of the century, were: (i) The translation exercises were all sentence – based and not text or discourse – based. (ii) Spoken English was neglected” (80).
Thus reform movement was founded on the three basic principles. They were the primary of speech, the centrality of the connected text as the important part of the teaching – learning process and the absolute priority of an oral methodology in the class room.
Linguists like Henry Sweet in England, Wilhelm Victor in England, Paul Passy in France and other reformers in the late 19th century believed and set forth some specific principles for language teaching. It advocated:
• The spoken language is primary and that should be reflected in an oral-based methodology.
• The findings of phonetics should be applied to teaching and to teacher training.
• The rules of grammar should be taught inductively.
• Translation should be avoided.
The Direct Method:
The Frenchman Francois Gouin (1831 – 1896), the first 19th century reformer attempted to build a methodology around observation of child language learning. In his The Art of Learning and Studying Foreign Languages (1880) he concluded that the language learning is a matter of transforming perceptions into conceptions and then using language to represent these conceptions. With this knowledge, he devised a teaching method, but it became short-lived approach to language learning. The German scholar F. Franke wrote on the psychological principles of direct association between forms and meanings in the target language. In Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, he comments that:
a language could best be taught by using it actively in the class room. Rather than using analytical procedures that focus on explanation of grammar rules in classroom teaching, teachers must encourage direct and spontaneous use of the foreign language in the classroom… known words could be used in teach now vocabulary, using mime, demonstration and pictures.(Richards and Rodgers 9).
Thus Franke’s natural language learning principle, laid the foundation for Direct Method. Direct method became very popular during the first quarter of the 20th century, especially in the private language schools in Europe. One of the most famous advocates of the Direct Method was the German philosopher Charles Berlitz. The basic principle of Berlitz’s method was that second language learning is similar to first language learning. This method contains lots of oral interaction, spontaneous use of language, no translation and little if any analysis of grammatical rules and syntactic structures. Richards and Rodgers, in their Approaches and Methods in Languages Teaching (1986), summarized the principles and procedures of Direct Method were:
1. Class room instruction was conducted exclusively in the target language.
2. Only everyday vocabulary and sentences were taught.
3. Oral communication skills were built up in a carefully graded progression organized.
4. Grammar was taught inductively.
5. New teaching points were introduced orally.
6. Concrete vocabulary was taught through demonstration, objects and pictures.
7. Both speech and listening comprehension were taught.
8. Correct pronunciation and grammar were emphasized.(24)
Thus, the Direct Method is undoubtedly a highly effective method in term of creating language learners who are very competent in terms of using the target language communicatively.
The Nature of Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching:
In the late 19th century, linguist and language specialists sought to improve the quality of language teaching. So they referred to general principles and theories concerning, how languages are learned, how knowledge of language is represented and organized in memory or how language itself is structured. Thus the study of teaching methods and procedures in language teaching became a more central role within applied linguistics from the 1940s. Various attempts have been made to conceptualize the nature of methods and to explore the relationship between theory and practice within a method.
American applied linguist Edward Anthony, proposed a scheme in 1963, in order to clarify the difference between a philosophy of language teaching at the level of theory, principles and procedures. He identified three levels of conceptualization and organization, which he termed as approach, method and technique. Antony defines his approach, method and technique as:
… An approach is a set of correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of language teaching and learning. An Approach is axiomatic. It describes the nature of the subject matter to be taught…
… Method is an overall plan for the orderly presentation of language material, no part of which contradicts, and all based upon the selected approach. An approach is axiomatic, a method is procedural…
… A technique is implementation – that which actually takes place in a class room. It is a particular trick, stratagem, or contrivance used to accomplish an immediate objective. The techniques must be consisted with a method and therefore in harmony with an approach as well. (Richards and Rodgers 15)
According to this model, Approach is the level at which assumptions and beliefs about language and language learning are specified. Method is the level at which theory is put into practice and technique is the level at which classroom procedures are described. Thus a method is theoretically related to an approach, is organizationally determined by a design and is practically realized in procedure.
Approach:
In Approaches and Methods in Languages Teaching, Richards and Rodgers comments that, “approach refers to theories about the nature of language and language learning that serve as the source of practices and principles in language teaching” (16).
(i) Theory of language:
There are three different theoretical views of language and nature of language proficiency that inform current approaches and methods in language teaching. They are structural view, functional view and interactional view.
Structural view is the first and the most traditional among the three. It is the view that language is a system of structurally related elements for the coding of meaning. The second functional view is the view that language is a vehicle for the expression of functional meaning. The third view of language is international view, that language as a vehicle for the realization of interpersonal relations and for the performance of social transactions between individuals. This view focuses on the patterns of moves, acts, negotiation and interactions found in exchanges.
(ii)Theory of language learning:
A theory of language learning has two basic questions that respond an approach or method. The questions are,
1. What is the psycho linguistic and cognitive process evolved in language learning?
2. What are the conditions that need to be met in order for these learning processes to be activated?
Like the theory of language, language learning theory also associated with the method at the level of approach by means of two theories. Richards and Rodgers analyzed these theories as:
Process-oriented theories built on learning processes, such as habit formation, induction, inferencing, hypothesis testing and generalization. Condition-oriented theories emphasize the nature of the human and physical context in which language learning takes place. (18)
Krashen’s Monitor model of second language development (1981), Tracy D. Tellell’s natural approach (1977), Charles A. Curran’s writing on counseling – Learning (1972) are the best example of language learning theory, for successful learning.
Design:
Design is necessary for an instructional system. In approach and method treated at the level of design that level in which objectives, syllabus and content are determined and in which the roles of teachers, learners and instructional materials are specified. According to Richard and. Rodgers, Design is defined as:
Design is the level of method in which we consider (a) what the objectives of a method are, (b) how language content is selected and organized within the method, that is, the syllabus model the method incorporates, (c) the types of learning tasks and teaching activities the method advocates, (d) the role of learners, (e) the role of teachers, (f) the role of instructional materials. (20)
Procedure:
The last level of conceptualization and organization with in method is procedure. This deals with the actual moment-to-moment techniques, practices and behaviours that operate in teaching a language according to a particular method. There are 3 dimensions to the method at the level of procedure given in Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching are:
a) The use of teaching activities (drills, dialogues, information-gap activities, etc.) to present new language and to clarify and demonstrate formal, communicative or other aspects of the target language.
b) The ways in which particular teaching activities are used for practicing language.
c) The procedures and techniques used in giving feed back to learners concerning the form or content of their utterance or sentences. (Richards and Rodgers 26)
The Oral Approach and Situational Language Teaching:
Palmer, Hornby and other British applied linguists analyzed English and examined its major grammatical structures into sentence patterns. They found the basic frequency counts of words and structures using the principle of selection, gradation and presentation, in a systematic manner. Their view on the specific procedures to be used in teaching English were referred to as the oral approach to language teaching. The main characteristics of this method were as follow:
1. Language teaching begins with the spoken language. Material is taught orally before it is presented in written form.
2. The target language is the language of the classroom.
3. New language points are introduced and practiced situationally.
4. Vocabulary selection procedures are followed to ensure that an essential general service vocabulary is covered.
5. Items of grammar are graded following the principle that forms should be taught before complex ones.
6. Reading and writing are introduced once a sufficient lexical and grammatical basis is established. (Richards and Rodgers 34)
The Audio-lingual Method:
The outbreak of World War II elevated the need for Americans to become orally proficient in the languages of their friends and enemies. As a result, with the form and support of Direct Method, this new ‘The Army Method’ which came to be known in the 1950s as the Audio-lingual Method. Thanasolus states:
The Army method was suddenly developed to build communicative competence in translators through very intensive language courses focusing on aural / oral skills. This in combination with some new ideas about language learning coming from the disciplines of descriptive linguistics and behavioural psychology went out become what is known as the Audio Lingual Method. (Krishnaswamy and Sriraman 24)
It is a linguistic, or structure-based, approach to language teaching. This new method incorporated many of the features typical of the earlier Direct Method. Just as with the direct method, the over all goal of the Audio-lingual Method was to create communicative competence in learners.
Richards and Rodgers analysis the three major objectives of Audio-lingual Method are
These immediate objectives imply three others: first, control of structures of sound, form and order in the new language; second, acquaintance with vocabulary items that bring content into these structures and third, meaning, in terms of the significance these verbal symbols have for those who speak the language natively. (52)
Communicative Language Teaching:
Communicative language teaching was to be found in the changes in British language teaching tradition form the late 1960s. The European common market played an important role in the development of communicative language teaching. With the increased need for teaching adults the major languages of the European common market, the council of Europe started playing a role in language