The Audio-Lingual Teaching Method
The Audio-Lingual Teaching Method
I. Introduction
The
audio-lingual teaching method is also known as Army Method or New Key, due to
the involvement of the United States into World War II. The U.S. government needed
to be supplied with personnel who were fluent in German, French, Italian,
Chinese, Japanese, Malay and other languages, and also who could work as
interpreters, code-room assistants and translators at the time. So it was necessary
to set up a special language training program. Therefore, the government
commissioned some American universities to develop foreign language programs
for military personnel; the Army Specialized Training Program. This method was
established in 1942 and about fifty-five American universities were involved in
the program by the beginning of 1943. Nevertheless, this method only lasted for
two years, but popular press and some academic communities had been attracted
so then they showed their considerable attention. They continued improving the
previous method until today it is known as the audio-lingual teaching
methodology.
The
audio-lingual teaching method is a style of teaching that is used in teaching
foreign languages. Created based on Behaviorist1 theory, this method
uses humans to be trained through a system of reinforcement. Therefore this
system was proposed to occur again and become a new habit. It was believed back
then, theory of Behaviorist would give negative response behavior without
reinforcement. Relating to this theory, the objective of this program was clear
enough. It is to address the students due to attaining conversational
proficiency in a variety of foreign languages. This method also emphasizes
learning grammatical and phonological structure, especially for speaking and
listening (Aural-Oral materials). Information is relied on by this method
regarding to the basis of learning through a great deal of mechanical
repetition. So this method focuses on repetition drills. The teacher will spend
most of the time in the class drilling the students on grammatical and
phonological structures. There will be error correction which is one of the
most important features from this language teaching method.
It
has been said that Direct Method was the earlier method before this New Key
method. The implementation is alike between those methods; the language should
be taught directly without using the students’ native language. This is as the
explanation of new words and grammar rules that they should know in the target
language. However, it is slightly different with Direct Method, the
audio-lingual method doesn’t focus on teaching vocabulary, somewhat drilling
students in the use of grammar (structural).
II. Approaches
and Design
The theory of audio-lingual teaching
methodology was derived from a view proposed by American linguists in the
1950s. This view came to be known as structural linguistics. It had emerged as
a flourishing academic discipline in the 1950s. Learning language, as it was
assumed, entails mastering the elements or building blocks of the language and
learning the rules by which these elements are combined, from word to phrase to
sentence. And the most important principle of structural linguistics was that
the primary medium of language is oral: Speech is language. Since many
languages do not have a written form and people at the time learn to read or
write, it was argued that language is “primarily
what is spoken and only secondarily what is written” (Brooks 1964).
II. I Methodological Approaches
Some methodological approaches are created in
helping teachers to teach foreign languages easily. Among the more central are
the following:
- Basically learning foreign language is a
process of mechanical habit formation. In this case good habits are needed,
such as giving correct responses rather than by making mistakes, memorizing
dialogues and performing pattern drills to minimize making mistakes.
- Aural-oral training is needed to provide
the foundation since 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.
-
The approach to the teaching of grammar
is essentially inductive rather than deductive.
II. II. Objectives
There are two types of objectives in an
audio-lingual program, such as short-range and long-range objectives.
- Short-range
objectives include training in listening
comprehension, accurate pronunciation, recognition of speech symbols as graphic
signs on the printed page, and ability to reproduce these symbols in writing
(Brooks 1964: 111).
-
Long-range
objectives include the goal to be able to use the
target language as if the students were the native speakers.
II. III.
Types of Learning and Teaching
Activities
Dialogues and drills are the two
most important classrooms practices. Dialogues provide the means of
contextualizing key structures and illustrate situations in which the target
language might be used in daily life. Dialogues care used for repetition and
memorization. By using the correct pronunciation, rhythm, stress and
intonation, their foreign language skills would be emphasized. After the
dialogues have been presented and memorized, students will be introduced the
specific grammatical patterns in the dialogues. As for the drills, there are
various kinds of drills that can be used. Brooks (1964: 156-61) includes the
following:
1. Repetition:
A student repeats an utterance aloud as soon as he has heard it. He does it
without looking at a printed text. Sound is as important as form and order.
After he has repeated an utterance, he may repeat it again and add a few words
then repeat the whole utterance and add more words.
EXAMPLES:
·
I
want to buy some fruit. | I want to buy some fruit.
·
I
want to buy some fruit at the market with my mother | I want to buy some fruit
at the market with my mother.
2. Inflection:
One word in an utterance appears in another form when repeated.
EXAMPLES:
·
I bought the ticket | I bought the tickets
·
She
bought the ticket | He bought the tickets
3. Replacement: The
teachers say a sentence and the students replace a word in the sentence.
EXAMPLES:
·
I
want to buy some bananas | I want to buy some apples
·
Helen
left early | She left early
4. Restatement: The
teacher says a sentence and the students rephrase the sentence.
EXAMPLES:
·
Tell
me to speak louder | Speak louder!
·
Ask
her how old she is | How old are you?
5. Completion: The
student completes the sentence given and then repeats the utterance in
completed form.
EXAMPLES:
·
I’ll
go my way and you go… | I’ll go my way and you go yours
·
We
all have… own troubles | We all have our own troubles
6. Transposition: The
student changes a word order.
EXAMPLES:
·
I’m
hungry, (so)… | So am I
·
I’ll
never do it again, (neither)… | neither will I…
7. Transformation:
Students have to transform a sentence into its negative or interrogative forms.
This way will help them to recognize the grammar (structural linguistic).
EXAMPLES:
·
He
knows my address
·
He
doesn’t know my address
·
Does
he know my address?
II. IV. Teachers
and Students Roles
Teachers’ roles are central and should be active. It
can be said also this audio-lingual method is a teacher-dominated method. This
is regarding to the fact the teachers become the model of the new foreign language
that would be introduced. They will model the target language, control the
direction and pace of learning, and monitor and correct the students’
performance.
Students’ roles are viewed as organisms that can be
directed by skilled training techniques to produce correct responses. They play
a reactive role by responding to stimuli, and thus have little control over the
content, pace, or style of learning. They are not encouraged to initiate
interaction, because this may lead to mistakes. They have to learn a new form
of verbal behavior, start from listening to the teacher, imitating accurately,
and responding to and performing controlled tasks.
II. V. The
Audio-lingual Procedures
Since it is audio-lingual method of language
teaching, the process of it involves extensive oral instruction. The focus of
instruction is on immediate and accurate oral instruction. As
far as possible, the target language should be the medium of instruction. Here
is a typical procedure in an audio-lingual course
·
Students hear a model dialogue (either
read by the teacher or on tape).
·
Students repeat each line of the
dialogue. The dialogues later on should adapt students’ interest or situation,
through changing certain key word or phrases.
·
The students may refer to their textbook
and follow-up reading, writing, or vocabulary activities based on the dialogue.
·
Writing is purely imitative and consists
of little more than copying out sentences that have been practiced to increase
proficiency.
III. Conclusion
Pronunciation
is the most important thing in order to make the foreigner or native speaker
understands what non-native speakers say. Many people know many vocabularies,
but they do not really know how to pronounce it. In order to be able to
pronounce words clearly, the need of practicing need to practice it intensively
is important. This problem might be found in young learners. So this method is
widely used for teaching foreign languages to the entry level (young learners).
The
audio-lingual method is one of method that is good for teaching pronunciation.
The emphasis of audio-lingual method is on speaking and listening. In speaking,
of course the students need to have accurate pronunciation to be able to speak
well. The audio-lingual method is very effective to teach pronunciation,
because teaching by using audio-lingual method, the students can learn the
correct pronunciation from the teacher and memorize the pronunciation which is
heard by them. “How can student memorize it?” Here is the answer, the teacher
will give a repetition and drill in teaching the students. The types of
learning technique of audio-lingual method are repetition and drill.
IV. References
