The Audio-Lingual Method

1. The Audio-Lingual Method Textbook: Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000).Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. (2th ed.). Oxford University Press.

2. Introduction • Audio-Lingual Method is an oral-based approach. • It drills students in the use of grammatical sentence patterns. • Based on behavioral psychology (Skinner). • Conditioning →helping learners to respond correctly to stimuli through shaping and reinforcement. • Habit-formation

3. A dialog from the text • Sally : Good morning, Bill. • Bill: Good morning, Sally. • Sally: How are you? • Bill: Fine, Thanks, And you? • Sally: Fine. Where are you going? • Bill: I’m going to the post office. • Sally: I am too. Shall we go together? • Sure. Let’s go.

4. I’m going to the post office. 1. introduces a new dialog 2. uses a backward build-up drill 3. uses a repetition drill (group) 4. initiates a chain drill (individual) 5. leads a single-slot substitution drill (replaces a word or phrase = cue) (shows pictures) 6. praise the class during the practice

5. How are you? (Subject-verb agreement) 1. subject pronouns (he, she, they, you) 2. be verb (is, are) 3. uses Multiple-slot Substitution drill (I am/ She is going to the post office) 4. uses a transformation drill (active vs. passive; yes/no-question) 5. uses pictures again and select individuals

6. Substitution Drills • I’m going to the post office • ……………the market • ……………..to the movies • He is …… to the movies • …………….to the butcher’s • She is …….. To the concert ……leaving ……the Concert Etc.

7. More practices 1. reviews the dialog 2. expands upon the dialog by adding a few lines. 3. drills the new lines and introduces new vocabulary (p.41) 4. works on the mass and count nouns (a little/a few)

8. Goals • Teachers want their students to be able to use the target language communicatively. • Overlearning →automatically without stopping to think • Forming new habits through overcoming the old habit.

9. Teacher Role/Student Role • The teacher is like an orchestra leader. • Providing students with a good model for imitation. • Students are imitators.

10. Characteristics of the teaching/learning process • New vocabulary and structural patterns are presented through dialogs. • Dialogs– learning through imitation and repetition • Positively reinforced • Grammar is induced from the examples.

11. Student-teacher interaction/ student-student interaction • Interaction is teacher-directed • Student-student interaction →Chain drills and dialogues

12. The view of language/ the view of culture • The view of language → be influenced by descriptive linguists. • Each level( phonological, morphological…) has its own distinctive patterns. • Everyday speech is emphasized. • The level of complexity of the speech is graded.

13. What areas of language are emphasized? What language skills are emphasized? • Vocabulary is kept to a minimum while the students are mastering the sound system and grammatical patterns. • The natural order of skills presentation is adhered to : listening, speaking, reading, and writing. • The oral/aural skills receive most of the attention .

14. The role of native language • The habits of the students’ native language are thought to interfere with the students’ attempts to master the target language. • The target language is mostly used in the classroom instead of the native language.

15. Evaluation • Nature: discrete-point →each question on the test would focus on only one point of the language at a time. Ex: students might be asked to distinguish between words in a minimal pair.

16. Deal with errors • Students errors are to be avoided if at all possible through the teacher’s awareness of where the students will have difficulty and restriction of what they are taught to say.