The Audio-Linguistic Method. What is the audio-linguistic method ?

HOME >(All Classes(GRAMMAR BANK)>

Please subscribe our

YouTube Channel https://youtube.com/@pgresearchcentre738?si=jdi6-FbcsvreHG9H

What is the audio-linguistic method ?

The Audio-Linguistic Method

This method was developed mainly in America in the sixties and seventies. The AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD tried to demonstrate the fact that a language teaching method can be based on rigorous scientific discipline like linguistics and psychology.

The audio-lingual method focuses on the learner's ability to gain the communicative skills required in everyday discourse, particularly, the skills of listening and speaking in the target language. This method is based on structural linguistics and behaviourist psychology (Skinner behaviourism) and place heavy emphasis on spoken rather than written language, and on the grammar of particular language, stressing habit formation as a mode of learning. Language teaching specialists in the USA drew on the earlier experience of the army programmes and the aural-oral or structural approach developed by Fries and his colleagues. To this they added the insights taken from behaviourist psychology. This combination of structural linguistic theory, contrastive analysis, aural-oral procedures, and behaviourist psychology led to the audio-lingual method (Richards and Rodgers, 1995:47).

The roots of the audio-lingual method can be traced back to the language teaching programmes devised in America during the Second World War. Its focus was on the learner's ability to gain the communicative skills required in everyday discourse, particularly the skills of listening and speaking in the target language.

William Moulton of Princeton University enumerated five slogans which formed the basis of the audio-lingual method.

-Language is speech, not writing.

-A language is a set of habits.

-Teach the language, not about the language.

-A language is what native speakers say, not what someone thinks what

they ought to say. Languages are different. (Moulton quoted in Nagaraj, 1996:79)

As one can see, these slogans are influenced by behaviourist psychology (For example: Skinner's behavioural psychology) and structural linguistics like Leonard Bloomfield.

Main Features of the Audio-Lingual Method :

The audio-lingual method treated each language skill separately: listening. speaking, reading, and writing.

This method focused primarily on the skills of listening and speaking, in accordance with Moulton's first slogan Language is speech, not writing."

The skills of writing and reading were not neglected, but the focus throughout remained on listening and speaking.

The audio-lingual style is not about learning the language for its own sake but about learning it for actual use, either within the society or elsewhere. This method reflects a particular set of beliefs about second language (L) learning, often referred to as 'habit formation'. Language is a set of skills that can be acquired, just like driving a car. Each skill is learned by practising it again and again.

Dialogues formed the main feature of the audio-lingual syllabus, and

they were the chief means of presenting language items. They also provided learners an opportunity to practise, mimic and memorize bits of language. The dialogues concentrate on unconscious structures' rather than the conscious 'rules' of the academic style. Instead of understanding every word or structure, students learn the text more or less by heart. Learning sentences means learning structure and vocabulary, which means learning the language (Cook, 1991: 136).

Pattern drills were an essential part of this method and used as an important technique for language teaching/learning.

The tape recorder and audio-visual equipment often play an important role in this method. If the teacher is not a native speaker of the target language, the tape recorder provides accurate models for dialogues and drills.

The language laboratory was introduced as an important teaching aid. It gave learners an opportunity to mimic a model and memorize language patterns.

Like the direct method, the audio-lingual method too tried to avoid the use of the mother tongue, though perhaps not so rigidly.

Techniques of the Audio-Lingual Method:

The skills were taught in the following order:

listening> speaking >reading >writing. The first few stages concentrated on listening and speaking skills.

Language was introduced through dialogue which contained common structures used in everyday communication as well as useful vocabulary. The dialogues were memorized line by line. Learners mimicked the teacher or a tape, listening carefully to all the features of the spoken target language. Native speaker-like pronunciation was important in presenting the model.

Phrases and sentences of a dialogue were learned through repetition, firstly the whole class, then by smaller groups and finally by individual learners.

To consolidate what was learned, the dialogue was adapted and personalized by application to the learner's own situation. These drills were practised orally, first in chorus and late individually. Some generalizations (not rules) were given to advanced learners about the structures they had practised.

Reading and writing were introduced in the next stage. The reading material was generally based on the oral lesson in order to establish a relationship between speech and writing. All reading materials were introduced orally first.

Writing, in the early stages, was confined to transcriptions of the structures and dialogues learned earlier. Once the learner had mastered the basic structures, he was asked to write reports/compositions based on the oral lessons.

 Graded passages from literary texts were introduced at an advanced stage. The learner first listened to a taped version of the text and discussed questions and answers orally. This was followed by reading and writing exercises.

Conclusion: 

Commenting on audio-lingual method Geetha Nagaraj pertinently concludes:

'The audio-lingual method showed an easy way to learn languages without burdening the intellect with problem solving as in the grammar translation method. way, it democratized the learning of foreign languages.

Speaking was finally recognized as being primary to language learning. The technique it used, of graded structural practice, was a practical way of doing away with translation in the classroom. Though the audio-lingual method failed due to various factors, some of its features still find a place in classroom teaching of foreign and second languages the world over.'