A brief history of language teaching

It's a way of studying a language that is mainly focused on grammar rules, reading, and writing.

Toward the mid-nineteenth century several factors contributed to a questioning and rejection of the Grammar-Translation Method, and for that reason some specialists develop new approaches to language teaching.

The Grammar-Translation Method

The Reform Movement

Language teaching innovations in the 19th century

The Frenchman F. Gouin (1831-1896) developed an approach to teaching a foreign language based on his observations of children's use of language. He believed that language learning was facilitated through using language to accomplish events consisting of a sequence of related actions.

The Englishman T. Prendergast (1806-1886) proposed the first "structural syllabus", advocating that learners should be taught the most basic structural patterns ocurring in the language.

The Frenchman C. Marcel (1793-1896) referred to child language learning as a model for language teaching, emphasized the importance of meaning in learning, and proposed that reading be taught before other skills.

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The International Phonetic Association was
founded in 1886, and was designed to enable the sounds of any language to be accurately transcribed.

The main elements are:

  1. the study of spoken language.
  2. phonetic training in order to establish good pronunciation habits.
  3. the use of conversation tex ts and dialogues to introduce conversational
    phrases and idioms;

The discipline of linguistics was revitalized. Linguists emphasized that speech, rather than the written word, was the primary form of language.

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The Direct Method

It refers to the most widely known of the natural methods (which basically supports the theory that one can learn a foreigh language withouth translating or using the learners's native tongue).

In practice it stood for the following principles and procedures:

  1. Classroom instruction was conducted exclusively in the target language.
  2. Only everyday vocabulary and sentences were taught.
  3. Concrete vocabulary was taught through demonstration, objects, and pictures; abstract vocabulary was taught by associating ideas.
  4. Grammar was taught inductively.
  5. Both speech and listening comprehension were taught.
  6. Correct pronunciation and grammar were emphasized.
  7. Oral communication skills were built up in a carefully graded progression organized around question-answer exchanges between teachers and students.
  1. Grammar is taught deductively.

4.The sentence is the basic unit of teaching and language practice.

  1. Vocabulary is learned through bilingual word lists, dictionary study, and memorization.
  1. Reading and writing are the major focus.
  1. The goal is to learn a language in order to read its literature.