THELINGUAL

The Audio-Lingual Method

The Audio-Lingual Method, like the Direct Method we have just examined, is also an oral-based approach. However, it is very different, in that rather than emphasizing vocabulary acquisition through exposure to its use in situations, the Audio-Lingual Method drills students in the use of grammatical sentence patterns. Also, unlike the

Direct Method, it has a strong theoretical base in linguistics and psychology.

EXPERIENCE

The teacher reads a conversation to her students. Then the students after listening carefully begin to repeat each line several times before moving on to the next one.

When the students can't pronounce a word, the teacher stops the repetition and uses a backward build-up drill (expansion drill)

Through this step-by-step procedure, the teacher is able to give the students help in producing the troublesome line. Having worked on the line in small pieces, the students are also able to take note of where each word or phrase begins and ends in the sentence.

It was thought that the way to acquire the sentence patterns of the target language was through conditioning— helping learners to respond correctly to stimuli through shaping and reinforcement, so

that the learners could overcome the habits of their native language and form the new habits required to be target language speakers.

Techniques to apply the audio-lingual method.

• Dialogue Memorization

Dialogues or short conversations between two people are often used to begin a new lesson. Students memorize the dialogue through mimicry; students usually take the role of one person in the dialogue, and the teacher the other. In the Audio-Lingual Method, certain sentence patterns and grammar points are included within the dialogue. These patterns and points are later practiced in drills based on the lines of the dialogue.

• Backward Build-up (Expansion) Drill

This drill is used when a long line of a dialogue is giving students trouble. The teacher breaks down the line into several parts. The students repeat a part of the sentence, usually the last phrase of the line. Then, following the teacher’s cue, the students expand what they are repeating part by part until they are able to repeat the entire line.

• Repetition Drill

Students are asked to repeat the teacher’s model as accurately and as quickly as possible. This drill is often used to teach the lines of the dialogue.

• Chain Drill

A chain drill gets its name from the chain of conversation that forms around the room as students, one by one, ask and answer questions of each other. The teacher begins the chain by greeting a particular student, or asking him question. That student responds, then turns to the student sitting next to him.

• Single-slot Substitution Drill

The teacher says a line, usually from the dialogue. Next, the teacher says a word or

a phrase (called the cue). The students repeat the line the teacher has given them, substituting the cue into the line in its proper place. The major purpose of this drill

is to give the students practice in finding and filling in the slots of a sentence.

• Use of Minimal Pairs

The teacher works with pairs of words which differ in only one sound; for example, ‘ship/sheep.’ Students are first asked to perceive the difference between the two words and later to be able to say the two words. The teacher selects the sounds to work on after she has done a contrastive analysis, a comparison between the students’ native language and the language they are studying.