Comparative Chart

Deductive :

A deductive approach starts with the presentation of a rule and is followed by examples in which the rule is applied. The grammar rule is presented and the learner engages with it through the study and manipulation of examples.

Advantages of a deductive approach:

• It gets straight to the point, and can therefore be time-saving.

• It respects the intelligence and maturity of many - especially adult -students, and acknowledges the role of cognitive processes in language acquisition.

• It confirms many students' expectations about classroom learning, particularly for those learners who have an analytical learning style.

Disadvantages of a deductive approach:

• Grammar explanation encourages a teacher-fronted, transmission-style classroom; teacher explanation is often at the expense of student involvement and interaction.

• Such an approach encourages the belief that learning a language is simply a case of knowing the rules.

• Explanation is seldom as memorable as other forms of presentation, such as demonstration.

Inductive

What are the advantages of encouraging learners to work rules out for themselves?

• The mental effort involved ensures a greater degree of cognitive depth which, again, ensures greater memorability

• Rules learners discover for themselves are more likely to fit their existing mental structures than rules they have been presented with.

• Students are more actively involved in the learning process, rather than being simply passive recipients: they are therefore likely to be more attentive and more motivated

• If the problem-solving is done collaboratively, and in the target language, learners get the opportunity for extra language practice.

• Working things out for themselves prepares students for greater self-reliance and is therefore conducive to learner autonomy.

The disadvantages of an inductive approach include:

o The time taken to work out a rule may be at the expense of time spent in putting the rule to some sort of productive practice.

o It can place heavy demands on teachers in planning a lesson. They need to select and organise the data carefully so as to guide learners to an accurate formulation of the rule, while also ensuring the data is intelligible.

o An inductive approach frustrates students who, by dint of their personal learning style or their past learning experience (or both), would prefer simply to be told the rule.

o However carefully organised the data is, many language areas such as aspect and modality resist easy rule formulation.

Notional

Notions are meaning elements that may be expressed through nouns, pronouns, verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, adjectives or adverbs. A notion is a concept, or idea: it may be quite specific, in which case it is virtually the same as vocabulary (dog, house, for example); or it may be very general – time, size, emotion, movement – in which case it often overlaps with the concept of “topics”. A notion may be “time past”; this may include past tenses, phrases.

Is some kind of communicative act: it is the use of language to achieve a purpose, usually involving interaction at least between two people. Examples would be suggesting, promising, apologizing, greeting, inviting.

Advantages

focus on grammar and vocabulary, thus providing learners with communicatively useful expressions in tandem with a structured syllabus with a clear sense of progression.

communicatively usefull expressions.

Discussions involving elements of creativity and artistic expression.

the idea that even beginners can be presented with exponents of high communicative value from the very start represents a radical shift from the kind of approach that began with the present simple of the verb ‘to be’ in all its forms and focused almost entirely on structure with little regard for actual communication in the target language.

disadvantages:

Order Criticisms of functional approaches include the difficulty in deciding the order in which different functions should be presented. Is it more important to be able to complain or to apologise, for example?

Another problem lies in the wide range of grammatical structures needed to manipulate basic functions at different levels of formality (for example, ‘Can I …..?’ as opposed to ‘Would you mind if I …..?")

There is also the apparently random nature of the language used, which may frustrate learners used to the more analytical and "building-block" approach that a grammatical syllabus can offer.

Another apparent weakness is the question of what to do at higher levels. Is it simply a case of learning more complex exponents for basic functions or is one required to seek out ever more obscure functions