TEACHING ENGLISH METHODS AND APPROACHES

TEACHING ENGLISH METHODS AND APPROACHES

1. TEACHING ENGLISH METHODS AND APPROACHES

   • Features
     • The students have to memorize vocabulary lists and grammatical rules.
   • The main purpose
     • The grammatical method is to be able to read literature written in the target language.
   • Teacher’s role
     • The teacher is the authority in the classroom
   • Student’s role
     • The acquisition of a foreign language is seen as a process of memorization.
   • Advantages and disadvantages
     • This method used in teaching English as a foreign language focused its attention on the development of writing and reading skills more than speaking and listening skills.

2. Direct method

   • Purpose
     • The basic rule of the Direct Method is not allowing translation.
     • The syllabus is based on situations or topics, not on linguistic structures.
   • Teacher’s role
     • Teacher encourages students to learn how to communicate in the target language in a comfortable environment.
   • Student’s role
     • They can participate in an active way during the conversations.
   • Advantages and disadvantages
     • This method gives the opportunity to develop fluent speakers to face real situations of communication.
     • it’s difficult to assume that a foreign language can be learnt at the same way as we learn the first language because the conditions and context are different.

3. Reading method

   • Propose
     • the student is able to understand and read text, at the same time to identify the meaning of words.
   • Features
     • The students had to recognize some verbs forms, tenses, negations and so on.
     • Writing was limited to exercises where students had to use some vocabulary
   • Student’s role
     • The learner should be able to comprehend and read the text quickly, in this sense, learners have infer the meaning ounknown words.
   • Teacher’s role
     • Teacher should create situations where students have the opportunity to develop their reading comprehension.
   • Advantages
     • Students have the opportunity to develop some abilities such as predicting, infering, reading, expressing, identifying main ideas, organizing information etc.
   • Disadvantages
     • It focuses on only grammar for teaching reading and its emphasis on translation.

4. Audio-lingual

   • Propose
     • It aims at developing listening and speaking skills which is a step away from the Grammar translation method.
   • Features
     • Students were more encouraged to focus on the phonological and grammatical structures than on vocabulary
   • Teacher’s role
     • Teachers want their students to be able to use the target language communicatively and providing students with a good model for imitation.
   • Learner’s role
     • Students are imitators of the teacher's model or dialogues
   • Advantages
     • The teacher is to help students in the development of oral fluency.
     • Language skills are learned more effectively if they are developed orally first, then in written form.
   • Disadvantages
     • Students have to memorize and repeat dialogues about situations so students were not exposed to real or realistic language.
     • students when they use what learners have studied so reading and writing are very limited.

5. Total Physical Response

   • Disadvantages
     • This method is very limited because it is very repetitive, so teachers have to apply other approaches.
   • Advantages
     • The students have the opportunity to learn key commands and expressions that they can use to communicate with teachers and classmates.
   • Learner’s role
     • Students have to respond both individually and collectively.
   • Teacher’s role
     • The teacher uses psychomotor system to teach vocabulary, sentences and phrases.
   • Features
     • Teacher uses commands in order to communicate with their students.
     • Student speaks when he is ready.

6. Suggestopedia

   • Disadvantages
     • There is little evidence to support the claims of success about this method.
   • Methodology
     • Use of extended dialogues.
     • Vocabulary lists.
     • Observations on grammatical rules.
   • Features
     • Music was the central resource used in this method.
     • The teacher must create a suitable environment where the students can find comfortable seats.

7. Natural approach

   • Learner’s role
     • The students express their opinion and share their ideas based on situations given
     • :The learner is not forced to speak, so they have the opportunity to decide to start to speak
     • students respond simple questions anduse fixed conversational patterns.
     • Learners are ready to speak, so they can use complex utterances and participate in role plays or games.
   • Features
     • The preproduction stage is the development of listening comprehension skills
     • The early production stage, marked with errors
     • The last stage extends the production into longer stretches of discourse.
   • Purpose
     • The aim of the Natural Approach is to foster the communicative competence, and not grammatical knowledge.
   • Teacher’s role
     • The teacher should create a classroom atmosphere
     • The teacher must choose and combine several activities involving different group sizes, content, and contexts v
   • Disadvantages
     • Classical music is not stimulating for everybody and the students have different learning styles.

8. Communicative approach

   • Advantages
     • Students have permanent motivation because they participate in activities such as: dialogues, dramatizations, role plays, etc.
   • Teacher’s role
     • The first is to facilitate the communication process between the learners and between them and the activities
     • The teachers assume are: need analyst, counselor and group process manager.
   • Learner’s role
     • They assume with responsibility what they do in the classroom, they evaluate their own progress,
   • Features
     • The classes are focused on the components of the communicative competence with its sub competences: linguistic, pragmatic and sociolinguistic.
   • Disadvantages
     • This approach focuses on listening and speaking skills rather than writing and reading skills.