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.