The Audio-Lingual Method(ALM) Goals and Techniques Lecture # 8

Review of the last lecture Language forms occur naturally within a context. No Room for Native language/MT To provide students with a native-speaker like model Language learning is a process of habit formation It is important to prevent learners from making errors. Positive Reinforcement helps the students to develop correct habits. Student should learn to respond to both verbal and nonverbal stimuli Pattern practice helps students to form habits which enable the students to use the pattern.

Goals Teachers want their students to be able to use the target language communicatively. Overlearning →automatically without stopping to think Forming new habits through overcoming the old habit.

Teacher Role/Student Role The teacher is like an orchestra leader. Providing students with a good model for imitation. Students are imitators.

Characteristics of the teaching/learning process New vocabulary and structural patterns are presented through dialogs. Dialogs– learning through imitation and repetition Positively reinforced Grammar is induced from the examples.

Student-teacher interaction/ student-student interaction Interaction is teacher-directed Student-student interaction →Chain drills and dialogues

The view of language/ the view of culture The view of language → be influenced by descriptive linguists. Each level( phonological, morphological…)has its own distinctive patterns. Everyday speech is emphasized. The level of complexity of the speech is graded.

What areas of language are emphasized What areas of language are emphasized? What language skills are emphasized? Vocabulary is kept to a minimum while the students are mastering the sound system and grammatical patterns. The natural order of skills presentation is adhered to : listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The oral/aural skills receive most of the attention .

The role of native language The habits of the students’ native language are thought to interfere with the students’ attempts to master the target language. The target language is mostly used in the classroom instead of the native language.

Evaluation Nature: discrete-point →each question on the test would focus on only one point of the language at a time. Ex: students might be asked to distinguish between words in a minimal pair.

Deal with errors Students errors are to be avoided if at all possible through the teacher’s awareness of where the students will have difficulty and restriction of what they are taught to say.

Techniques Dialog Memorization Backward Build-up Drill Repetition Drill Chain Drill

Techniques Single slot Substitution Drill Multiple Slot Substitution Drill Transformation Drill

Techniques Transformation Drill Question-and-answer Drill Use of Minimal Pairs Complete the Dialog Grammar Game

Brainstorming Check your understanding of The Audio-Lingual Method

Summary Who would summarize this lecture for me. Try….. You can easily do it… Come on…don’t be hesitant. Remove this hesitation You are future’s TEFL teachers/trainers