Teaching Methodologies

Similarly to the first section of this chapter, this section will focus on classroom methodology. This time, however, it’s more specific to actual language education and not just learning theories in general. I want you to think back to that high school language class. Put yourself in the room, see your teacher, and your classmates too. Now that we know about Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism, I want you to put a label on the type of learning you experienced in that class. It might be difficult, and it’s fine to say that it was mixed, because it most likely was. Most education is a blend of many rich elements because there is no one way to teach a language.

Some language teaching methodologies existed before people were theorizing about learning, and others have been influenced by learning theories over time. Think back to your high school classroom again. Your teacher might have asked you to mostly do grammar exercises in a workbook. They might have held up plastic fruits or pointed to colors and prompted you to say the translated words back. You might have followed scripts and talked with your classmates, maybe like “Hola, quiero comprar cien bananas por favor” (Hi, I would like to buy a hundred bananas please), admittedly the applicability of this situation is not high. Or you might have been asked to jump in and interact with your classmates mostly through immersion in the new language until you could communicate, similar to learning your first language.

One very traditional way of language teaching that was not influenced by any modern learning theory is called ‘grammar-translation’. In Grammar-translation, “The aim is for students to be able to translate with ease between two languages, usually their first or native language (L1) and the target language (L2) being learned” (Prokopchuk, 2022). As stated, this looks primarily like the study of individual grammatical structures, conjugations, or vocabulary for a language, and less of the conversational aspects or application of language. While this method has largely died out in popularity among language teachers, it still might be found in some classrooms, specifically classic-language classrooms like Latin or ancient Greek. Even if you didn’t take one of those classes, however, your language classroom likely implemented elements of grammar-translation. Grammar-translation methods can be extremely helpful in the explicit teaching of grammar concepts, sentence structure, or vocabulary. They rely on our abilities to see and reproduce patterns, which relates to both behaviorist and cognitivist ways of learning. However, many people agree that the grammar-translation method falters is its lack of immediate applicability to real-life scenarios and the over-focus on declarative knowledge. That is, conversations on the street likely won’t consist of ‘Hey, how do you conjugate the verb ser in the pluscuamperfecto?’ (the verb to be in the past perfect tense). So, while the grammar-translation method does have many positive elements in the explicit teaching of linguistic concepts, other teaching methods focus more on real-life application and communication.

A very different approach to language teaching that was strongly influenced by behaviorism is the Audiolingual method. Popularized in the 1950s, the Audiolingual method focuses on “the notion that learning language can be simulated inside the classroom by using prescribed dialogues and texts which are comprehensible to the learners” (Prokopchuk, 2022). Some common practice exercises used machines in language learning labs, rather than using practice with other people. These machines would allow you to listen to a sentence as spoken by a native speaker, and then record yourself speaking the same sentence. You would then listen to both and do a side-by-side comparison of your accents. The focus largely was on scripted learning and the perfection of predetermined vocabulary and a ‘native-like’ accent. Akin to behaviorism, learning takes place through habitual repetition and praise for correct answers. Unlike grammar translation, this method does provide intensive listening and speaking practice to build procedural ability, but learners still don’t have the opportunity to improvise in real-life interactions. The constant focus on accuracy can make also learners self-conscious and afraid to experiment with communication. And while the focus on accent can help with some people’s goals, let’s think back to chapter one and think about the role of accent in communication. Maybe an aside thought in a box by the main chapter?

Lastly, communicative approaches are the most popular among language teachers today, largely because of their focus on usability rather than perfection. Communicative approaches acknowledge that “students learn language more effectively in the classroom when communication is meaningful, purposeful, and applicable to their lives” (italics in original) (Prokopchuk, 2022). Classrooms that include communicative approaches are most like my own growing up.

The focus on communication helps with fluency in a language, but sometimes sacrifices grammatical accuracy if there is no parallel focus on declarative knowledge, especially with older learners. We see that communicative approaches draw on both cognitivist and constructivist approaches, but they can also include aspects of behaviorist approaches. The key difference from other teaching methods is that communicative approaches are not limited to behaviorist or cognitivist approaches.

With your understanding of these teaching approaches, let’s now see if we can recognize these styles when presented with an example. These examples may look like exercises that subscribe to one method more than another, or maybe examples of things that might be said in these classrooms.

Before we move on, if you would like more information about teaching methods (and to learn about different teaching methods than these three), please watch this video.

While any one person might have their preferred teaching method or learning theory as we talked about in the last section, I hope that it is apparent that these theories and methods are not one-size-fits-all, nor should they exist independently of one another. Where the audio-lingual or grammar-translation methods falter, the communicative method can supplement, and vice-versa. The same can be said for all the theories and methods we talked about in this chapter. Diversity is best when learning a language; diversity in people, diversity in exercises and methods, and diversity in input. We all grew up learning our native language through a variety of different methods of exposure whether that be our parents talking to us, reading the labels at the store, or watching TV, and eventually studying grammar in school. So, I beg the question: why should we treat our second language any differently?