Teaching Methodology - How people learn languages?, Which way is best? and Teaching Method

In this section we look at some of the background issues which language teachers need to think about when they plan how they want to teach and what kind of lessons they want to offer their students. For example, we look at what people have said about how we learn languages and we list some of the most prominent learning and teaching methodologies that people have used.

We consider student mistakes and errors as part of the learning process, rather than something terrible that they do wrong!

We look at various differences in language learning. For example, learning takes place in many different situations. But whatever the situation, learners are not all the same: a ' lot depends on what level they are at, how old they are and what kind of learners they are (because different individuals are, well, different). We discuss how to deal with these differences. 

We emphasise the importance of student engagement and consider how students can take responsibility for their learning — and we look at the crucial issue of student motivation.

How people learn languages?

Acquisition and learning

Unless some physical or mental condition gets in the way, all of us speak and understand at least one language well. We got that language from our parents and from other people around us. As far as any of us can remember, we didn't have to think about the process getting that language; it just happened. All we had was a lot of EXPOSURE to the language (we heard it all the time, especially when people talked to us) and opportunities to use i as much and as often as possible. In other words, this kind of LANGUAGE ACQUISITION is a subconscious process.

Many children acquire more than one language in childhood. Indeed, in many countries and societies it is unusual for people to be MONOLINGUAL (able to speak only one language).

Age seems to be an important factor in language acquisition. Children often acquire (and forget) languages easily, partly because they get such a lot of exposure to them, and partly because of their DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES and the lives they are leading. TEENAGERS and ADULTS don't seem to acquire languages so automatically. However, they may, in fact, be more efficient learners, in part because their circumstances and developmental stages are different.

If acquisition is a subconscious process, LEARNING, by contrast, is something we do consciously — for example, when we study how to use the PRESENT PERFECT, think carefully about what order ADJECTIVES go in, or concentrate on which part of a word we should STRESS.

Why does the difference between acquisition and learning matter?

• In classrooms all over the world, students learn languages. They are taught GRAMMAR, FUNCTIONS and VOCABULARY. But perhaps that's the wrong way to do it. Perhaps we should only give students a lot of exposure to the language, together with opportunities to use it — just as we do with children.

• In a theory that he called the INPUT HYPOTHESIS, the linguist Stephen Krashen suggested that people acquire language if they get COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT. This means that they are exposed to language that is just above their own LEVEL but which they more or less understand. He suggested that this is all they need.

• Krashen also suggested that the language that we learn consciously is different from language we acquire through comprehensible input. We can use 'learnt' language to check (or MONITOR) our conversation (or writing), but these checks may stop us being fluent because we are worrying about whether we are speaking correctly. In the 1980s, Krashen said that learnt language could not become acquired language.

• Many researchers questioned Krashen's Input Hypothesis. They said it was difficult; to test because people cannot usually say if their language was acquired or learnt, and if you can't say which it was, then the theory cannot be proved or disproved.

• Many people suggest that exposure to comprehensible input is not, in itself, enough for people to know and be able to speak a language. There has to be an element of conscious attention to the actual language that is being used in the input. This is especially important for learners who have reached (or gone through) puberty — i.e. teenagers and adults.

Which way is best?

Perhaps the best way to get a new language would be to go and live in a country where the language is spoken. There would be both exposure to the language and opportunities to use it. But would that be enough for children or adults?

• Most people learn languages in classrooms. They don't have the opportunity to live in a foreign country, and they don't get the same amount of exposure to the language that children do when they learn their first language.

• Most educationalists believe that children are not ready to learn language — to STUDY grammar, etc. — because of their age. For them, acquisition-like activities may be the best.

• Some students seem to acquire a new language without too much effort. Many others, however, like, need and want to examine and understand what they are being exposed to.

• Most language-learning lessons today include a mixture of activities, some more focused on acquisition and some more focused on learning.

• Many teaching methods have focused more on learning than acquisition. Teachers following these methods have offered their students individual grammar and vocabulary items one by one.

• Some teaching methods have concentrated more on acquisition than learning. Teachers have involved their students in communication and encouraged them to think more about the CONTENT of what they say or do than the FORM of the language they are using.

How Fernando learnt English
 Fernando Torres, a footballer from Spain who has played in the UK, says that he learnt English there by listening to the radio a lot and (while he was doing it) trying to concentrate on what he was hearing. He also looked at big  advertisements at the side of the road and tried to see - to NOTICE - what they said and what the meaning was. When he had noticed : the words in the advertisements  (= concentrated on the words : so that he could recognise them again), then he could learn them. In other words, he had exposure to the language, but then he thought consciously about what he was seeing and hearing.

Four methods

Although there have been many attempts to find the perfect language-learning method, no one has yet come up with the 'best' one. This is partly because different students learn differently, and partly because teaching methods often change as society itself changes. However, some methods are worth discussing because they are either a) widely used, b) talked about a lot or c) still have influence in modern teaching practice. Methods I and 2 below are more LEARNING-based, whereas methods 3 and 4 are significantly more ACQUISITION-Iike.

 1. Grammar-translation

GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION was the most common way of learning languages for hundreds of years. Students studied the grammar of sentences in the TARGET LANGUAGE (the language they wanted to learn). They translated them into their own language — or the other way round.

Adrian's storyAt his English secondary school Adrian learnt French up to lower-intermediate level with grammar translation. He had to translate sentences such as My uncle's garden is bigger than my aunt's pen into French and he had to learn the rules of French grammar. When he went to France at the age of 17, he could say very little for a few days, but then suddenly he started to be able to communicate and he became more and more fluent over the next three weeks. 

Many people learnt (and continue to learn) languages in ways that are similar to this.

Grammar-translation became unpopular because students translated written sentences rather than spoken conversation, and because they didn't do enough speaking. However, it is clear that asking students to translate into and out of their language and English can teach them a lot about the similarities and differences between the two languages.

 2. Audio-lingual methodology

AUDIO-LINGUAL METHODOLOGY (A-L) gave students a lot of speaking practice by using habit-formation DRILLS. Students repeated sentences again and again until they were memorised. A-L methodology is connected to the theory of BEHAVIOURISM.