History of language teaching

1. History of Language
Teaching
ANNAS SURDYANTO

2. • Latin was the dominant language of education,
commerce, religion, and government in the
Western world.
1500s
• French, Italian, and English gained in importance
as a result of political changes in Europe.
• Latin gradually became displaced as a language
of spoken and written communication.
1600s
(Richards Rodgers 2001)

3. Promotion of Latin
1700s – 1900s
The study of classical Latin (the Latin in which the
classical works of Virgil, Ovid, and Cicero were written)
an analysis of its grammar and rhetoric became the
model for foreign language study.
Children entering “grammar school” were initially given
a rigorous introduction to Latin grammar.

4. Grammar School
Grammar school
Rote learning of
grammar rules
Study of
declensions and
conjugations,
translation, and
practice
Once basic proficiency was established,
students were introduced to the advanced study
of grammar and rhetoric.
(Kelly 1969; Howatt 1984)

5. The curriculum of European schools in
1800s
“Modern” languages
began
• Students were taught
using the same basic
procedures that were
used for teaching Latin
Textbooks
• The textbook consisted
of statements of
abstract grammar rules,
lists of vocabulary, and
sentences for
translation.
The goal
• Speaking the foreign
language was not the
goal, and oral practice
was limited to students
reading aloud the
sentences they had
translated.
By the nineteenth century, this approach based on the study of Latin
had become the standard way of studying foreign languages in schools.

6. Seidenstucker
He divided his text carefully into
two parts, one giving the rules
and necessary paradigms, the
other giving French sentences
for translation into German and
German sentences for
translation into French
Grammar-Translation Method
This approach to foreign
language teaching became
known as the Grammar-
Translation Method.

7. Grammar-Translation Method (1840’s-
1940’s)
Grammar Translation is a way of studying a language that approaches the
language first through detailed analysis of its grammar rules, followed by
application of this knowledge to the task of translating sentences and texts into
and out of the target language. “The first language is maintained as the
reference system in the acquisition of the second language” (Stern 1983: 455)

8. The principal characteristics of the Grammar-
Translation Method were these:
1. Learn a language to read its literature.
2. Grammar Translation: To know the target language grammar rules (syntax and morphology)
and translate according to the native language.
3. Reading and writing are the major focus.
4. Learning of vocabulary based on bilingual word lists, dictionary and memorization.
5. Accuracy is emphasized.
6. Grammar is taught deductively.
7. The student’s native language is the medium of instruction.

9. 19th century innovations
Marcel (1793-1896): child
language learning. Reading
Prendergast (1806-1886):
Children’s use of
situational cues to
interpret utterances and
memorized phrases and
“routines” in speaking.
First structural syllabus.
Gouin (1831-1896):
Children language. Use of
gestures and actions.
Increased opportunities for communication among Europeans created a
demand for oral proficiency in foreign languages.

10. This Reform Movement, as it was referred to, laid the foundations
for the development of new ways of teaching languages and
raised controversies that have continued to the present day.
Reform movement
In the mid- and late nineteenth century, opposition to the
Grammar-Translation Method gradually developed in several
European countries

11. The International Phonetic Association (1886),
and its International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
The study of the spoken language.
Phonetic training.
The use of dialogues to introduce conversational phrases and idioms.
An inductive approach to the teaching of grammar.
Avoidance of the mother tongue.

12. Henry Sweet (1845-1912)
The
Practical
Study of
Languages:
Careful selection of what is to be taught.
Imposing limits on what is to be taught.
Four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Grading materials from simple to complex.

13. General considerations of the Reform
Movement
By Viëtor, Sweet, and other reformers in the late
nineteenth century
• The spoken language is primary.
• Include phonetics in teaching and teachers.
• Learners should hear the lang first, before seeing it in written form.
• Sentences should be taught in meaningful contexts.
• Grammar should be taught inductively.
• Avoid translation. Use mother tongue to clarify.

14. In the sixteenth century, for example, Montaigne described how he
was entrusted to a guardian who addressed him exclusively in Latin
for the first years of his life, since Montaigne’s father wanted his son
to speak Latin well.
These natural language learning principles provided the foundation
for what came to be known as the Direct Method, which refers to
the most widely known of the natural methods.

15. The Direct Method
Natural
language
learning
(refers to
Montaigne)
Direct
Method
Natural
Method

16. The Direct/Natural Method (until 1920’s)
Sauveur (1826-1907) in Europe; Berlitz in the USA: Berlitz Method (commercial
lang schools):
◦ Classroom instruction in Target lang.
◦ Learning based on everyday vocabulary & sentences.
◦ Small and intensive classes.
◦ Oral communication skills in graded progression. Communicative exchanges
between student-teacher.
◦ Grammar taught inductively.
◦ Use of demonstration, objects and pictures in class.

17. Principles of the Berlitz school
Never translate: demonstrate.
Never explain: act.
Never make a speech: ask questions.
Never imitate mistakes: correct.
Never speak with single words: use sentences.
Never use the book: use your lesson plan.
Never go too fast: keep the pace of the student.
Never speak too slowly: speak normally.
Never speak too quickly/loudly: speak naturally.
Never be impatient: take it easy.

18. Difficulties to implement in public
secondary school education
naturalistic first
language
learning
classroom
foreign language
learning
lacked a rigorous
basis in applied
linguistic theory
the practical
realities of the
classroom?

19. 1923: A study concluded that:
No single method could guarantee successful results.
Conversational skills were impractical in view of
• the restricted time
• Limited skills of the teachers
• Irrelevance of conversational skills for average American students

20. Issues to form a method
What goal? What skills?
What language content?
How organize, sequence and present a lesson?
Role of native language?
What techniques and activities work best?
How is SLA accomplished?

21. The methods era
One of the lasting legacies of the Direct Method was the notion of “method” itself. The
controversy over the Direct Method was the first of many debates over how second and foreign
languages should be taught. The history of language teaching throughout much of the twentieth
century saw the rise and fall of a variety of language teaching approaches and methods, the
major examples of which are described in this book. Common to most of them are the following
assumptions:
– An approach or method refers to a theoretically consistent set of teaching procedures that
define best practice in language teaching.
– Particular approaches and methods, if followed precisely, will lead to more effective levels of
language learning than alternative ways of teaching.
– The quality of language teaching will improve if teachers use the best available approaches
and methods.
Richards & Rodgers 2001

22. The nature of approaches and methods
. . . An approach is a set of correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of language teaching
and learning. An approach is axiomatic. It describes the nature of the subject matter to be
taught....
. . . Method is an overall plan for the orderly presentation of language material, no part of which
contradicts, and all of which is based upon, the selected approach. An approach is axiomatic, a
method is procedural.
. . . A technique is implementational – that which actually takes place in a classroom. It is a
particular trick, stratagem, or contrivance used to accomplish an immediate objective.
Techniques must be consistent with a method, and therefore in harmony with an approach as
well.
Edward Anthony in 1963.

23. Theory of language
Structural view
• Language is a system of structurally related elements for the coding meaning.
• The Audiolingual Method, Total Physical Response, the Silent Way
Functional view
• Language is a vehicle for the expression of functional meaning.
• Emphasizing semantic and communicative dimension
• Language teaching content: meaning and function
• Notional/functional syllabus, ESP movement
Interactional view
• Language is a vehicle for the realization of interpersonal relations and for the performance of social
transactions between individuals.
• Focusing on the patterns of moves, acts, negotiation, and interaction.
• Task-Based Language Teaching, Task-Based Conversation, Whole Language, Content Based Instruction

24. Method
Approach
• Theory of language
• Theory of language
learning
Design
• Organization or Syllabus
model
• Types of learning and
activities
• Learner roles
• Teacher roles
• The role of instructional
material
Procedure
• Classroom techniques,
practices, and behaviors
• Pattern of tactics and
strategies