The Audio-Lingual Method
The audio-lingual method is considered to be one of the most popular oral methods in foreign language teaching. Every teacher will agree with it. But what is special about it?
The advantages of the audio-lingual method. The basic principles of the audio-lingual method contribute to its popularity a lot. It`s important that students don`t use their native language in the process of learning and a foreign language is learned through imitation and an analogy. The audio-lingual method gives a teacher an opportunity to use such sort of exercises as substitution and transformation because foreign language patterns should be practiced through intensive drills. Listening and speaking habits should precede reading and writing habits and it`s quite natural to start teaching a foreign language with audio-lingual method, that is the most useful for the early stages of learning. But is this method as suitable at the intermediate and advanced levels as it is at the elementary level of learning.
Language learning is a natural creative process rather than habit formation. Many teachers using the audio-lingual method had long wished for some improvement or modification of the accepted methodology. Although they found the memorization and pattern-practice exercises useful for the early stages, they felt a need to build a bridge from those highly structured activities to the freer, more creative use of the language at the intermediate and advanced levels. Creative teachers argue that the audio-lingual method and its components don`t provide a satisfactory solution to this important problem. Good foreign language teachers early saw that a potential drawback of the audio-lingual method was its tendency to be dull and uninspiring for both students and teachers. Resourceful teachers try to make the drills more interesting by varying their form, by providing a meaningful context, by using visual aids and they often succeed admittably by such means. Nowadays a good foreign language teacher should provide guided practice in thinking in the language rather than more repetition drill. Such mental involvement tends to make language learning more enjoyable for study, which must itself be a positive factor contributing to improved attitudes and better results.