[MUSIC] Welcome back to Teach English Now!. Thanks for joining us on our journey throughout time to discover different approaches to learning and teaching a language. In this last video, we wanted to give you an overview of the information we have presented so that you can have a clear idea of what you will be tested on. Let's review how these approaches swing from one idea to the other. Shane? >> Thanks, Jessica. First of all, we looked at a teacher who adopted principals of the grammar translation approach. Here we discovered a teacher whose purpose for teaching language was, to teach young men, scholars, how to read Latin and Greek. His job was to give his students a classical education and be rooted in the morality that came with time tested literature. He used long passages of poetry, short story, plays and novels and helped students to engage in these classic texts through careful and thorough readings. He also taught these students through the use of back translation. That technique that moves students from the second language to their primary and then back to the second language. He also taught grammar explicitly, used reading comprehension questions, fill in the blanks, memorization of vocabulary, and he wasn't afraid of assigning a writing essay to determine how much students knew. Jessica. >> Thanks Shane. In our second trip, we visited an adventurous teacher that adopted features of the direct approach. This teacher wanted to teach students who would travel or visit other countries. He wanted students to truly experience culture. Not just classic literature. But geography, history, and people. He used dialog, conversations, passages about other cultures, maps and visual aids, he wanted you to know what it was like to be completely immersed in a culture and made his classroom feel like an immersive experience. He didn't really teach grammar deductively, rather he taught you as if you were learning a first language by reading out loud, conversation practices, map drawing, question and answers, and self-correction wherever possible. Shane. >> In our third trip, we learned about a teacher and the reading approach who had the practical need of getting students ready. For tests, he taught students would likely never leave the country. Since this teacher wasn't a native speaker of the language himself, he relied on readings that would level to the learners knowledge and taught vocabulary and grammatical items from those readings. Once again, deductive grammar instruction became fashionable. As did the memorization of vocabulary, and a certain amount of translation. As opposed to the direct approach, oral proficiency was not emphasized and evaluative performance through testing was a major focus. Jessica? >> Thanks. Our fourth journey, landed us in the middle of military action. As military personnel, were required to teach soldiers how to speak so that they could communicate with enemies and allies. By learning on principles taught by behaviorist, this teacher taught using dialogues, language mimicry, repeat after me, and visual aids. He was a true believer of habit formation drills, including backward buildup, chain, single and multi slot substitution and transformation drills. He believed in dialog memorization, the use of minimal pairs, grammatical games and a concept called Overlearning. Shane? >> Thanks Jessica. We then travel to a time when we found the cognitive approach. This scientist looked to understand how languages worked, and often wanted to research and publish, all with the aim of understanding the unique properties of the human mind. While it was not truly a classroom approach, it attempted to peer into that impenetrable black box that we think of as the brain. Something Noam Chomsky called the Language Acquisition Device, what a mysterious name. Cognitive scientists tried to uncover the processes, cognitive and metacognitive that learners used as they tried to gain and retain information Jessica? >> Thanks. What got left out at the equation, in the cognitive approach, was a discussion of anything outside of the brain. Thus, the pendulum swung again, and we found approaches that discussed the importance of focusing on a holistic view of people. A special emphasis on feelings. This teacher sought to respect student feelings as they learned a language and believed that by understanding student feelings, there was a chance to increase the speed of learning. The teacher used bright colors, pictures, music, fine art, and dialogues, and games, all in an attempt to help learners become more comfortable with the environment. Students were constantly given positive reinforcement, given new identities, and when they listen to a reading, they would listen with music in the background. And listen several times. Time was spent developing plans that allowed students to be creative, either through dramatic, interpretations, games, singing, or dance. Shane. >> Thanks. Comprehension based approaches such as total physical response soon followed. These approaches sought to help make meaning clear by giving students confidence so that they would be willing to produce language. While the effective humanistic approach asks students to speak, and act, and create, TPR and other comprehension based approaches such as the natural approach lets students be silent participants, at least at the beginning. Classroom objects and observable objects were an important part of the student experience and chunks of language and novel combinations are used. TPR itself had quite a number of commands and used role reversal to help students give commands as well. TPR also allowed students to think in terms of action sequences to help guide them to understand language through chronological events. Jessica. >> Thanks. Finally, we have arrived to the communicative approach, which is an approach still widely used today. Here, the purpose of the approach was to connect people together, to create opportunity. Sometimes educational, sometimes political, and sometimes financial. The communicative approach demonstrated a high value on loving other cultures and places and somehow shortening the distance from one place to the other. Book publishers created carefully leveled books with high interest themes and these books often contained a variety of skills such as reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Books also contained excerpts on pronunciation, grammar, culture, learner strategies, speech acts, and vocabulary. In some sense, the communicative approach sought to learn from all of the approaches in the past, in order to avoid swinging from one side of the pendulum to the other. It could use authentic materials. Picture strips, information gap, language games, group and pair work and listener strategies to meet diverse needs of individuals in each class room. >> So did you see any swing from one side of the pendulum to the other? Did you notice the swing from the use of deductive to inductive grammar? How about the use of speaking as a primary component? Notice how the grammar translation approach, for example, had no speaking really. Direct? Yes, speaking. Reading? No. Audio-lingual? Absolutely. Cognitive? Not really. Effective humanistic, yes. Comprehension and then, you see what I mean. It's a lot of swinging. However, I'm happy to state that the comprehension based and communicative approaches tend to not swing nearly as much. While different practitioners may have differing amounts of speaking or grammar in their class, nearly all practitioners have recognized the need for at least a certain amount. We could discuss this in some detail later, but the point is that it appears we aren't swinging nearly as much as in times past. And that's a good thing. >> One final note, while there's been a lot of swinging back and forth We want you to keep in mind the tremendous difference there is in understanding of your purpose. If you encounter students who really need to pass a test, then some of the strategies learned in the reading approach might be very attractive and even recommended. If learning just enough language to communicate quickly is attractive to you, there is still commercial products that use a lot of audio-lingual drills to allow you time to practice and practice quickly before your airplane lands. So, before you judge any of these approaches too harshly, please consider what your purpose and the purpose of your learners is first. >> Great insight Jessica thanks. We have got to stop swinging back and forth and our ability to choose techniques and materials based on our purposes makes a lot of sense. I would also add that taking a careful look at language studies can also be a way of grounding ourselves in reality, instead of just choosing techniques because we find them fashionable, fun, or because they fit our particular personality. We have a great wealth of information in our field that should inform our decisions as we move forward as language instructors. All right, ready for your test? Make sure you review all the materials and go over the videos and your worksheet before you begin. Good luck. Let me set the time machine to a date in the not-so-distant future, your future success. We'll see you then. >> Thanks for watching Teach English Now. [MUSIC]
