Situational Language Teaching (Oral Approach)
The Oral Approach or Situational Language Teaching is an approach developed by British applied linguists in the 1930s to the 1960s. It is little known by many language teachers although it had an impact on language courses and was still used in the design of many widely used EF/ESL textbooks in the 1980s such as Streamline English (Hartley and Viney 1979).
The Oral Approach and Situational Language Teaching relied on the structural view of language. Both speech and strucure were seen to be the basis of language and, especially, speaking ability. This was a view similar to American structuralists, such as Fries. However, the notion of the British applied linguists, such as Firth and Halliday, that structures must be presented in situations in which they could be used, gave Situational LanguageTeaching its distinctiveness.
Vocabulary and grammar control
One of the outstanding features of the method is its emphasis on vocabulary and reading skills learning. This led to the development of principles of vocabulary control. Frequency counts showed that a core of about 2000 words occurred frequently in written text and that a mastery of such an inventory would lead to better reading skills.
Likewise, it has been believed that an analysis of English and a classification of its principal grammatical structures into sentence patterns (or situational tables) could be used to assist learners to internalize the rules and sentence structures.
Behavioristic background
Situation Language Teaching held a is behavioristic stand to language learning. It dealt with the processes rather than the conditions of learning. These processes englobe three stages:
- recieving the knwoledge or material
- fixing it in memory by repetition
- and using it in actual practice until it becomes a personal skill.
The principles of the behavioristic theory of learning can be summerized as follows:
- language learning is habit-formation
- mistakes are bad and should be avoided, as they make bad habits
- language skills are learned more effectively if they are presented orally first, then in written form
- analogy is a better foundation for language learning than analysis
- the meanings of words can be learned only in a linguistic and cultural context
SLT objectives
Situational Language Teaching aims at the achievement of these objectives:
- a practical command of the four basic skills of a language, through structure
- accuracy in both pronunciation and grammar
- ability to respond quickly and accurately in speech situations
- automatic control of basic structures and sentence patterns.
The syllabus, tecniques and activities
Situational Language Teaching uses a structural syllabus and a word list and relied on structural activities including situational presentation of new sentence patterns and drills to practice the patterns. Typical procedure in Situational Language Teaching include
- Procedures that move from controlled to freer practice of structures
- Procedures that move from oral use of sentence patterns to their automatic use in speech, reading and writing.
A typical situational Language Teaching lesson would start with stress and intonation practice. Then the main body of the lesson might consist of four parts:
- revision (to prepare for new work if necessary)
- presentation of new structure or vocabulary
- oral practice (drilling)
- reading of material on the new structure, or written exercises.
Advantages
Although Situational Language Teaching was developed during the 1930s, it still attracts the interest of many teachers. Its strong emphasis on oral practice, grammar and sentence patterns conform to the intuitions of many practically oriented classroom teachers.
Disadvantages
The views of language and language learning underlying Situational Language Teaching were called into question. Chomsky (1957) showed that the structural and the behaviouristic approaches to langauge were erronous and do not account for the fundamental characteristic of language namely the creativity and uniqueness of individual sentences. Children do not acquire their mother tongue through repetition and habit formation. There must be, however, an innate predisposition that lead them to a certain kind of linguistic comptence.
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The Grammar Translation Method is the oldest method of teaching in India. It is as old as the international of English in the country. A number of methods and techniques have been evolved for the teaching of English and also other foreign languages in the recent past, yet this method is still in use in many part of India. It maintains the mother tongue of the learner as the reference particularly in the process of learning the second/foreign languages. The main principles on which the Grammar Translation Method is based are the following:
(i) Translation interprets the words and phrases of the foreign languages in the best possible manner.
(ii) The phraseology and the idiom of the target language can best be assimilated in the process of interpretation.
(iii) The structures of the foreign languages are best learnt when compared and contrast with those of mother tongue.
In this method, while teaching the text book the teacher translates every word, phrase from English into the mother tongue of learners. Further, students are required to translate sentences from their mother tongue into English. These exercises in translation are based on various items covering the grammar of the target language. The method emphasizes the study of grammar through deduction that is through the study of the rules of grammar. A contrastive study of the target language with the mother tongue gives an insight into the structure not only of the foreign language but also of the mother tongue.
Advantages:
1. The phraseology of the target language is quickly explained. Translation is the easiest way of explaining meanings or words and phrases from one language into another. Any other method of explaining vocabulary items in the second language is found time consuming. A lot of time is wasted if the meanings of lexical items are explained through definitions and illustrations in the second language. Further, learners acquire some short of accuracy in understanding synonyms in the source language and the target language.
2. Teacher’s labour is saved. Since the textbooks are taught through the medium of the mother tongue, the teacher may ask comprehension questions on the text taught in the mother tongue. Pupils will not have much difficulty in responding to questions on the mother tongue. So, the teacher can easily assess whether the students have learnt what he has taught them. Communication between the teacher and the learnersdoes not cause linguistic problems. Even teachers who are not fluent in English can teach English through this method. That is perhaps the reason why this method has been practiced so widely and has survived so long.
Disadvantages:
1. It is an unnatural method. The natural order of learning a language is listening, speaking, reading and writing. That is the way how the child learns his mother tongue in natural surroundings. But in the Grammar Translation Method the teaching of the second language starts with the teaching of reading. Thus, the learning process is reversed. This poses problems.
2. Speech is neglected. The Grammar Translation Method lays emphasis on reading and writing. It neglects speech. Thus, the students who are taught English through this method fail to express themselves adequately in spoken English. Even at the undergraduate stage they feel shy of communicating through English. It has been observed that in a class, which is taught English through this method, learners listen to the mother tongue more than that to the second/foreign language. Since language learning involves habit formation such students fail to acquire habit of speaking English. Thus, they have to pay a heavy price for being taught through this method.
3. Exact translation is not possible. Translation is, indeed, a difficult task and exact translation from one language to another is not always possible. A language is the result of various customs, traditions, and modes of behaviour of a speech community and these traditions differ from community to community. There are several lexical items in one language, which have no synonyms/equivalents in another language. For instance, the meaning of the English word ‘table’ does not fit in such expression as the ‘table of contents’, ‘table of figures’, ‘multiplication table’, ‘time table’ and ‘table the resolution’, etc. English prepositions are also difficult to translate. Consider sentences such as ‘We see with our eyes’, ‘Bombay is far from Delhi’, ‘He died of cholera’, He succeeded through hard work’. In these sentences ‘with’, ‘from’, ‘of’, ‘through’ can be translated into the Hindi preposition ‘se’ and vice versa. Each language has its own structure, idiom and usage, which do not have their exact counterparts in another language. Thus, translation should be considered an index of one’s proficiency in a language.
4. It does not give pattern practice. A person can learn a language only when he internalizes its patterns to the extent that they form his habit. But the Grammar Translation Method does not provide any such practice to the learner of a language. It rather attempts to teach language through rules and not by use. Researchers in linguistics have proved that to speak any language, whether native or foreign entirely by rule is quite impossible. Language learning means acquiring certain skills, which can be learnt through practice and not by just memorizing rules. The persons who have learnt a foreign or second language through this method find it difficult to give up the habit of first thinking in their mother tongue and than translating their ideas into the second language. They, therefore, fail to get proficiency in the second language approximating that in the first language. The method, therefore, suffers from certain weaknesses for which there is no remedy
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