t learning styles, the effective teacher must be prepared to adapt his or her teaching to the needs and preferences of each class. Our advice is to find yourself with respect to the approaches listed below. That said, do not be afraid to experiment with and/or adapt your style of teaching. In the end, you may discover that the best approach is eclectic in nature and includes bits of this and bits of that.as to give some depth of understanding as to the evolution of ideas that has marked the emergence of newer and different approaches to language teaching, we have tried to place the following list of methodological approaches in chronological order.
. 1 Grammar Translation Method
and Ancient Greek are known as dead languages ?? raquo ;, based on the fact that people no longer speak them for the purpose of interactive communication. Yet they are still acknowledged as important languages ??to learn (especially Latin) for the purpose of gaining access to classical literature, and up until fairly recently, for the kinds of grammar training that led to the mental dexterity considered so important in any higher education study stream.has been studied for centuries, with the prime objectives of learning how to read classical Latin texts, understanding the fundamentals of grammar and translation, and gaining insights into some important foreign influences Latin has had on the development of other European languages. The method used to teach it overwhelmingly bore those objectives in mind, and came to be known (appropriately!) As the Classical Method. It is now more commonly known in Foreign Language Teaching circles as the Grammar Translation Method.is hard to decide which is more surprising - the fact that this method has survived right up until today (alongside a host of more modern and more enlightened methods), or the fact that what was essentially a method developed for the study of dead languages ??involving little or no spoken communication or listening comprehension is still used for the study of languages ??that are very much alive and require competence not only in terms of reading, writing and structure, but also speaking, listening and interactive communication. How has such an archaic method, remembered with distaste by thousands of school learners (Richards and Rodgers, 1986: 4) persevered.is worth looking at the objectives, features and typical techniques commonly associated with the Grammar Translation Method, in order to both understand how it works and why it has shown such tenacity as an acceptable raquo ; language teaching philosophy in many countries and institutions around the world.
1.2 Direct Method
the end of the late 1800s, a revolution in language teaching philosophy took place that is seen by many as the dawn of modern foreign language teaching. Teachers, frustrated by the limits of the Grammar Translation Method in terms of its inability to create communicative competence in students, began to experiment with new ways of teaching language. Basically, teachers began attempting to teach foreign languages ??in a way that was more similar to first language acquisition. It incorporated techniques designed to address all the areas that the Grammar Translation did not - namely oral communication, more spontaneous use of the language, and developing the ability to think in the target language. Perhaps in an almost reflexive action, the method also moved as far away as possible from various techniques typical of the Grammar Translation Method - for instance using L1 as the language of instruction, memorizing grammatical rules and lots of translation between L1 and the target language. appearance of the Direct Method thus coincided with a new school of thinking that dictated that all foreign language teaching should occur in the target language only, with no translation and an emphasis on linking meaning to the language being learned. The method became very popular during the first quarter of the 20th century, especially in private language schools in Europe where highly motivated students could study new languages ??and not need to travel far in order to try them out and apply them communicatively. One of the most famous advocates of the Direct Method was the American Charles Berlitz, whose schools and Berlitz Method are now world-renowned., the Direct Method was not without its problems. As Brown (1994: 56) points out, (it) did not take well in public education where the constraints of budget, classroom size, time, and teacher background made such a method difficult to use. Raquo; By the late 1920s, the method was starting to go into decline and there was even a return to the Grammar Translation Method, which guaranteed more in the way of scholastic language learning orientated around reading and grammar skills. But ...
