Even though throughout the last five centuries different teaching methods have been developed in language teaching, it can be said that until fairly recently, students were not at the centre of those methods. The aim of this article is to analyse briefly some of the methods related to ELT (English Language Teaching) and select some features from each of them that would be useful to apply in a classroom in the present day. To do so and in relation with having the students being the main protagonists of the lessons, only the features that can be considered to be more suitable and fruitful in an English class will be taken into account. However, in order to provide some examples of contraposition of un-effective strategies, other features will also be mentioned in order to exemplify how a lesson should not be carried out.
For more than a hundred years, debate and discussion within the teaching profession have often centered on issues such as the role of grammar in the language curriculum, the development of accuracy and fluency in teaching, the choice of syllabus frameworks in course design, the role of vocabulary in language learning, teaching productive and receptive skills, learning theories and their application in teaching, memorization and learning, motivating learners, effective learning strategies, techniques for teaching the four skills, and the role of materials and technology.(Richards & Rodgers, 2001, 7)
Because the evolution of the different methods as Richards and Rodgers pointed out, has led to many discussions, today it is possible to analyse and choose from very complex methods that differ greatly from one another focussing in very different parts of the language curriculum. Therefore, for the shake of this study, the different teaching methods selected will be organized following a chronological order. Due to the wide variety of methods there is, it is necessary to establish a starting point in order to organize the study. Also, because in many occasions more recent methods were created taking many features from previous ones, this will also help to reflect the evolution of the different strategies used.
EARLY METHODS:
The different methods mentioned and briefly analysed in this section were the ones that laid the foundations of the future methods to come. Because these were some of the first methods to be developed regarding ELT, many of the strategies used then are still present in today’s classrooms around the world.
- GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries both Greek and Latin were taught following a system of translating and learning the grammatical rules of the languages. This method of teaching focused mainly in memorising rules and applying them to translate different texts. Although this could be nowadays seen as a very rudimental way of teaching, the grammar-translation method was used until the 1940s around the world. However, even though it is now considered as a method that belongs to the past, some of its strategies can still be applied. Nevertheless, even though in the present it has been proved that active learning should be encouraged during the lessons and students should be the protagonists, this does not mean that they should not be given any rules to follow.
In order to be competent in a language, students need to be aware of the basic grammatical rules they need to follow and it is for that reason that they need to be familiar with them to be able to develop more fluent and natural communication skills. In spite of this, because English is a language made up from several other languages, its grammatical rules have many exceptions. This means that students should then be aware of the rules but also of the exceptions, but the focus should not only be placed in memorising them. On the other hand, besides the emphasis it makes the grammar-translation method in the learning of grammatical rules, the other strategies used would not be appropriate to put into practise in a class today because they place the attention in the reading and writing skills and leaving the oral ones out of the spotlight. What is more, classes were conducted using the L1 instead of the target language which means that students had no real contact with the oral dimension of English.
- DIRECT METHOD
In contrast with the method above-mentioned, the direct method that was used until the 1920s, established communication as the main aim of language learning. For that reason, classes were carried out in English which meant that students were able to gain familiarity with the language. This can be considered a key element in order to plan any language class because in order to get the students to develop their oral competences, they need to both listen and speak it regularly. Oral skills are thus at the forefront of this method and although this approach could not be fully implemented because of the lack of native teachers and methodological principles, using English as the language of communication in the classes is a key idea in order to plan a good lesson.
- THE READING METHOD
The aim of this method was to teach the language through reading comprehension. In order to do so different reading materials such as graded readers and small texts were used. Even though to apply this method students needed to read outside the classroom, even if students did not read all that they are supposed to, this method can still be successful because students will learn new vocabulary in context and grammar. Hence, reading will have a crucial role in improving the student’s competence.
- BEHAVIOURISM — AUDIOLINGUALISM
The idea behind this natural method is that students will learn English in the same way they learnt their mother tongue language. Therefore, students are not required to learn it in a comprehensive way. For this reason, the oral and listening skills are considered more important than the written and reading ones. But this method was proved to be not very successful when applied during classes with students that were older than six years of age because after that age, languages are not interiorized in the same way.
However, behaviourism did have some interesting approaches and strategies that can be adapted in order to be used in a classroom today. One of the ideas behind audiolingualism was that students would learn the language by repeating and automatizing the structures. Although this is now known not to be an effective technique because students need of certain explanation in order to understand and learn, the idea of having students repeat after the teacher or a recorded audio can be adapted into today’s methods. If students learn new words by repeating them, they will be able to know the proper pronunciation of the word unlike if they just learn it by reading it without listening to it.
Learning new vocabulary by only reading its written form, leads in many occasions to learning a wrong pronunciation of the new word. In the same way that happened with the implementation of the direct method, the audio-lingual method only allows the English language to be used in the classrooms which is a very important strategy in order to improve students’ oral competences.
RECENT METHODS:
Even though there are many more methods that can be mentioned in this section, most of them share many characteristics with the ones mentioned before. What is more, other methods were excluded as well because they were not considered to be very useful for its adaptation in an actual class in 2020.
- TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE
Unlike in the other methods briefly analysed previously, TPR (Total Physical Response) encourages fun in the classes. What is more, errors are allowed and understood as a part of the learning process instead of being punished. Thanks to this new way of seeing errors, students can feel more comfortable and actually enjoy themselves while the learning process takes place. Once students feel comfortable they will stop fearing the language and this will help them increase their motivation to learn more. Although this idea does not seem to be ground-breaking nowadays, back when it was first used, it changed dramatically the vision students had of English. The aim of TPR was that students gained oral proficiency through comprehension. So this method continued with the idea behind the Audiolingual method but the oral skills were developed starting through comprehensive input. What is more, English was also the only language allowed in the classrooms continuing with the idea introduced with the direct method.
PRESENT-DAY METHODS:
These are the methods that are mainly used today and they reflect the developments achieved in the last decades regarding both the fields of technology, and education. In the same way that happened with previous methods, the foreground of these ones can be found in the early approches. However, the innovations of the new century have had great influence in the development of them as well.
- COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING
This method has been used since the 1970s and its main objective is to achieve communicative competence. This is accomplished when the students work on the the four language competences: linguistic, pragmatic, discourse and strategic. To achieve this, the learner is placed at the centre and different activities are designed with the aim to get students’ creativity. It is when a student shows a development in their creativity that it can be assured that he has mastered the other skills. The CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) method is quite innovative because creativity was not given much importance in the earlier methods and it has now been proved that it is very important to promote it so students can fully develop their language skills.
- TASK-BASED LEARNING
The key idea behind this method developed in the 1980s is that language competence can only be acquired by having students do real pedagogical tasks during the lessons. This method unifies the theory of the communicative method and of the social constructivism. In this way, students use English to communicate with each other to carry out different tasks. Doing this, they are both practicing and learning new language by completing the different tasks designed by the teacher. The idea of using this kind of tasks is very interesting because the classes become student-centered, and they learn and interact with each other in an active way that improves their motivation, competences and the lessons become more fun for them.
CONCLUSION:
This brief overview of some of the most important methods in English learning teaching, has provided me as a future high school English teacher with some tools that can be use in order to make lessons more fruitful and entertaining for the students. Although by law teachers are required to follow certain rules in order to plan and organize their classes, they still have some autonomy that allows them to decide which teaching method they choose to use. For that reason, this article intends to share some ideas about some of the approaches that can be adapted in a classroom and some techniques to help those classes be more beneficial for students. After this brief analysis I would like to conclude then pointing out the main ideas that have been taken form the studied methods.
From grammar translation method it is important to bare in mind the importance given to grammar. For that reason and although it would have to be adapted in order to make it more learner-centred, it is important to focus on grammar during the different lessons in order to make sure the students have the necessary tools to correctly use the language following the different grammatical rules. Regarding the direct method, the main element that would be taken into account would be the fact that the classes were carried out in English. Although this seems to be the natural thing to do, it was not until the direct method started the trend that the classes were carried out in the students first language instead of the targeted language. And that is why this method is so important and why this methodology is important.
Another important idea is having students read graded readers outside the classroom. By having students read at least one graded reader outside the classroom, they will improve their grammar and vocabulary in a significant way while reading a piece of English literature that will bring them closer to the Anglo-Saxon culture. What is more “graded readers allow for readers to learn unknown words from context”(Day, Omura and Hiramatsu, 1991: 142) so students will learn incidentally new concepts that will be worked with during the lessons.
Hand in hand with the idea of using English as the only language spoken during the lessons, the audiolingual method has also an interesting feature that can be taken into consideration. The most important strategy that can be then taken from this method is the idea that students learn new words by repeating them. Thanks to this method, students will be able to learn the right way of pronouncing the words from the very first moment they encounter them. The TFR method introduced the idea of having fun during the lessons, and this is a very interesting way of attracting the students’ attention. Finally, from the present-day methods the ideas of encouraging creativity (CLT) and introducing pedagogical tasks (TBL) are also very important and teachers should take them into account to plan their lessons.
All in all, after revising these different methods, different ideas can be selected from all of them in order to plan a lessons. This is an example of how even from methods that seem quite traditional and even unsophisticated nowadays, we can still benefit and take some ideas to design effective and innovative lessons.
