Compare the Audio-Lingual Method and The Silent Way

The Audio- Lingual Method

• In the Audio-Lingual Method, teachers want their students to be able to use the target language communicatively. In order to do this, they believe students need to overlearn the target language, to learn to use it automatically without stopping to think and achieve this by forming new habits in the target language and overcoming the old habits of their native language.

• The teacher is like an orchestra leader, directing and controlling the language behavior of her students. She is also responsible for providing her students with a good model for imitation. Students are imitators of the teacher's model or the tapes she supplies of model speakers. They follow the teacher's directions and respond as accurately and as rapidly as possible.

• The characteristics of the teaching/learning process : New vocabulary and structural patterns are presented through dialogs that are learned through imitation and repetition. Drills (such as repetition, backward build-up, chain, substitution, transformation, and question-and-answer) are conducted based upon the patterns present in the dialog. Students' successful responses are positively reinforced. Grammar is induced from the examples given; explicit grammar rules are not provided. Cultural information is contextualized in the dialogs or presented by the teacher. Students' reading and written work is based upon the oral work they did earlier.

• There is student-to-student interaction in chain drills or when students take different roles in dialogs, but this interaction is teacher-directed. Most of the interaction is between teacher and students and is initiated by the teacher.

• The view of language in the Audio-Lingual method has been influenced by descriptive linguists. Every language is seen as having its own unique system. The system is comprised of several different levels : phonological, morphological, and syntactic. Each level has its own distinctive patterns. Everyday speech is emphasized in the Audio-Lingual Method. The level of complexity of the sppech is graded, however, so that beginning students are presented with only simple patterns. Culture consists of the everyday behavior and lifestyle of the target language speakers.
  

• Vocabulary is kept to a minimum while the students are mastering the sound system and grammatical patterns. A grammatical pattern is not the same as a sentence. For instance, underlying the following three sentences is the same grammatical pattern : Meg called, The Blue Jays won, The team practiced. The natural order of skills presentation is adhered to : listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The oral/aural skills receive most of the attention. What students write they have first been introduced to orally. Pronunciation is taught from the beginning, often by students working in language laboratories on discriminating between members of minimal pairs.

• The role of the students' native language : The habits of the students' native language are thought to interfere with the students' attempts to master the target language. Therefore, the target language is used in the classroom, not the students' native language. A contrastive analysis between the students' native language and the target language will reveal where a teacher should expect the most interference.

• The evaluation accomplished : it was discrete-point in nature, each question on the test would focus on only one point of the language at a time. Student might be asked to distinguish between words in a minimal pair, for example, or to supply an appropriate verb form in a sentence.

• The teacher respond to student errors : Students errors are to be avoided if at all possible through the teacher's awareness of where the students will have difficulty and restriction of what they are taught to say.

The techniques of the Audio-Lingual Method :

• Dialog memorization
• Backward build-up (expansion) drill
• Repetition drill
• Chain drill
• Single-slot substitution drill
• Multiple-slot substitution drill
• Transformation drill
• Question-and-answer drill
• Use of minimal pairs
• Complete the dialog
• Grammar game

The Silent Way

• In the Silent Way, students should be able to use the language for self-expression--to express their thought, perceptions, and feelings by developed independence from the teacher, to develop their own inner criteria for correctness. Students become independent by relying on themselves. The teacher, therefore, should give them only what they absolutely need to promote their learning.

• The teacher is a technician or engineer. 'Only the learner can do the learning,' but the teacher, relying on what his students already know, can give what help is necessary, focus the students' perceptions,' force their awareness,' and ' provide exercises to insure their facility' with the language. The teacher should respect the autonomy of the learners in their attempts at relating and interacting with the new challenges. The role of the students is to make use of what they know, to free themselves of any obstacles that would interfere with giving their utmost attention to the learning task, and to actively engage in exploring the language. No one can learn for us. Gattegno would say; to learn is our personal responsibility. As Gattegno says, 'The teacher works with the student; the student works on the language.'

• Characteristics of the teaching / learning process : Students begin their study of the language through its basic building blocks, its sounds. These are introduced through a language-specific sound-color chart. Relying on what sounds students already know from their knowledge of their native language, teachers lead their students to associate the sounds of the target language with particular colors. Later, these same colors are used to help students learn the spellings that correspond to the sounds (through the color-coded Fidel charts) and how to read and pronounce words properly (through the color-coded word charts). The teacher sets up situations that focus student attention on the structures of the language. The situations provide a vehicle for students to perceive meaning. The situations sometimes call for the use of rods and sometimes do not; they typically involve only one structure at a time. With minimal spoken cues, the students are guided to produce the structure. The teacher works with them, striving for pronunciation that would be intelligible to a native speaker of the target language. The teacher uses the students' errors as evidence of where the language is unclear to students and, hence, where to work. The students receive a great deal of practice with a given target language structure without repetition for its own sake. They gain autonomy in the language by exploring it and making choices. The teacher asks the students to describe their reactions to the lesson or what they have learned. This provides valuable information for the teacher and encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning. Some further learning takes place while they sleep.
  

• For much of the student-teacher interaction, the teacher is silent. He is still very active, however--setting up situations to 'force awareness,' listening attentively to students' speech, and silently working with them on their production through the use of nonverbal gestures and the tools he has available. When the teacher does speak, it is to give clues, not to model the language. Student-student verbal interaction is desirable (students can learn from one another) and is therefore encouraged. The teacher's silence is one way to do this.

• The feelings of the students dealt with : The teacher constantly observes the students. When their feelings interfere, the teacher tries to find ways for the students to overcome them. Also, through feedback sessions at the end of lessons, students have an opportunity to express how they feel. The teacher takes what they say into consideration and works with the students to help them overcome negative feelings which might otherwise interfere with their learning. Finally, because students are encouraged throughout each lesson to cooperate with one another, it is hoped that a relaxed, enjoyable learning environmet will be created.

• Language of the world share a number of features. However, each language also has its own unique reality, or spirit, since it is the expression of a particular group of people. Their culture, as reflected in their own unique world view, is inseparable from their language.

• Since the sounds are basic to any language, pronunciation is worked on from the beginning. It is important that students acquire the melody of the language. There is also a focus on the structures of language, although explicit grammar rules may never be supplied. Vocabulary is somewhat restricted at first. There is no fixed, linear, structural syllabus. Instead, the teacher starts with what the students know and builds from one structure to the next. As the learners' repertoire is expanded, previously introduced structures are continually being recycled. The syllabus develops according to learning needs. All four skills are worked on from the beginning of the course, although there is a sequence in that students learn to read and write what they have already produced orally. The skills reinforce what students are learning.

• The role of the students' native language : Meaning is made clear by focusing the students' perception, not by translation. The students' native language can, however, be used to give instructions when necessary, to help a student improve his or her pronunciation, for instance. The native language is also used ( at least at beginning levels of proficiency) during the feedback sessions. More important, knowledge students already possess of their native language can be exploited by the teacher of the target language. For example, the teacher knows that many of the sounds in the students' native language will be similar, if not identical, to sounds in the target language; he assumes, then, that he can build upon this existing knowledge to introduce the new sounds in the target language.

• The evaluation accomplished : although the teacher may never give a formal test, he assesses student learning all the time. Since 'teaching is subordinated to learning,' the teacher must be responsive to immediate learning needs. The teacher's silence frees him to attend to his students and to be aware of these needs. The needs will be apparent to a teacher who is observant of his students' behavior. One criterion of whether or not students have learned is their ability to transfer what they have been studying to new contexts. The teacher does not praise or criticize student behavior since this would interfere with students' developing their own inner criteria. He expects students to learn at different rates. The teacher looks for steady progress, not perfection.

• The teacher respond to students errors : Student errors are seen as a natural; indispensable part of the learning process. Errors are inevitable since the students are encouraged to explore the language. The teacher uses student errors as a basis for deciding where further work is necessary. The teacher works with the students in getting them to self-correct. Students are not thought to learn much if the teacher merely supplies the correct language. Students need to learn to listen to themselves and to compare their own production with their developing inner criteria. If the students are unable to self-correct and peers cannot help, then the teacher would supply the correct language, but only as a last resort.

The techniques and the materials of the Silent Way :

• Sound-color chart
  
• Teacher's silence
  
• Peer correction
• Rods
  
• Self-correction gestures
• Word chart
  
• Fidel charts
  
• Structured feedback