As we have seen in the videos, the reading approach and the audiolingual approach

are very different. The first different that becomes more evident is the skills that they
focus on: The reading approach centers only on the reading skill (a passive skill) while
the audiolingual approach includes the speaking and listening skills (both active and
passive skills). Their origin also defers, while the reading approach started to be
applied as the direct approach was perceived as non-realistic for most students (not all
the students would be able to travel around the world or enter into contact with other
cultures, the teachers would not be necessarily native speakers, etc.), the audiolingual
approach emerges from the necessity of the war (soldiers had to learn language of
their allies and enemies). Moreover, the technique used to teach the language is quite
different. The reading approach can relate to the grammar approach as it gives priority
to memorization of vocabulary lists and translation. On the other hand, the audiolingual
approach uses the habit of drills and dialogue memorization to teach lessons.
I am not currently teaching English, but if I had to choose between the two approaches,
I would say I would use the Audiolingual approach. The reason for my choice is related
mainly to the practice of the skills. As I mentioned above, the reading approach only
focus on 1 passive skill, while the audiolingual in two. Moreover, I believe that the
repetition of common phrases and conversations will help the student to be prepared
and communicate in very efficient way in any daily situation as he will know what
phrase to use in a specific situation and will have a good pronunciation. In addition to
this, I think that the student could be more motivated to learn with this approach as it
requires the active participation of the student.