MORE RECENT METHODS

Since the necessity of new points about language teaching field, there was a boom of new
alternative methods or approaches, all of them spread in the United States and Europe.
Therefore, it is going to be presented a summary of the five recent methods of language
teaching: Total Physical Response, Silent Way, Community Language Learning,
Suggestopedia, and the Natural Approach.
To begin with, Total Physical Response, emerged in the 1960s and lasted until the late
80s and was developed by James J. Asher. He based his theory on the three most strong
hypotheses. The first was about the influence of the first language acquisition process.
This hypothesis comes with the idea that the second language acquisition process in some
way parallel to the way we acquire our first language. Early social interaction in children
was mostly through a physical response to movement. Thus, Asher concluded that learning
through movement could be applied to second language learning. The second hypothesis
talked about the influence of brain lateralization: in this one, Asher held that as learning
takes place in the right hemisphere and once this hemisphere started the learning process,
the left hemisphere will produce more abstract language processes. The third talks about
the importance of stress: adult learners are most liable to suffer stress and anxiety during
learning so, learning through movement would be less stressful. Moreover, the objective
of TPR was to teach oral proficiency at a beginner level besides that it focused on the
development of comprehension skills. On the one hand, talking about the characteristics
of the classroom activities it can be said that TPR was conformed by commands as
imperative drills to elicit learner’s movement, conversational dialogue, role plays, slides
presentations with reading and writing activities, and mentioning that TPR classes were
more focused on meaning rather than grammar with the verb as the central linguistic item.
Also, the correction was graded from the beginning to the end, increasing as learners
improved. On the other hand, this method was centered in the teacher and learners were
able to evaluate their own progress and speak when they felt ready, so, the teacher was
the learning opportunities provider. Lastly, materials were usual classroom objects,
besides pictures, realia, slides, and word charts.
Secondly, the Silent Way Learning method was developed by Caleb Gattegno, proposing
a silent teacher who provided minimum input as eliciting output from the learners. He
proposed that teaching activity should be focused on how learners have self-monitoring
and self-correction in their own learning process. The main aim of this method was to
provide beginners students with oral and aural elements of the target language altogether
specific input according to the students' needs. On the one hand, talking about classroom
activities, lessons were planned around grammatical items and related vocabulary, this
vocabulary was formed by the most functional words. The language was also taught
through artificial situations, and language rules were taught inductively. On the other hand,
seen since the types of teaching and learning activities, this method tried to avoid repetition
and drilling, taking creativeness as the most important factor in learning. The student
supposed to be, autonomous, responsible, and should develop problem-solving skills. The
method was developed in the next way: the teacher models a word, phrase, or sentence
and elicits the learner’s response. The L1 was avoided and the correction was not
important because it was seen to be negative for learners. The materials were colored
charts, rods, and other visual aids. In this case, Cuisenaire rods were used to avoid
translation through a mechanism of linking words and structures with its L1 meaning.
Besides, the role of the teachers was “silently” using materials already mentioned to carry
meaning to promote utterances from learners. And learners were supposed to formulate
their conclusions and rules resulting in a self-challenge process.
The third is the Community Language Learning method. It was developed by Charles A.
Curran. In this method, Curran was concerned about the application of principals of clinical
psychology to education. He thought that teaching should be personalized and saw the
learner as a person with emotions and intellect, values, and personality. He also stated
that psychological needs had to be considered in the learning process. On the one hand,
CLL objectives are more focused on achieving certain oral proficiency and communicative
competence through conversation courses in the L2 focusing on fluency in social
situations. On the other hand, the materials and activities were a combination of different
and newest conventional tasks. In a circle, the learners started a conversation and the
teacher translated the utterances into the target language. CLL also had tasks as group
work, analysis of transcriptions, a listening practice given by the teacher, and free
conversation among the teacher and other students. Moreover, materials such as notes
on the blackboard or recordings of students’ conversations were used. The students
created their own textbook through a technique of taking notes on grammar/spelling
elements from sentences taken from recordings. In the CLL, the learning process consisted
of five stages, going from the dependent to the independent stage. Learning was also seen
as a collaboration achievement. Therefore, learners should support other learners and act
as counselors for them. Also, the teacher role changed over time, intervening every time
less, using unusual materials depending on learners’ needs.
In the fourth place, it is the Suggestology method, also known as Suggestopedia. It was
encouraged by Giorgi Lozanov, beginning his research in the 1960s, to find a way to
increase learning and teaching not only languages but also academic subjects. Lozanov
thought that the factors that limited learning were the fear of ineffectualness or making
mistakes, hence, apprehension regarding new and unknown learning. He thought that this
method helped to neutralize learning insecurity and “de-suggesting” false limitations. For
him, memorization was not the main goal but reaching a certain level of problem-solution
skill, besides a higher level of oral skills. In Suggestology the main issue was the
vocabulary and lexical translation. For Lozanov, vocabulary memorization was to acquire
habits of speech, not of communication. In terms of the types of learning and teaching
activities, it can be said that the duration of a suggestopedia course was thirty days a week
with four hours a day classes and six days a week. The course was formed by ten unites
focused on dialogue with vocabulary lists and grammatical comments. The students used
a new name in order to lose shyness. The groups consisted of twelve learners sitting in a
circle and having a face-to-face exchange. The unit was divided into three days: the first
day, the teacher discussed the content of the unit using tape recorders. There was not any
homework. The second day, students did grammar and vocabulary exercises along with
games and songs. There was also an encouragement to use the L2 in social places such
as hotels or restaurants. Finally, the last day, there was a performance with all the students.
Talking about the classroom environment, it supposed to be comfortable and relaxing,
besides the presence of visual reinforcement and arts. There was also the use of a musical
background to allow better concentration.
Lastly, there is the Natural Approach. It was published by Tracy Terrell and Stephen
Krashen in 1983. Although it was compared with the Direct Method, there were marked
differences with it, such as more input than practice, the optimization of training for learning,
a longer period of attention, comprehension as the central role, and the use of materials to
achieve comprehensible input. The objectives depended on learners’ needs such as
communication skills, oral and written, and academic learning skills, also in an oral and
written way. For this approach was enough that students could deal with specific topics in
particular situations. For Krashen and Terrell, the Natural Approach was an example of the
Communicative Approach, since it was focused on teaching communicative skills. Since
this approach learning was seen as a mastery of structures by stages. Therefore,
vocabulary and grammar were important to communicate meaningful messages. In fact,
the Natural Approach was based in five Krashen’s hypotheses related to the
Psycholinguistic Theory: the acquisition/learning hypothesis that stated the difference
between learning and acquisition. Then, the monitor hypothesis stating the existence of a
“monitor” responsible for editing and correcting output and learners’ production. In third
place, the natural order hypothesis, which says that it exists a natural order in the
acquisition of grammatical structures. In fourth place, the input hypothesis stated that the
acquisition process depends on enough input, one level above the learners’ level,
introducing the formula “i+1”. And finally, the affective filter hypothesis, formed by three
variables, motivation, self-confidence, and anxiety, the last mentioned, being lower than
the first two. On the other hand, classroom activities included activities adapted from other
methods and approaches, such as command-based activities, situation-based activities,
the practice of structures and patterns, and group-work activities. The difference is that the
Natural Method gives more emphasis on comprehensible and meaningful communication.
Moreover, talking about material, charts, magazine pictures, advertisements were used at
the early stages. Actually, learners have acquisition activities focused on the topics and
situations according to their needs, consequently, teachers should be the main source of
comprehensible input and create an interesting classroom atmosphere. Finally, to facilitate
the acquisition of vocabulary, pictures and visual aids were used. Besides the use of
schedules, brochures, advertisements, maps, and books; also, games were useful.
In conclusion, it can be said that to be better and improve learning, all five methods
compete among them, but also take characteristics one from the other; however, what they
have in common is, in fact, the ignorance of the existence of cognitive differences in
learning styles and social taste. It is also a fact that all methods were strongly criticized and
disapproved from society since they all have pros and cons, but the cons were more
perceptible. Nevertheless, as time pass by, all these approaches, have been well-matched
with new ones and have been considered in new communicative approaches, setting a
challenge to conventional belief about language teaching.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Arzamendi, J; Ball, P; Gassó, E; Hockly, N. Methodological Approach
IEXPRO anthology Mexico. Chiapas, 2010.