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TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ

KHOA SAU ĐẠI HỌC

TIỂU LUẬN HỌC PHẦN CUỐI KỲ

NGÔN NGỮ HỌC ỨNG DỤNG

Giảng viên phụ trách: GS. Hoàng Văn Vân

Học viên: Nghiêm Thị Phượng
Ngày sinh: 30/01/1998
Mã học viên: 21045292
Khóa học: QH2021
Lớp học: QH2021D2

Hà Nội - 07/2022

Topic 4. Choose two approaches to second/foreign teaching and critically evaluate
the strong and weak points of each. State which approach you prefer and provide
reasons?

Historically, foreign language teaching methods (FLT Methods) have always been
associated with trends in linguistics, psychology and pedagogy. According to Celce-
Murcia (1991), foreign language teaching methods always rely on three cornerstones: the
nature of language (language teaching and linguistics), the nature of learners (language
teaching and psychology), and the purpose of teaching and learning (personal goals and
social needs). During the development process, over the past century, FLT has been
known for popular methods such as grammar-translation method, direct method,
audiolingualism, audiolingual method, mim-mem method, audiovisual method /
structural-global method, communicative method/ communicative language teaching
(CLT), ect… However, in this paper I just would like to mention about the pros and cons
of grammar-translation method and audio-lingual method.
The audiolingual approach and the grammar-translation method are crucial in the
teaching of English. The grammar-translation approach concentrates on teaching second-
language grammar, and its primary method is translation from and to the target language.
The study of foreign languages grammar is thought to develop leaners’ reading and
writing skills. On the contrary, the audiolingual is a method of foreign language teaching
which emphasized the teaching of listening and speaking before reading and writing. It
emphasizes training in listening comprehension, accurate pronunciation, reading
comprehension and production of the audio-lingual method which are the development of
mastery in all four language skills, beginning with listening and speaking. In general,
both methods have advantages and disadvantages in teaching foreign languages.

There are some strengths of using grammar-translation method. Firstly, grammar –

translation method helps students to read and appreciate the target language literature.
Therefore, the students reading and writing skills are well train. Moreover, learning
grammar rules improves students' reading skills and allows them to make correct
sentences. The study of grammar rules plays an important role in the grammar -
translation method and it will therefore be useful to students whose goal is to become
proficient in reading and writing skills. Second, because teachers can use their native

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language to discuss and interpret student questions, they do not need to be well prepared
and fluent in the target language. Third, a comparison between the two languages helps
children better understand difficult words and sentences. It helps them better understand
the complex document though it will be challenging for them to use their knowledge to
communicate verbally. Finally, this method is very useful for the average and below-
average students because most of the lessons are carried out in the mother tongue.
Besides, translation is the easiest and shortest way of explaining the meaning of words
and phrases.

Despite its benefits, the grammar-translation method has a lot of drawbacks. First
of all, learning a language involves more than just memorization of rules and modifying
the syntax and morphology of the target language. Learners also need to develop other
crucial language abilities like speaking, listening, and communication skills. Students
cannot interact or communicate in the target language if they just learn grammar rules.
Second, the mother tongue continues to receive the majority of attention, while the target
language appears to be disregarded. The target language increasingly disappears from
lectures when teachers concentrate primarily on grammar rules and speak mostly in their
mother languages. Students are unable to have a suitable language learning environment
as a result, and they are also unable to acquire other crucial language abilities. For
example, in a grammar lesson, teacher asks students to take down their friends’
conversations in their native language and then translate it into English. Apparently, in
this activity, students just need to translate from their mother tongue to the target
language like a machine without interacting or using the target language to communicate
with their peers. Another weak point of this method is less participation from students.
This method is teacher-oriented. Teachers have full control over class learning.
Therefore, the lesson is given by the teacher from the beginning of the lesson until the
end. It's the student's job in the classroom to be the art guide without asking anything. No
discussion or sharing of ideas occurred during the lesson. As a result, students' cognitive
skills as well as critical and creative thinking will not advance. According to Brown

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(2001), there is almost no effect to improve students' ability to communicate in language.
This is because they only read and write in class. Students are not exposed to any other
academic skills such as listening, speaking, and writing. These skills are very important
for students in the learning process. By taking a lesson with these skills, the children will
be able to understand the lesson and manage to complete all the works given by the
teacher. If this situation occurs continuously, it will cause boredom for students.
Furthermore, teaching using this method is against the way of natural language learning.
“The natural order of learning a language is listening, speaking, reading and writing”
(Purwarno Hadinata, 2006). Through this method, students are required to read texts and
literary texts during class time. This method is unnatural. Although elementary-age
children want to learn about their mother tongue at an early age, they still have to listen to
other people's words before they can say it out loud. They can hardly learn about non-
native English through reading. They will not understand sentences or words through
reading. A final disadvantage of grammatical translation is that many vocabularies are
taught as lists of isolated words. The teacher gives the meaning of single words instead of
the meaning of sentences or phrases. For example, the teacher gives the meaning of the
word “educate” in the mother tongue. Students may know only the meaning of the word
“educate”. There are also other words related to the word “educate” such as “education”,
“educational” and many more. When reading sentences containing the word “education”,
students may become confused. This is because they only know the meaning of the word
“educate”.

The audio-lingual approach is another crucial technique for teaching languages,

and it has many advantages for both teachers and students. First, the audio-lingual
method will improve students' speaking and listening skills in language sessions.
Speaking and listening are two very important language acquisition abilities. Before
learning any other abilities, language learners frequently start by listening to the
language. Therefore, the audiolingual method helps students absorb the language quickly
and effectively. Second, using visual aids helps in the enrichment of students’

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vocabulary. Besides learning the meaning of a word through translation, students often
enjoy learning vocabulary through pictures. This makes students remember vocabulary in
a longer and more effective way. Another benefit of this method is that correct
pronunciation and structure are emphasized and acquired. Harmer (2001) emphasizes that
the main aim of teaching and learning in any language is to enable students to
communicate in the target language and if that is the case, communication is a term that
needs interpretation. Communication means understanding and being understood. Having
good pronunciation is extremely important because different sounds will change the
meaning. If we make the wring sound, listeners may be confused because they do not
know what we are saying. For example, the two words “sheep” or “ship” are quite
difficult to distinguish through listening. Therefore, using audio-lingual method in
language classes is effective method to improve students’ pronunciation. Finally, this
method can train learners’ English thinking. Since the audio-lingual method requires
teachers to try to use only English for instruction, or to use very little Vietnamese in the
teaching process. The implementation will reduce interruptions from Vietnamese
patterns, thus gradually helping learners to think in terms of English patterns. As we all
know, most people who are just starting to learn a foreign language are used to translating
what they have heard into their mother tongue to memorize, and before they need to
express themselves, these beginners translate what they store into the target language. As
a result, If teachers and students use English completely in class and learn, interruption
from mother tongue will be declined to certain degree, thus forming the habit of speaking
English in students.

Besides its benefits, the audio-lingual approach has significant drawbacks. First of
all, according to Liu and Shi (2007), one of the weaknesses of the audio-lingual method
is that the results are not always realistic as predicted and that students frequently
struggle to use their newly gained communication abilities outside of the classroom.
Therefore, it ignores the ability to communicate in teaching practice. Students may
receive conversation, but in practice, some students may not be able to develop what they

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have leant from the teacher. They only memorized the dialogue they were taught, not the
real-life dialogue. Secondly, the techniques used by this method become tedious and
boring. In the process of teaching by using audio-lingual method, students are asked to
imitate the teachers’ voice a lot. They don’t have much time to express their creativity
and ideas. What learners do in class just repeats what the teacher says. Moreover, since
the main technique of audio-lingual method is repeated practice exercises for students to
grasp the structure without providing a lot of vocabulary, it can make learners get better
and better at practicing the patterns. However, too many exercises can create a boring
atmosphere and detract from the learner's motivation to learn the language.

For a variety of reasons, I prefer the audio-lingual approach in my English lesson.

Firstly, when using this form of instruction, students are not given any rules; instead, they
are taught the rules through a variety of activities and examples. This function, in my
opinion, is an excellent strategy for teaching foreign languages since it makes it easier for
students to remember and apply rules efficiently without having to memorize them,
which can be a frustrating process. Besides, when teaching methods emotionally, learners
have the opportunity to receive different or similar patterns and distinctions to indicate
the rule of each different pattern. For example, there is a sentence in a conversation such
as “I like football and she likes cooking”, students can practice communication while
deducing grammar rules such as “I” go with like, and if the subject is “she”, we use the
verb “likes”. Secondly, in my English class, students tend to prefer learning through
visual aids and audio rather than just learning through translation. Moreover, most of my
students’ pronunciation is not so good, so audio-lingual method is the better choice at this
time. Another reason for choosing this method in my class is that students' listening and
reading skills are still very poor because most of them do not have many opportunities to
expose to authentic materials and their main orientation is to pass the university entrance
test. For this reason, I always want my students to be able to fully develop the four skills
to create the best foundation for them to have more opportunities for development in the
future when English is used in most countries in the world. Furthermore, when taught in

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this method, students are not provided with any grammar rules but they grasp the rules
through lots of exercises and examples. In my opinion, this feature is a very good way to
teach grammar because it helps learners memorize and practice grammar rules effectively
without having to memorize rules that can be boring. In addition, when teaching grammar
points emotionally, learners have the opportunity to recognize sentence patterns,
distinguish differences or similarities to indicate the rule of each different sentence
pattern, from that “enhance learning ability and independence”. When using the audio-
language method, with the principle of presenting the new material in a conversational
form and using only the target language in the classroom, speaking and listening skills
are better trained. Students have to use the target language in class and that partly forces
them to speak but also makes them gradually feel more comfortable and enjoyable
speaking the language they have learned. Furthermore, through the teacher's target
language model, students can imitate the teacher so that they know how to pronounce
words as well as how to add intonation and stress to the sentences they pose correctly.
Another reason is that the audio-language approach also provides opportunities for
students to master good materials. For example, in the first round, students learn grammar
via games and memorization dialogs. Students fill in the blanks in the conversations
based on different structures and vocabulary before practicing them in a conversation in
front of the class. During the activities, students can refer to their difficulties and teacher
explains and corrects all errors in the activities so that students understand the document
and be able to use it correctly.

In conclusion, each of the different methods has made a notable contribution and
made an effort to address various language learning-related problems. They did, however,
come from various historical contexts, placed a varied emphasis on social and
educational demands, and had different theoretical considerations. Therefore, teachers
should keep the following questions in mind while applying these strategies in the
classroom: who the learners are, what their current level of language competence is, what

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kind of communication demands they have, the contexts in which they will use English in
the future, etc. In other words, no one method could ensure successful outcomes.

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 References
Brown, D. (2001) Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language
Pedagogy, Second Edition. New York: Pearson Education

Celce‐Murcia, M. (1991). Grammar pedagogy in second and foreign language

teaching. TESOL quarterly, 25(3), 459-480.

Harmer, J. (2001). The Practice of English Language Teaching. London: Longman.

Liu, Q.-X.,  Shi, J.-F. (2007). An analysis of language teaching approaches and
methods – Effectiveness and weakness. US-China Education Review, 4(1), 69-71.

Richards, J. C. & T. S. Rodgers (2014). Approaches and Methods in Language

Teaching. 3rd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press