UNIT 1 In this unit we are going to look at the different methods

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE TEACHING.
CURRENT TRENDS IN THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH
AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. THE COMMUNICATIVE
APPROACH.
1. INTRODUCTION
2. A HISTORY OF THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH AS A
FOREING LANGUAGE
2.1. Up to the eighteen century.
2.1.1. Ancient civilisations.
2.1.2. Middle Ages.
2.1.3. 16th and 17th Century.
2.1.4. 18th Century
2.2. The 19th century: Approaches and Methods on language
teaching.
2.2.1. The Grammar-Translation method.
2.2.2. The Reform Movement: Gouin and The role of
phonetics.
2.2.3. The Direct Method: Berlitz.
2.3. The 20th century: A communicative approach.
2.3.1. Situational Language teaching method and the
Audiolingual method.
2.3.2. New Methods: The Silent Way, Sugestopaedia, Total
Physical Response.
2.3.3. The Communicative Language Teaching Approach.
2.3.4. The Eclectic Approach.
3. NEW DIRECTIONS ON LANGUAGE TEACHING.
3.1. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
4. CONCLUSION.
1.INTRODUCTION
that have been used for language teaching throughout history. We
can distinguish three main schools of thought: The first one
focuses the attention on grammatical structures. Although it has
begun to disappear, it partly survives in the design of some
textbooks. The second one focuses on communication, so the
great objective is the development of the student’s communicative
capacity. With the third school of thought, the task-based and the
project-based approach develop. The concept and practice of
communication evolves towards richer forms. The foreign
language is considered as an instrument. Language teaching has
to bear in mind the student’s characteristics and his way of
learning, the task which has to be carried out, the learning
strategies and the attitudes, etc.
We will examine all of these styles throughout this unit.
The information that we will use has been mainly taken from
Richards, J and Rodgers (1986); Rivers, W. (1981); Baugh, A.,
and Cable T. A (1993).
2. A HISTORY OF THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH AS
FOREING LANGUAGE.
2.1. Up to the 18th century.
Although we have no evidence of language learning
procedures it is known that Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians…
sent bilingual delegates. As Richards and Rodgers state, the
function of the earliest educational systems was primarily to teach
religion and to promote the traditions of the people.
In Middle Ages Latin was the most important language,
usually used as a second language: It was the dominant language
of education, government and commerce. It was taught in the
monastic schools through rote learning of grammar rules and
translation.
During 16th and 17th century, vernacular languages
(French, Italian and English) gained in importance as a result of
political changes in Europe, and Latin gradually became displaced
as a language of spoken and written communication. These
languages were taught using the same basic techniques that had
been used to teach Latin, which became the model of all language
study. The system could hardly be said to be communicative. The
L1 was used all the time and the role of the learner was basically
passive. Through this concept the Grammar Translation Method
(or Traditional method) was developed.
2.2. The 19th century: Approaches and Methods on language
teaching.
Grammar-Translation Method was the dominant foreign
language teaching method in Europe during 19th century. It was of
German origin and it was known in the USA as The Prussian
Method. It is a mainly book-oriented method of learning the
grammatical system of the language. The main purpose of this
method was to enable students to read literature in target
language; Language learning involves the memorisation of rules
and vocabulary related to first language meaning by means of
massive translation practice. Grammar-translation lays no
emphasis on the speaking or listening of second language speech.
In the mid-late 19th century, increased opportunities for
communication among Europeans created a demand for oral
proficiency in foreign languages. One of the main areas to
challenge the Grammar Translation Method was the Gouin Series.
The proposals of the reformer F. Gouin were based on the
observation of the way a child learns its mother tongue. So
language, gestures and action are linked leaving behind the
passivity of the method mentioned before. This means a big step
to the Communicative Approach, as it represents a shift from
grammar-translation methods to natural methods.
This tendency to consider spoken language as an essential
element in language learning also led to the founding of an
International Phonetic Association (1886), which brought about a
reform of language learning methodology. Reformers believed
that grammar had to be taught inductively, translation avoided,
and language learning should be based on hearing the language
first, before seeing it in written forms.
According to Rivers, this interesting for developing
teaching principles from principles in first language acquisition
led to the development of what we know as The Direct Method.
This method is characterised, above all, by trying to apply natural
principles to language classes. Sauveur in France and Berlitz in
America promoted the use of intensive oral interaction in the
target language and the avoidance of translation as a technique.
2.3. The 20th century: a communicative approach.
When these principles were systematised into coherent
teaching procedures, the Direct Method developed into the
Situational Language Teaching method in Britain and the
Audiolingual method in the United States. Both methods, popular
in the 1950’s and 1960’s, have structural roots. They are oral
approaches to language teaching and therefore there is little
provision for grammatical explanation or talking about the
language. They place special emphasis on contextualising the
language, one of the main features of the Communicative
Approach that we will look at later. As Rivers states, there is a
vocabulary selection, used in listening and speaking first,
followed by reading and writing. Normally, the oral practice is
based on guided repetitions, controlled oral tasks, drills, etc. and a
written practice mainly focusing on dictations. The target
language is the only one that is used in the classroom.
Audiolingual method is also based on behavioristic psychology:
accuracy is more important than fluency so that errors are
prevented, and the sounds or sentence patterns become a habit.
These methods had its decline at the end of the 70’s, with
the publishing of Chomsky’s Generative Transformational
Grammar. For him, language is innate and not formed from
habits. The sentences are generated by the student’s competence
and not imitation. So these teaching traditions started to be
questioned by applied linguists who saw the need to focus in
language teaching on communicative proficiency rather than on
mere mastery of structures. At the end of 70’s decade, new
methods based on psycholinguistics seemed to open a wholly
different way of teaching languages.
One of those methods is The Silent Way. Gattegno
introduced this classroom technique in which the teacher should
remain silent while students produce the language using token and
pictures cards as central elements. The students learn to associate
sounds in the language with colours. Students should be able to
use the language for self-expression; they do not need to learn
items for passive understanding, only for active use. This
principle allows learners to monitor and self-correct their own
production. It is here where this method differs notably from other
ways of language learning.
A method connected to 19th century Guoin series is what
we know as Total Physical Response, developed by James Asher.
For him, including movement within the linguistic production
reduces learner stress, creating a positive mood which facilitates
learning. It became very popular with infants and primary
students as it is an excellent way of encouraging them to
participate. In fact, the system still forms a part of the
methodology used with young learners today.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the Suggestopedia method was
developed by called Georgi Lozanov. The most outstanding
feature of this method is, according to Rivers, the use of external
elements; the arrangement of the classroom to create and optimal
atmosphere to learning, by means of decoration, furniture and,
specially, the use of music. He believed that the human mind is
capable of great acts of memory if learning takes place in the right
conditions.
All this, then, finally leads us to the most used
methodology in language teaching nowadays, the method that
developed from all these others, the Communicative Approach.
Here content is organized by categories of meaning and function
rather than by elements of structure and grammar.
The key concept is that of communication or
communicative competence. The term “communicative
competence”, first used by Hymes (1972) in contrast to
Chomsky’s “linguistic competence”, reflects the social view of
language. For M. Canale & M. Swain (1980), communicative
competence is understood as the underlying system of knowledge
and skills required for communication, and they identified four
dimensions of communicative competence: grammatical,
sociolinguistic, discursive and strategic competence. These are
incorporated into the Spanish curriculum, but are adapted to
include Linguistic Competence, which involves a knowledge of
phonetics, morphology and syntax.
The goal of the teachers who use the Communicative
Approach is to have their students become communicatively
competent. It involves being able to use the language which is
appropriate to a given social context. The teacher facilitates the
students’ learning and his role is that of the motivator, monitor
and guide, so less dominant, with the students taking the
responsibility for their own learning. Almost everything is done
with a communicative intent. Students may use the language a
great deal through games, role-plays and problem solving tasks.
Ultimately the students are able to use the language freely and
creatively in any given communicative context. This also will
help with the transversal topic of cooperation as the students will
learn to work together.
This approach is eclectic in that it not only uses the other
communicative approaches, but it also uses some elements from
the earlier methods For Rivers, an Eclectic approach seeks the
balanced development of all four skill at all stages, while
retaining an emphasis on the early development of oral skills. The
method is also adapted to the changing objectives of the day and
to the type of students who pass through the classes. This language educators is about “what content” and “how much
approach is being currently applied to language teaching as part content” best supports language learning. The goal is to best
or our present educational system, based on communicative match learner needs and interests and to promote optimal
methods. development of second language competence.

3. NEW DIRECTIONS ON LANGUAGE TEACHING

At the beginning of the 1990’s, as a result of a lot of
research and ongoing work on communicative objectives, the
Council of Europe designed one of the most ambitious projects
ever undertaken in the field of language education: The Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages, whose main
aim is to provide a reference method for language learning,
teaching and assessment for all main European languages. The
approach adopted could be defined as the sum of the levels of
competence (linguistic and non-linguistic) required when
performing tasks in order to communicate appropriately. It is
based on the strategies used by learners in order to carry out
communication activities related to the four skills: listening,
speaking, reading and writing.

4. CONCLUSION
Humanity has been learning languages for more than two
thousand years but it’s especially during the 20th century when
language teaching has evolved. On revising the literature on
language teaching theories, it is possible to get a sense of the wide
range of proposals from the 1700’s to the present, with their
weakness and strengths, from grammar-based methods to more
interactive communicative approaches. This proliferation of
approaches and methods is a relevant characteristic of
contemporary second and foreign language teaching, and is only
understood when the learner’s need is approached from an
educational perspective. There is still present a constant
preoccupation for teachers and linguistics to find more efficient
and effective ways of teaching languages. A critical question for