Situational Language Teaching Approach

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Situational language teaching is a term not commonly used today, but it is an approach developed by British applied linguists in the 1930s to the 1960s. Two of the leaders in this movement were Harold Palmer and A.S. Hornby. They attempt to develop a more scientific foundation for an oral approach to teaching English than was evidenced in the direct method. However, while it is unknown for many teachers, it had a big influence on language courses till the 1980s. Textbooks such as Streamline English (Hartley and Viney 1979) were designed following the SLT approach principles. The oral approach and situational language teaching relied on the structural view of language, both speech and structure were seen to be the basis of language and especially, speaking ability. This was a view similar to American structuralists, such as Fries. However, what distinguishes The Situational Language Teaching approach is its emphasis on the presentation of structures in situations. According to (Brown, 2000), the behavioristic view of language learning constitutes the cornerstone of Situation Language Teaching. The approach gives primacy to the processes over the conditions of learning. Thus, there are many processes that are noted in this approach. For example, situations are most effective when they have a game-like appearance, it accords with a performance improvement and behavior change philosophy of the learning function and Remediation (learner feedback) is essential to successful situational language teaching. The behaviorist theory of learning is based on the principle of habit formation. Mistakes are banned so as to avoid bad habit formation. Following the premises of behaviorism, a teacher presents language orally then in written form. The objectives of Situational Language Teaching involve accurate use of vocabulary items and grammar rules in order to achieve a
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