Teaching Methodology Essay

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The Audio-Lingual Teaching Method I. Introduction The audio-lingual teaching method is also known as Army Method or New Key, due to the involvement of the United States into World War II. The U.S. government needed to be supplied with personnel who were fluent in German, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Malay and other languages, and also who could work as interpreters, code-room assistants and translators at the time. So it was necessary to set up a special language training program. Therefore, the government commissioned some American universities to develop foreign language programs for military personnel; the Army Specialized Training Program. This method was established in 1942 and about fifty-five American universities were involved in the program by the beginning of 1943. Nevertheless, this method only lasted for two years, but popular press and some academic communities had been attracted so then they showed their considerable attention. They continued improving the previous method until today it is known as the audio-lingual teaching methodology. The audio-lingual teaching method is a style of teaching that is used in teaching foreign languages. Created based on Behaviorist1 theory, this method uses humans to be trained through a system of reinforcement. Therefore this system was proposed to occur again and become a new habit. It was believed back then, theory of Behaviorist would give negative response behavior without reinforcement. Relating to this theory, the objective of this program was clear enough. It is to address the students due to attaining conversational proficiency in a variety of foreign languages. This method also emphasizes learning grammatical and phonological structure, especially for speaking and listening (Aural-Oral materials). Information is relied on by this method regarding to the basis of learning through a great deal of
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