3AaudiolingualBEH

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THE AUDIOLINGUAL METHOD

Sample answers

1. Introductory routine

a. What aspects of this activity derive from structural principles?

Selection of short question and answer for practice.

b. What aspects of this activity are behaviorist?

Repetition of line of dialogue for memorisation, and of /h/ sound, expected to bedifficult because absent from first language (contrastive analysis). Overlearning ofshort phrases, no opportunity for learner initiative or choice, either in form ofutterance or content of response.

c. Can we talk about conditioning in these circumstances?

Yes; the learners are conditioned to produce an automatic response Fine, how are

you?- whenever the cue question How are you?is provided. After sufficientrepetition, they are likely to respond similarly when the teacher arrives in school, forexample, or even on meeting her in the street.

2. A what?

a. What type of activity is described here?

A drill

b. Is the activity meaningful or mechanical?

There is a pretence of meaningful use, since the students are pretending to haveforgotten the new word, but there is no opportunity for the students to change theexpressions used.

Learning and Teaching Foreign LanguagesBehaviourist SLA Classroom Illustration

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Shona WHYTE unt.unice.fr/uoh/learn_teach_FL


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c. After presenting and practising several new animal words, the teacher checksstudents' comprehension and memory by presenting 4 flashcards and asking forvolunteers to name the animals. When she points to the bear flashcard, the studentschorus 'a what.' What has happened here? What are the implications for this approach

to learning?

The learners have incorrectly established a connection between the word 'what' usedto elicit repetition and the picture of a bear, intended to elicit the word 'bear.' Thisexample shows the dangers of a purely behavioristic approach to overlearning formswithout paying sufficient attention to their meaning and use in context.

3. Chain drill

a. Identify the behavioristic and structural aspects of this activity.

Short questions and answers are drilled, contrast between two sounds is highlighted,overlearning by repetition is used to help memorisation.

b. What other activities might the teacher use to extend the learning produced in thiscontext?

Have learners produce questions on seeing the flashcards, with another learner givingthe response. Add another question such as How old are you?with another flashcard.

The teacher can also set up game, such as 'Fly-swat' where flashcards for known wordsor expressions are displayed on the board. Teams send one member to stand back tothe board as the teacher calls out one word or expression. The first learner to touchthe correct card wins.

In all these activities, learners are practicing the association between the aural formof a word or expression and a meaning, represented by the flashcard, in a form ofstimulus-response pairing reminiscent of B.F. Skinner's operant conditioning.


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4. Learning and evaluating

http://s.mound.free.fr/skyblues67/classroomQUIZ/classroomsounds.htm

a. Devise behaviorist learning activities from this online activity.

Example:

Learners practice English words for 32 classroom objects via an online listeningactivity. They listen and repeat three to five new words each session, self-testing atthe end of each session by saying the word before listening to check.

b. How can the learners be evaluated without recourse to the written form (which theaudio-lingual method tends to leave until after theaural/oral forms are acquired)?

After a number of sessions, the learners are evaluated via a pencil-and-paper testconsisting of twenty questions, where the teacher calls out the number of the itemand the name of an object, and the students write the question number under thecorrect picture (see pages 4 and 5 of this handout).

T: One, pen

Students write number 1 under picture of pen.


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http://s.mound.free.fr/skyblues67/classroomQUIZ/classroomsounds.htmhttp://s.mound.free.fr/skyblues67/classroomQUIZ/classroomsounds.htm


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