Филологические науки/1.Методика преподавания языка и
литературы
Байкубенова Г.
Аркалыкский государственный педагогический институт
имени И.Алтынсарина
Situational Language Teaching
The Oral Approach or
Situational Language Teaching is a term not commonly used nowadays, but it is
an approach developed by British applied linguists between the 1930s and the
1960s. 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 Situational Language Teaching
approach principles.
This method is widely used at the
time of writing and a very large number of textbooks are based on it. Harold
Palmer and A.S. Hornby they wanted to develop a more scientific foundation for
an oral approach to teaching English. It was seen as an essential component of
reading proficiency vocabulary, grammar, it was based on the assumption that
one universal logic formed the basis of all languages and that the teacher's
responsibility was to show how each category of the universal grammar was to be
expressed in the foreign language. They classified its major grammatical
structures into sentence patterns "substitution tables".
Speech, structure and a focus
on a set of basic vocabulary are seen as the basis of language teaching. 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.
Situational Language Teaching
is characterized by two major features:
§
Focus on
vocabulary and reading is one of the most salient traits of SLT. In fact,
mastery of a set of high frequency vocabulary items is believed to lead to good
reading skills.
§
An analysis
of English and a classification of its prominent grammatical structures into
sentence patterns, also called situational tables, is believed to help learners
internalize grammatical rules.
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.
The following processes are noted in this approach:
1.
The act of
receiving knowledge or material
2.
Repetition
to fix that knowledge or material in memory.
3.
The use of
the knowledge or material in actual practice until it becomes a personal skill.
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 practical mastery of the four basic skills. Learners must be
able to produce accurate pronunciation and use of grammar. The ultimate aim is
to be able to respond quickly and accurately in speech situations with an
automatic control of basic structures and sentence patterns.
Situational Language Teaching
syllabus is designed upon a word list and structural activities. Grammar
teaching involves situational presentation of new sentence patterns and drills
to practice the patterns. Material
consists of: charts, flashcards, pictures, stick figures and so on. The visual
element with carefully graded grammatical syllabus is a crucial element
Procedure it aims to move from controlled to freer practice of structures it
moves from oral use of sentence patterns to their automatic use in speech,
reading, and writing.
According to Situational
Language Teaching, a lesson starts with stress and intonation practice followed
by a revision and a presentation of new material (mainly structures or vocabulary). The teacher then proceeds to oral
practice and drilling of the elements presented. Finally, the lesson ends with
reading activity or written exercises.
Situational Language Teaching
is still attractive to many teachers who still believe in structural practice
of language. Its practicality in the teaching of grammar patterns has
contributed to the survival of the approach until recently. Besides, its emphasis
on oral practice still attracts support among language teachers.
Many premises underlying the
approach have been criticized. For example Chomsky (1957) showed that the
structural and the behavioristic approaches to language are simply incorrect as
they do not explain the fundamental feature of language learning: the ability
to create novel and unique sentences. Children do not acquire their mother
tongue through repetition and habit formation. There must be, however, an
innate predisposition that leads them to a certain kind of linguistic
competence.
Today’s world considers
English as a global language and it makes people to study English. They must
use it in everyday situations and that’s why situational language teaching is
the necessary approach to study it.
References:
§
Richards, J.
C. & Rogers, T. S. (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching: A
description and analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
§
Brown, H. D.
(2000). Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.). New York: Longman
§
Chomsky, N.
(1957) Syntactic Structures, The Hague: Mouton
§
Hartley, B.,
& Viney, P. 1978. Streamline
English: Departures. Oxford University Press.