3 The oral approach and situational language teaching口语法和情景法

The impact of OA on LT
The principles of Oral Approach, accepted as British approach, were described in many textbooks of the 1950s60s, as Oxford Progressive English Course for Adult Learners.
The characteristics of the approach
(1) Teaching begins with oral language. (2) Target language is the medium. (3) New language are items taught situationally. (4) Service vocabulary is covered. (5) Grammatical items are graded and taught from simple to complex ones.
An Australian, George Pittman and his colleague Gloria Tate, based on situations, developed their own teaching materials, which were widely used in Australia, New Guinea and the Pacific territories and published for worldwide use as The Situational English.
The development: Grammar control
English Grammar was described as in A Grammar of Spoken English on a Strictly Phonetic Basis, A Handbook of English Grammar, and Guide to Patterns and Usage in English.
“Nobody says anything if there is no purpose.”
Approach: Theory of Learning
Behaviorist habit-learning theory: Hale Waihona Puke Three conditions:
Vocabulary was seen as an essential component of reading proficiency. They selected about 2,000 words based on frequency counts and produced a guide for teaching EFL, The Interim Report on Vocabulary Selection and revised as A General Service List of English Words.
The development: Vocabulary control
Belief among linguists as Palmer: vocabulary was one of the most important aspects of FL learning.
Reading skill was emphasized by Michael West as the goal of FL learning in some countries, as US and India.
4) The goal of the Direct Method is Daily Communication.
Quiz
Decide what of the three is related to the following statement: The Grammar Translation Method, The Reform Movement or The Direct Method 5) Which did not have an emphasis on good pronunciation? 6) Which used demonstration to teach vocabulary? 7) Which was not used in the classroom?
Presentation— techniques used for presentation and practice of items in a course
These general principles were different from the Direct Method, which lacked a systematic basis in applied linguistic theory and practice.
It is important to understand its principles and practices
Background of the approach
Dissatisfied with the Direct Method, two of the leading British linguists, Harold Palmer and A. S. Hornby, developed the foundation for a more scientific approach. The work of the British phonetician Daniel Jones and the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen laid theoretical foundation for a systematic study of an oral approach.
Focused on sentence patterns as Statements, Questions, Requests, Commands, etc.
Approach: Theory of Language
Structuralism — word order, structural words, inflection, content words Principal classroom activity — oral practice of structures based on situations
(6) Reading and writing are introduced on the basis of sufficient vocabulary and grammar.
Why the situational language teaching?
Increasing use of the term “situation” and the third principle made a key feature of OA, and Structural Situational Approach and Situational Language Teaching become commonly used, thus Situational Language Teaching was born. “Situation” refers to the manner of presenting and practicing sentence patterns.
Developed and used in Britain during the 1930s-1960s Long lasting impact on the design of EFL/ ESL textbooks and courses
• Streamline English (Hartley & Viney, 1978) • Access to English (Coles & Lord, 1975) • Kernel Lessons Plus (O’Neil, 1973) • New Concept English (Alexander, 1967)
Answers to the Quiz
1) False 2) False 3) True 4) True
5) Grammar-Translation Method
6) Direct Method, 7) Reform Movement
The Oral or Situational Approach
Compared with American structuralism, British structuralism reflects the functional trend, by which meaning, context, and situation were emphasized.
With the pioneer linguists’ efforts, a comprehensive methodological framework for the OA was established.
The principles of OA
Selection— the procedures by which lexical and grammatical content was chosen Gradation— principles by which the organization and sequencing of content were determined
answerstothequiz?1false?2false?3true?4true?5grammartranslationmethod?6directmethod?7reformmovementtheoralorsituationalapproach?developedandusedinbritainduringthe1930s1960s?longlastingimpactonthedesignofeflesltextbooksandcourses?streamlineenglishhartleyviney1978?accesstoenglishcoleslord1975?kernellessonsplusoneil1973?newconceptenglishalexander1967?itisimportanttounderstanditsprinciplesandpracticesbackgroundoftheapproach?dissatisfiedwiththedirectmethodtwooftheleadingbritishlinguistsharoldpalmeranda
Chapter 3 The Oral Approach and Situational Language Teaching
Li Jingna English Department, College of Foreign Languages, OUC lindali0920@
Quiz
True or False (write out the word) 1) People did not study Latin after it was not spoken in daily life. 2) The focus of the Grammar Translation Method is oral communication. 3) During the Reform Movement, linguists decided that language should be taught in the target language.
The development: Grammar control
Based on his work of developing basic grammatical patterns through an oral approach in Japan, Palmer viewed grammar as the underlying sentence patterns of the spoken language. Palmer, Hornby and others analyzed and classified the English grammatical structures into sentence patterns. Those sentence patterns were incorporated into the first dictionary Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English.