UNIT 1

Question 1

How many sections does unit 1 have?

Answer 1

6

1. Introduction.
2. Approach vs method.
3. A history of language teaching.
4. Present-day trends in language teaching.
5. Conclusion.
6. Bibliography.

Question 2

Name the two stages in the history of language teaching and their characteristics.

Answer 2

Stage 1: Modern language teaching in Europe. During the first stage, there is a clear focus on Europe, but with very little consideration of teaching ENGLISH as distinct from the teaching of other languages.
Stage 2: English language teaching beyond and in Europe. In the 1920, however, work connected with the developing role of English outside Europe -mainly in Asia- suddenly and quite unexpectedly became dominant in the mainstream history of ELT.

Question 3

Name the four periods in language teaching and their years.

Answer 3

1. The classical period (1750-1880).
2. The Reform period (1880-1920).
3. The scientific period (1920-1970).
4. The communicative period (1970-2000+).

Question 4

Name the approach within the Classical period.

Answer 4

The Grammar-translation method.

Question 5

Name the approach within the Reform period.

Answer 5

The Direct method.

Question 6

Name the approaches within the Scientific period.

Answer 6

1. The oral approach and situational language teaching.

2. The Audiolingual and Audio-visual methods.

Question 7

Name the approaches within the Communicative period.

Answer 7

1. The Notional-functional syllabus.
2. English for specific purposes.
3. Communicative tasks.

Question 8

Name the two subcategories within the section 4:

4. Present-day trends in language teaching.

Answer 8

4. 1. Post-method era.

4. 2. The future of English teaching.

Question 9

Jeremy Harmer suggests that “approach”…

Answer 9

… refers to theories about the nature of language and language learning which are the source of the way things are done in the classroom and which provide reasons for doing them.

Question 10

Jeremy Harmer suggests that “method”…

Answer 10

… is the practical realisation of an approach. It entails decisions about such things as the types of activities, roles of teachers and learners etc.

Question 11

Ramin Akbari…

Answer 11

have taken this tendency even further when arguing that the concepts of “method” and “approach” have been replaced by the “textbook-defined practice”, that is, textbooks determine what the majority of teachers teach and how they teach.

Question 12

Viëtor

Answer 12

All these schools, following in the steps of linguists like Viëtor, understood the spoken language as oral version of a written text and teachers used wisely the learners´mother tongue when appropriate.

Question 13

Heness and Sauveur

Answer 13

The initial ideas for this second strand came from Henes and Sauveur, who developed Gouin´s theories into what they called “The Natural Method”, the basic tenet of which was that second language learning is similar to first language learning.

Question 14

Maximiliam Berlitz

Answer 14

Maximimilian Berlitz adapted the “Natural method” by means of what he called the “Berlitz Method”, characterised bylots of oral interaction, spontaneous use of the language, no translation and very little, if any, analysis of grammatical rules and syntactic structures.

Question 15

Name the four characteristics of the “Berlitz Method”.

Answer 15

1. Lots of oral interaction.
2. Spontaneous use of the language.
3. No translation.
4. Very little, if any, analysis of grammatical rules and syntactic structures.

Question 16

Harold Pamer, A.S. Hornby and Michael West.

Answer 16

Founded by British applied linguistics like Harold Palmer, A.S. Hornby and Michael West, this tructuralist approach emerged as an improvement over the obsolete Direct Method which lacked a systematic base of applied theory and practice.

Question 17

Most outstanding characteristics of the “Oral approach and Situational Language Teaching”.

Answer 17

Its most outstanding features, like

1) the importance of vocabulary to develop the four skills.
2) the selection and gradation of grammar structures.
3) the proposal of the first ever “principle of syllabus design” in language teaching.

Question 18

N.S. Prahbu

Answer 18

Projects like N. S. Prahbu´s in schools in India emphasized the feasibility and desirability of what later came to be known as “Task-based language teaching”, that is, designing a syllabus made up of carefully selected and graded tasks, aiming at replicating everyday life in the classroom.

Question 19

Sub-sections of section “4. Present-day trends”.

Answer 19

4. 1. Post-method era.

4. 2. The future of English teaching.

Question 20

Kamaravadivelu

Answer 20

By the turn of the 21st century, this movement led Kamaravadivelu to coin the term “post-method era” to refer to the fact that English teaching had got so massively global, happening in so many different contexts for so many different purposes, that one single method could definitely not fit all these requirements.

Question 21

Bibliography of Unit 1.

Answer 21

1. Harmer, J. (2001). The practice of English language teaching. Longman.
2. Howatt, A., and Smith, R. (2014). The history of teaching English as a foreign language from a British and European perspective. Language and History, 57(1), 75-95.
3. Richards, J., and Rodgers, T. (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge University Press.