The Evolution Of Second- And Foreign- Language Teaching
...Second Language Teaching)
In his treatment of the historical developments in language pedagogy, Stern (1992) isolates three ways in which language pedagogy has aimed to renew and improve itself:1. Innovation through change in teaching methods; 2. Innovation through language-related sciences and research;
3. Technological innovation.
During the nineteenth century, the Grammar-Translation Method with its emphasis on the transmission of structural rules and analysis of form served as the principal
method of teaching modern and classical languages in schools. The goal of studying a foreign language was to learn the language so as to be able to read its literature. Grammar was taught deductively with the student's native language being the medium of instruction. Little emphasis on speaking or listening to the language was encouraged. Instead, the "book-oriented method" reflected an intellectual activity of mental discipline involving reading and memorization of rules and facts (Stern, 1983). In the final decades of the nineteenth century, grammar translation was attacked as a cold and lifeless approach to language teaching, and it was blamed for the failure of foreign
language teaching.
In the middle of the 20 th century, the first Russian satellite launched. It resulted in an increased interest in and funding for foreign-language study in the United States. Language-teaching specialists in the United States began developing a method that would be suitable for U.S. colleges and classrooms. They drew on the Army Method, which derived from the intensity of contact with the target language rather than from any well-developed methodological basis, structural linguistic theory and behavioural psychology to develop what was termed "the Audio-lingual Method".
Towards the end of the sixties and early in the seventies, the general abstract, structural view of...
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