make teaching learning run well, teachers have to choose which method is regarded as the best. In this paper the writer would like to discuss one
of those methods that are audio-lingual method.
2. Understanding Audio-Lingual Method
The audio-Lingual method of teaching English as a second language had its origins during World War II when it becomes know as the Army
method. It was develop as a reaction to the grammar-translation method of teaching foreign languages. Grammar-translation had been use to teach
for thousand of year. However, the method was perceived as taking too long for learners to be able to speak in the target language. The Audio-
Lingual method set out achieves quick communicative competence through innovative methods. From about, 1947-1967 the Audio-Lingual
Approach was the dominant foreign language teaching method in the United States.
The US military provided the impetus with funding for special, intensive language courses that focused on auraloral skills; these courses
came to be known as the Army Specialized Training program ASTP or, more colloquially, the “Army Method”.
3. Characteristics of Audio-Lingual Method
The characteristics of the ALM may be summed up in the following list adapted from Prator and Cecle-Muria 1979:
a. New material is presented in dialogue form. b.There is a dependence on mimicry, memorization of set phrases, and
over-learning. c. Structures are sequenced by means of contrastive analysis and taught one
at a time. d.Structural patterns are taught using repetitive drills.
e. There is little or no grammatical explanation. Grammar is taught by inductive analogy rather than by deductive explanation.
f. Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context. g. Great importance is attached to pronunciation.
h. Very little use of the mother tongue by teachers is permitted. i. Successful responses are immediately reinforced.
j. There is a great effort to get students to produce error-free utterances. k. There is a tendency to manipulate language and disregard content.
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Another opinion about the characteristics of audio-lingual method come from H.H. Stern those are:
a. Separation of the skills-listening, speaking, reading, and writing-and the primacy of the audio-lingual over the graphic skill
b. The use of the dialogues as the chief means of presenting the language c. Emphasis on certain practice techniques, mimicry , memorization, and
pattern drills d. The use of the language laboratory
e. Establishing a linguistic and psychological theory as a basis for the language laboratory.
4. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Audio-Lingual Method
The writer concludes the advantage and the disadvantage of audio- lingual method from the book of Jack C. Richard and Theodore S.
Rodgers by ti tle “Approaches and Method in Language Teaching, a
description and analysis”.
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a. The Advantages of Audio-Lingual Method
The Audio-Lingual method has many advantages as explain below: 1 Students are able to make sentence pattern, which have
been drilled 2 Students have good pronunciation because informant
method it use a native speaker.
15
H. Douglas Brown, Teaching by Principles, New York: longman, 2001, p. 23
16
Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers, Approaches and Method in Language Teaching,1986, p. 44-63
3 It makes the students to have a good comprehension in listening.
b. The Disvantages of Audio-Lingual Method
Beside have many advantages; the Audio-lingual method also has many Disvantages like explain below:
1 Students do not always understand the meaning of words that they are repeating
2 Studying using audio-lingual procedures is boring and unsatisfying
3 The students are not really active because it is a teacher- dominate method
5. Teaching the Present Continuous Tense through Audio-Lingual
Method
This procedure of using audio-lingual method is taking from the book of
“Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching” written by Diane Larsen-Freeman p. 35-40
Before the teacher teaches the material, she introduces the method that will be use in the classroom then motivates the students.
The firs part of the instructions is the teacher gives a new dialogue and students are expect to memorize the dialogue the teacher introduces.
Sometime she uses action to convey meaning, but no one word of the student’s native language is uttering. After she acts out the dialogue, she
says. “Ok, class. I am going to repeat the dialogue now. Listen carefully and
no talking please ”.
“Two people are walking along the said walk in town. They know each other, and as they meet, they stop to talk. One of them is name Sally
and the other one is name Bill. I will talk for Sally and for Bill. Listen to their conversation:
Sally : Good morning, Bill. Bill : Good morning, Sally.
Sally : How are you? Bill
: Fine, thanks’ and you? Sally : Fine. Where are you going?
Bill : I’m going to the post office.
Sally : I am too. Shall we go together? Bill
: Sure. Let’s go.
“Listen one more time. This time try to understand all that I am saying.” Now she has the whole class repeat each of the lines of the
dialog after her model. They repeat each line several times before moving on to the next line. When the class comes to the line, I’m going to the
post office,” they stumble a bit in their repetition. The teacher, at this
point, stops the repetition and uses a backward build-up drill expansion- drill. The teacher starts with the need of the sentence and has the class
repeat just the last word. Since they can do this, the teacher adds a few more words, and the class repeats this expanded phrase until the entire
sentence is being repeating. After the students have repeated the dialogue several times, the teacher
gives them a chance to adopt t he role of Bill while she says Sally’s lines.
Next the class and the teacher switch the roles in order to practice a little more. Then the teacher divides the class in hall so that each half gets
to try to say on their own either Bill’s or Sally’s lines. To further, practice the lines of this dialogue. The teacher has all the boys in the class take
Bill’s part and all the girls take Sally. Finally, the teacher selects two students to perform the entire dialogue
for the rest of the class. The teacher moves next to the second major phrase of the lesson. She
continues to a single-slot substitution drill. The teacher begins by reciting a line from the dialogue, “I am going to the post office” following this she
shows the students a picture of a house a nd says the phrase, “The bank.”
She pauses, and then she says, “I am going to the bank”. From her example the students realize that they are supposed to take the cue phrase
the bank, which the teacher supplies, and put its proper place in the sentence.
Now she gives them their first cue phrase, “the drugstore”. Together the students respond, “I am going to the drugstore.” The teacher smiles,
“Very good” She exclaim. The teacher cues, “The park.” The students chorus, “I am going to the park.” Each cue is accompanying by a picture
as before. After the students have gone through the drill sequence three times, the teacher no longer provides a spoken cue phrase.
Finally, the teacher increases the complexity of the task by leading the students in a multiple-slot substitution drill. The teachers in this class start
by having the students repeat the original sentence from the dialogue. “I am going to the post office” then she gives the cue “she”. The student’s
understand and produce, “she is going to the post office.” The next cue the teacher offers is “to the park”. The students hesitate at first; then they
respond by correctly producing. “She is going to the park.” She continues
in this manner. Sometimes providing a subject pronoun other times naming a location.
The substitution drills are following by a transformation drill. This type of drill asks students to change one type of sentence into another-an
affirmative sentence into negative or into an interrogative. For example, “I say. She is painting a car.” You make a question by saying. ”Is she
painting a car”.
The teacher models two more examples of this transformation, and then asks, “Does everyone understand?” OK, let us begin. “They are
going to the bank.” The class replies in turn “Are they going to the bank?” They transform approximately fifteen of these patterns, and then
the teacher decides they are ready to move on to a question and answer drill.
After that, the teacher asks the students to change the sentence into negative form, interrogative, and negative interrogative with the same
way. For the final few minutes of the class, the teacher returns to the
dialogue with which she began the lesson. She repeat once, and then has the half of the class to their left do Bill’s lines and the half of the class to
her right do Sally’s. This time there is no hesitation at all. The students
move through the dialogue briskly. They trade roles and do the same. The teacher smiles, “Very good. Class finished”.
C
. General Concept of Grammar-Translation method
1. Understanding Grammar Translation Method
