Audio-Lingual Method

Foundations and Objectives

Practitioners in the audio-lingual method for ESL and bilingual education were governed by a number of key principles:

• Language learning involves attending to form and structure.
• The aim is for linguistic competence and accuracy.
• Errors must be prevented at all costs in the course of instruction.
• Teachers must specify what language the student will use and control student interaction with the language.

The audio-lingual method is based on the structural linguistic and behavioral psychological view of language learning. Particular emphasis is laid on mastering the building blocks of language and learning rules for combining them. The theory of behaviorism assumes that (a) language learning is mechanical habit formation and language is verbal habit; (b) mistakes should be avoided, as they result in bad habits; (c) language skills are learned better when practiced orally first, then in writing; (d) analogy is an important foundation for language learning; and (e) the meanings of words can be learned best in a linguistic and cultural context, not in isolation.

The audio-lingual method adheres to the natural presentation of skills in this order: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It places priority on the development of listening and speaking skills first, and reading and writing skills development is introduced after listening and speaking skills are mastered. The method is also based on the premise that students' native language patterns interfere with the learning of a second language and, consequently, use of the native language should be minimized and used primarily for clarifying information. Deriving from its roots in structural linguistics, the audio-lingual method emphasized the [Page 48]explicit presentation of grammatical structure and based the curriculum on a contrastive analysis of the grammar of the learners' native language and the target language.

The language learning environment should be a “cultural island,” with realistic use of the target language. In this instance, culture is defined as the everyday behaviors and lifestyles of the speakers of the target language. For example, in a German classroom, if the lesson were on German foods, students would learn not only vocabulary about food in general but also about table manners and related customs of German speakers that make up the context in which food-related vocabulary and structures are situated. Also, because language acquisition is considered a matter of habit formation, the instructor makes generous use of positive reinforcement techniques to encourage good language habits and rapid pacing of drills to encourage overlearning of language structures so that students can answer automatically, presumably without stopping to think.

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