Foreign Language Instruction

Historical Trends

Throughout the centuries, there have been multiple methods of foreign language instruction, but all methods can be categorized under two headings. Methods are labeled inductive where there is no formal grammar instruction and students must figure out the grammar rules as they learn. Methods are labeled deductive where language rules are presented before practice and learning of the language takes place.

The popularity of inductive and deductive methodologies has shifted across centuries. The classical era focused on inductive instruction. In the fourth century, St. Augustine encouraged a focus on meaningful content. Medieval methods were generally deductive. With the introduction of grammatical theories by Erasmus and Comenius in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, classroom-based instruction, without the availability of access to authentic language situations, revolved primarily around grammar-based approaches to instruction using artificial contexts. Inductive methods were again popular during the Renaissance era, while methods in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were mostly deductive. The twentieth century began with an emphasis on deductive methods and ended with a shift to inductive instruction.

Foreign language instruction in the United States has generally followed methods used in other parts of the Western world. In the late eighteenth century, François Gouin introduced the natural method, so named because of its emphasis on learning the way a child learns his or her native language from family and environment, making use of mime and demonstration. The direct method added scientific rationale [Page 352]such as psychology, phonetics, dictionaries, and structural analysis to the natural method. Its purpose was to immerse students in the language with little to no explanation of grammar. There were many variations of the natural and direct methods: “the dramatization method,” “the object method,” “the indirect method,” “the direct constructive method,” “the theme method,” “the observation method,” “the pictorial method,” “the development method,” “the conversation method,” “the phonic method,” “the textbook method,” and “the laboratory method.”

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