Learining Theories

ESSAY

Learning another language apart from the mother tongue has always been important for people, because of the reasons such as knowing other cultures, travelling, trade, religion and even need of being a spy in the others.

The Grammar translation Method appeared and its aim was to learn a language to learn its literature or to benefit from the mental discipline and intellectual development which result from foreign language study. Nevertheless, this approach to language learning was short-lived and, only a generation later, gave place to the Direct Method.

The Direct Method is developed as a reaction against the grammar-translation method. In this method there should be lots of oral interaction, spontaneous use of the language, no translation, and little if any analysis of grammatical rules and syntactic structures. Later on appeared another method called The Audio-lingual Method. It was based on linguistic and psychological theory and one of its main premises was the scientific descriptive analysis of a wide assortment of languages.

The Silent Way is an approach to language teaching designed to enable students to become independent, autonomous and responsible learners. It is part of a more general pedagogical approach to teaching and learning created by Caleb Gattegno. The main objective of a teacher using the Silent Way is to optimize the way students exchange their time for experience.

Total Physical Response appears. This method relies on the assumption that when learning a second or additional language, that language is internalized through a process of code breaking similar to first language development and that the process allows for a long period of listening and developing comprehension prior to production. Students respond to commands that require physical movement.

In conclusion, we tried to give a brief history of English language teaching. Each of the methods we examine above is another step in language teaching. Teachers should try their best to keep their students engaged with adaptive lesson techniques, using technology where ever possible to keep them interested and keen on their studies. It can be said that it is better to benefit from every method, approach and technique when it is necessary rather than being stuck on one of them.

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