Behaviourist SLA Learning and Teaching Foreign Languages Classroom Illustration THE AUDIOLINGUAL METHOD Sample answers 1. Introductory routine a. What aspects of this activity derive from structural principles? Selection of short question and answer for practice. b. What aspects of this activity are behaviorist? Repetition of line of dialogue for memorisation, and of /h/ sound, expected to be difficult because absent from first language (contrastive analysis). Overlearning of short phrases, no opportunity for learner initiative or choice, either in form of utterance or content of response. c. Can we talk about conditioning in these circumstances? Yes; the learners are conditioned to produce an automatic response – Fine, how are you? - whenever the cue question How are you? is provided. After sufficient repetition, they are likely to respond similarly when the teacher arrives in school, for example, or even on meeting her in the street. 2. A what? a. What type of activity is described here? A drill b. Is the activity meaningful or mechanical? There is a pretence of meaningful use, since the students are pretending to have forgotten the new word, but there is no opportunity for the students to change the expressions used. 1/5 Shona WHYTE unt.unice.fr/uoh/learn_teach_FL Behaviourist SLA Learning and Teaching Foreign Languages Classroom Illustration c. After presenting and practising several new animal words, the teacher checks students' comprehension and memory by presenting 4 flashcards and asking for volunteers to name the animals. When she points to the bear flashcard, the students chorus 'a what.' What has happened here? What are the implications for this approach to learning? The learners have incorrectly established a connection between the word 'what' used to elicit repetition and the picture of a bear, intended to elicit the word 'bear.' This example shows the dangers of a purely behavioristic approach to overlearning forms without paying sufficient attention to their meaning and use in context. 3. Chain drill a. Identify the behavioristic and structural aspects of this activity. Short questions and answers are drilled, contrast between two sounds is highlighted, overlearning by repetition is used to help memorisation. b. What other activities might the teacher use to extend the learning produced in this context? Have learners produce questions on seeing the flashcards, with another learner giving the response. Add another question such as How old are you? with another flashcard. The teacher can also set up game, such as 'Fly-swat' where flashcards for known words or expressions are displayed on the board. Teams send one member to stand back to the board as the teacher calls out one word or expression. The first learner to touch the correct card wins. In all these activities, learners are practicing the association between the aural form of a word or expression and a meaning, represented by the flashcard, in a form of stimulus-response pairing reminiscent of B.F. Skinner's operant conditioning. 2/5 Shona WHYTE unt.unice.fr/uoh/learn_teach_FL Behaviourist SLA Learning and Teaching Foreign Languages Classroom Illustration 4. Learning and evaluating http://s.mound.free.fr/skyblues67/classroomQUIZ/classroomsounds.htm a. Devise behaviorist learning activities from this online activity. Example: Learners practice English words for 32 classroom objects via an online listening activity. They listen and repeat three to five new words each session, self-testing at the end of each session by saying the word before listening to check. b. How can the learners be evaluated without recourse to the written form (which the audio-lingual method tends to leave until after the aural/oral forms are acquired)? After a number of sessions, the learners are evaluated via a pencil-and-paper test consisting of twenty questions, where the teacher calls out the number of the item and the name of an object, and the students write the question number under the correct picture (see pages 4 and 5 of this handout). T: One, pen Students write number 1 under picture of pen. 3/5 Shona WHYTE unt.unice.fr/uoh/learn_teach_FL Behaviourist SLA Learning and Teaching Foreign Languages 4/5 Shona WHYTE unt.unice.fr/uoh/learn_teach_FL Classroom Illustration Behaviourist SLA Learning and Teaching Foreign Languages 5/5 Shona WHYTE unt.unice.fr/uoh/learn_teach_FL Classroom Illustration
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