AUDIO- LINGUAL METHOD
I.
Introduction
Audio- lingual method is developed in
the time of 1960’s. It was first developed in United States during Word War II.
At that time many soldier needed to learn foreign language for immediately
military purposes. Therefore this method also called army method. The purpose
of the method is to clarify student’s pronunciation and train their ability in
listening
This approach to language learning was
similar to another, earlier method called the Direct method. Like the Direct
Method, the Audio-Lingual Method advised that students be taught a language
directly, without using the students’ native language to explain new words or
grammar in the target language. However, unlike the Direct Method, the
Audiolingual Method didn’t focus on teaching vocabulary. Rather, the teacher
drilled students in the use of grammar.
Charles Fries (1945), the director of
the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan, the first of its
kind in the United States, believed that learning structure or grammar was the
starting point for the student. In other words, it was the students’ job to
orally recite the basic sentence patterns and grammatical structures. The
students were only given “enough vocabulary to make such drills possible.