Ayoub Mohammed
Professor: Mr. Dellal
The Audiolingual Method
November 12, 2015
Summary of the Audiolingual Method
The Audiolingual Method was discovered throughout many factors that made some problems at that time, especially when the United States was involved in the world war second. It was necessary for the American government to train soldiers for learning a foreign language. Thus, the army was obliged to create an advanced, training program for military personnel. In 1942, the program was established, and fifty five American universities were involved in the program by the beginning of 1943. Another factor which led the emergence of the American Approach to ESL was that many foreign students came to study in America, and they had to be trained in English before starting study at university. This approach came to be known by the mid fifties as an Audiolingualism.
By 1939, university of Michigan developed the first language Institute in the United States. It was specialized in the training of teachers of English as a second or foreign language. This approach was known most of the time as the Oral Approach, the Aural- Oral Approach, and the Structural Approach. It included four skills of learning Aural training, pronunciation, speaking, reading and writing. The intensive attention was given to foreign language teaching in the United States was also the reason for appearing the Audiolingual Method. The need of discovering new sciences in other countries was the result of giving much interest about teaching a foreign language which led to the emergence of the Audiolingual Method. This method consisted of many approaches were significant also for the same purpose. Structural Linguistic theory, Contrastive Analysis, Aural- Oral Procedures and Behaviorist Psychology led to the Audiolingual Method. The term Audiolingualism was coined by professor Nelson Brooks in 1964 which claimed to have transformed language teaching from an art to a science.
Structural linguistics was an approach which came as a reaction to Traditional Grammar. One of the principles of this theory was that the oral language was the primary medium of language teaching. The speech was very crucial part in language teaching. It was also the theory of learning which was developed by theoreticians and methodologists. Behaviorism which was found by B.F. Skinner was the theory that consisted from three crucial elements: a stimulus, a respond triggered by a stimulus and reinforcement. The principle of this theory was to learn a language in different stages and applying these three important elements.