The Structural Approach, which consists of selecting and grading the
structures of a language rather than the words. Of course, words are also selected
and graded, but the main emphasis is put on teaching the students a command of
the structures. Once they know these frames or patterns, they can fit words into
them easily enough. For instance, once they know the pattern If……had been…..
would have (done), they can easily learn words to put into the blanks and brackets;
but if they only know lists of words, they cannot possibly speak, understand, read
or write a sentence. Strictly speaking, the Structural Approach should deal not only
with sentence pattern (syntactical structures), but also with such things as the
sound patterns of a language (phonological structures), the patterns of words (how
they are built up from smaller pieces, or morphological structures), different meanings of words and patterns, and idioms. All these should be selected and
graded.
The Structural Approach is not a method of teaching: it is an approach.
Any method can be used with it. Once the structures have been selected and
graded, it would be possible to teach them by grammar and translation, or by the
Direct Method, or by any other method one could think of.
Uses and Limitations of the Structural Approach:
Now that we know what the Structural Approach is and also what it is
not, we can examine it to see how far it fits into our aims and means. The mere
selection and grading of structures will not solve the problems we have. It will help
us to prepare materials for the teacher, because it will help us to take one thing at a
time, to have the easier things before the more difficult ones, and to have those
which can serve as a good basis for teaching other things, coming before the latter.
It will also make it much easier for us to keep track of what we have taught at any
given point so that we can know.
- What we can expect the pupils to have no difficulty with and
- What we should revise
The Situational Approach:
The Structural Approach is often combined with the Situation
Approach, which means that everything that is taught should be taught in a
situation or context that links the words with the thing they refer to. If you want to
teach ‘This is a book’, you should actually take a book and demonstrate to the
pupils what you are talking about. The utterance, ‘This is a book’ should grow out
of the situation of having a book and wanted to tell the pupils what its name is in
English. The meaning of words and of structures are only the situations in which
they can be used.
Without the situational approach, teachers are liable to fall into the
mistake of thinking that there is some advantage in drilling words and structures
without reference to meaning, which means without putting them in any context.
Even drill can be made interesting if they are always made to arise out of a
situation. Instead of getting one pupils after another to repeat ‘John is not in the
garden’, When there is nobody called john in the class and there is not a garden in
sight, you could have a meaningful drill by writing up the names of the pupils who
are absent on the blackboard, and then mentioning names of pupils one and getting
one pupil at a time to respond with the correct form: e.g. Ram is in this room, Sita
is in this room, Ashok isn’t in this room, etc.
The Oral Approach:
It happens that the Structural Approach grew up at a time when the
Oral Approach was popular, so it usually linked with that. The Oral Approach is
based on the belief that the easiest way to learn a language, even if ultimately you
want only to be able to read it, is to start orally- the teacher presenting all new
material orally, with the students only listening, and then the student using it
themselves in speech, before any reading or writing of the material is attempted.
The Drill Method:
Besides the Oral Approach, the Structural Approach is usually linked
with the Drill Method. Followers of the Drill Method believe that we learn a thing
by hearing it, speaking it, reading it or and/or writing it many times. A thing cannot
usually stick in our heads if we hear, speak, see or write it only once: only
repetition can ensure retention. Until the thing to be learnt is so well known that we
can instantaneously recall it when we need it, it is not really known.
In the case of weak, unimaginative teachers, this sometimes degenerates
into mechanical repetition of what they want their students to learn: This is a book,
This is a book, This is a book, etc. But such drill is both extremely boring and
inefficient. The brain just ceases to register after a time: the words roll
mechanically out of the pupils’ minds without any real impression on the brain.
Furthermore, the words cease to be associated with any meaning, or any situation
in the students’ minds.
Communicative Approach
The communicative Approach also known as communicative language
teaching (CLT) emphasizes interaction and problem solving as both the means and
the ultimate goal of learning English. As such, it tends to emphasize activities such
as role play, pair work and group work. It switched traditional language teaching’s
emphasis on grammar and the teacher-centred classroom, to that of the active use
of authentic language in learning and acquisition
CLT is interested in giving students the skills to be able to communicate
under various circumstances. As such, it place less emphasis on the learning of
specific grammatical rules and more on obtaining native-speaker like fluency and
pronunciation students are assessed on their level of communicative competence
rather than on their explicit knowledge. It is more of an approach or philosophy
than a highly structured methodology. David Nunan listed five key elements to the
communicative approach.
- An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language.
- The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation.
- The provision of opportunities for learners to focus not only on the language but also on the learning process itself.
- An enhancement of the learners own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning.
- An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the classroom.
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