Activities about methodologies.

1. It has been said that the Grammar-Translation Method teaches students about the target language, but not how to use it. Explain the difference in your own words.

With this method you learn the grammatical rules and vocabulary translated by heart instead of acquiring it. For instance, when you are going to do an exercise of grammar or vocabulary you do it directly because you study like that, so for that reason you don't internalize it and you don't know why you are using it. The best way to learn how to use it is being able to develop communicative competences and making errors. 

2. In the Grammar-Translation Method, grammar is treated deductively; in the Direct Method, grammar is treated inductively. Can you explain the difference between deductive and inductive treatments of grammar?

In Grammar-Translation Method (deductive) you teach the rules of grammar, while with the Direct Method (inductive) you understand the grammar due to a situation or a context. For instance, a student learns "between" because he learns that he is between two people, not with the definition, so it is not necessary to explain what it is. Teaching grammar rules at the very beginning is not a good way to teach, the correct way is the inductive way. The teacher provides situations to the students in which they can apply grammar rules, he gives them inputs. 

3. Which of the following techniques follows from the principles of the Audio-Lingual Method, and which ones don't? Explain the reason for your answer.

a) The teacher asks beginning level students to write a composition about the system of transportation in their home countries. If they need a vocabulary word that they don't know, they are told to look in a bilingual dictionary for a translation. 

This technique doesn't follow from the principles of the Audio-Lingual Method. It is connected to Grammar-Translation Method.

b) Towards the end of the third week of the course, the teacher gives students a reading passage. The teacher asks the students to read the passage and to answer certain questions based upon it. The passage contains words and structures introduced during the first three weeks of the course.

This technique doesn't follow form the principles of the Audio-Lingual Method, but it could be it because the teacher can give you something to read.

c) The teacher tells the students that they must add and "s" to third person singular verbs in the present tense in English. She then gives the students a list of verbs and asks them to change the verbs into the third person singular present tense form. 

This technique doesn't follow from the principles of the Audio-Lingual Method. In Audio-Lingual Method teacher doesn't say "you must add an 's' to third person", students have to do it. It is not a drill. 

5. Asher believes that foreign language instruction can and should be modeled on native language acquisition. What are some characteristics of TPR that are similar to the way children acquire their native language?
- Use of commands.
- Simple structures.
- Children imitate a lot.
- Children can get a lot of inputs.
- Having an environment where children feel comfortable. 

7. A lot of target language structures and vocabulary can be taught through the imperative. Plan part of a TPR lesson in which the present continuous tense, or another structure in the target language, is introduced. 

Aim: Learning the present continuous tense.
Activity: “Simon says”. The teacher is going to give some instructions and students have to follow them. For instance: “Simon says jump in the air” and the students have to jump. When they are jumping, the teacher is going to say “We are jumping” and all of them have to repeat it. Then, we do the same with other verbs (read, drink, run, walk…), so the students can learn that the present continuous is used when you are doing something in this moment and they can learn the structure in a funny way.

Produced by Cristina Beltrán Sabater, Patricia Martín Cano, Eva Martín Vega, María Racionero García and Lorena Seco Molinero.