Language Teaching Approaches: An Overview! MARIANNE CELCE-MURCIA In “Language Teaching Approaches: An Overview,” Celce-Murcia gives some historical background, then outlines the principal approaches to second and foreign language teaching that were used during the twentieth century. She previews the book as a whole and projects some trends for language instruction in the new millennium, INTRODUCTION The field of second (or foreign) language teach- ing has undergone many fluctuations and shifts over the years. Different from physics or chem- istry, in which progress is more or less steady until a major discovery causes a radical theoreti- cal revision (Kuhn 1970), language teaching is a field in which fads and heroes have come and a gone in a manner fairly consistent with the kinds : of changes that occur in youth culture. I believe that one reason for the frequent swings of the pendulum that have been taking place until fairly recently is the fact that very few language teachers have a sense of history about their profession and are thus unaware of the historical bases of the many methodological options they have at their disposal. It is hoped that this brief and neces- sarily oversimplified survey will encourage many language teachers to learn more about the ori- gins of their profession. Such knowledge will ensure some perspective when teachers evaluate any so-called innovations or new approaches © to methodology, which will surely continue to ‘merge from time to time. Pre-twentieth-Century Trends: A Brief Survey ‘of approaches: getting learners to use a language (hes, to speak and understand it) versus getting ~ Itamers to analyze a language (ie., to learn its {rammatical rules). Both the classical Greek and medieval Latin periods were characterized by an emphasis on teaching people to use foreign languages. The classical languages, first Greek and then Latin, were used as lingua francas. Higher learning was conducted primarily through these languages all over Europe. They were used widely in philoso- phy, religion, politics, and business. Thus the educated clite became fluent speakers, readers, and writers of the appropriate classical language. ‘We can assume that the teachers or tutors used informal and more or less direct approaches (0 convey the form and meaning of the language they were teaching and that they used aural-oral techniques with no language textbooks per se, but rather a small stock of hand-copied written manuscripts of some sort, perhaps a few texts in the target language, or crude dictionaries that listed equivalent words in two or more languages side by side. During the Renaissance, the formal study of the grammars of Greek and Latin became popular through the mass production of books made possible by the invention of the printing press. In the case of Latin, it was discovered that the grammar of the classical texts was different from that of the Latin being used as a lingua franca—the latter subsequently being labeled vwulgate Latin, i.e., Latin of the common people. Major differences had developed between the classical Latin described in the Renaissance grammars, which became the formal object of instruction in schools, and the Latin being used for everyday purposes. This occurred at about the same time that Latin began to be abandoned 3as a lingua franca. (No one was speaking classi- cal Latin anymore, and various European ver- naculars had begun to tise in respectability and popularity.) Thus, in retrospect, strange as it may seem, the Renaissance preoccupation with the formal study of classical Latin may have con- tributed to the demise of Latin as a lingua franca in Western Europe. Since the European vernaculars had grown in prestige and utility, it is not surprising that people in one country or region began to find it necessary and useful to learn the language of another county or region. Thus the focus in lan- guage study shifted back to utility rather than analysis during the seventeenth century. Pethaps the most famous language teacher and method- ologist of this period is Johann Amos Comenius, a Czech scholar and teacher, who published books about his teaching techniques between 1631 and 1658. Some of the techniques that ‘Comenius used and espoused were the following: = Use imitation instead of rules to teach a language. = Have your students repeat after you. Use a limited vocabulary initially. ™ Help your students practice reading and speaking. = Teach language through pictures to make it meaningful. ‘Thus Comenius, perhaps for the first time, made explicit an inductive approach to learning a foreign language, the goal of which was to teach use rather than analysis of the language being taught. ‘Comenius’s views held sway for some time; however, by the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury, the systematic study of the grammar of clas- sical Latin and of classical texts had once again taken over in schools and universities through- out Europe. The analytical GrammarTranslation Approach became firmly entrenched as a method for teaching not only Latin but, by extension, modem languages as well. It was perhaps best codified in the work of Karl Ploetz, a German scholar who had a tremendous influence on the language teaching profession during his lifetime and afterwards. (He died in 1881.) Pt tt However, the swinging of the pendulum continued. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Direct Method, which once more stressed the ability to use rather than to analyze a language as the goal of language instruction, had begun to function as a viable alternative to Grammar‘Translation. Francois Gouin, a Frenchman, began to publish in 1880 concern- ing his work with the Direct Method. He adyo- cated exclusive use of the target language in the classroom, having been influenced by an older friend, the German philosopherscientist Alexander von Humboldt, who had espoused the notion that a language cannot be taught, that cone can only create conditions for learning to take place (Kelly 1969). The Direct Method became very popular in France and Germany, and has enthusiastic followers among language teachers even today (as does the Grammar Translation Approach). In 1886, during the same period that the Direct Method first became popular in Europe, the International Phonetic Association was established by scholars such as Henry Sweet, ‘Wilhelm Viétor, and Paul Passy. They developed the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and became part of the Reform Movement in lan- guage teaching in the 1890s. These phoneticians made some of the first truly scientific contribu- tions to language teaching when they advocated principles such as the following: ™ the spoken form of a language is primary and should be taught first; = the findings of phonetics should be applied to language teaching; language teachers must have solid training in phonetics; @ learners should be given phonetic training to establish good speech habits. ‘The work of these phoneticians focused on the teaching of pronunciation and oral skills, which they felt had been ignored in Grammar- ‘Translation. Thus, although the Reform Move- ment is not necessarily considered a full-blown pedagogical approach to language teaching, its adherents did have an influence on future approaches, as we shall see. ‘Unit I Teaching MethodologyQuite apart from the work of the Reform Movement; the influence of the Direct Method grew; it crossed the Antic in the early twentieth century when Emile de Sauzé, a disciple of Gouin, came to Cleveland, Ohio, in order to see to it that all foreign language instruction in the public schools there implemented the Direct Method. De Sauzé’s endeavor, however, was not completely successful (in Cleveland or else- where) since there were too few foreign language teachers in the United States. who were fluent speakers of the language they taught. Later, the Modern Language Association of America, based on the Goleman Report (Coleman 1929), endorsed the Reading Approach to language teaching, since given the skills and limitations of most language teachers, all that one could rea- sonably expect was that students would come away from the study of a foreign language able to read the target Ianguage—with emphasis on some of the great works of literature and philos- ‘ophy that had been produced in the language. ‘The Reading Approach, as reflected in the work of Michael West (1941) and others, held sway in the United States until the late 1930s and ‘early 1940s, when World War II broke out and mace it imperative for the U.S. military to quickly ind efficiently teach foreign language learners how to speak and understand a language. ‘Al this time, the U.S. government hired linguists ‘to help teach languages and develop Laan Ww heavily on structural linguistics Gloomfeld (93)) and behavioral psychology (Skinner 1957), horn. In Britain the same historical pressures , Pittman 1963), which drew on Firthian sulstics (codified in the work of Firth’s best- by, Init less dogmatie than, its American itr (the Audiolingual Approach), the Situational Approach advocated organ- fictures around situations that would iching Approaches: An Overview nonetheless often being little more than choral repetition. Some historians of language teaching (e4g., Howatt 1984) believe that the earlier Reform Movement played a role in the development of both Audiolingualism in the United States and the Oral-Situational Approach in Britain Nine Twentieth-Century Approaches to Language Teaching In addition to the Grammar-Translation Approach, the Direct Approach,? the Reading Approach, the Audiolingual Approach, and the Oral-Situational Approach—whose historical development I have sketched above briefly—there are four other discernible approaches to foreign language teaching that developed and were widely used during the final quarter of the twentieth century. ‘Thus, there are nine approaches altogether that | shall be referring t 1. GrammarTranstation 2. Direct 8 Reading 4, Audiolingualism (United States) 5. Oral Situational (Britain) 6. Cognitive 7, Affective- Humanistic 8 Comprehension-Based 9. Communicative However, before listing the features of each approach, I would like to digress a moment to clarify some terminology that is crucial to this discussion, Namely, what do we mean by the terms approach, method, and technique? Ave these terms synonymous? If not, how do they differ? Anthony (1963) has provided a useful set of def initions for our purposes. An approach to lan guage teaching is something that reflects a certain model or research paradigm—a theory, ifyou like. This term is the broadest of the three. ‘A method, on the other hand, is a set of proce- dures, ic., a system that spells out rather precise- ly how to teach a second or foreign language. It is more specific than an approach but less specific than a technique. Methods are typically compatible with one (or sometimes two)