The Oral Approach And Situational Language Teaching (Report)

The oral Approach and Situational Language Teaching

This approach has been developed by British applied linguists from the 1930s to the 1960s. It has been long-lasting and It has shaped the design of many EFL/ESL textbooks and courses.
Background
Two of the leaders in this movement were Harold Palmer and A. S. Hornby. The attempted to develop a more scientific approach than the DirectMethod. As a result they selected and organized the content of a language course. Vocabulary and Grammar were the first aspects to be taken into account.
Vocabulary was one of the most important aspects of foreign language learning. In order to acquire proficiency in the reading skill vocabulary was essential. Harold Palmer and other specialists produced a guide to the

English vocabulary needed forteaching English as a foreign language, “The Interim Report on Vocabulary selection”.
Grammar Content was also an important element of the language course. It was assumed that one universal logic formed the basis of all languages and the teacher had to show each universal was to be expressed in the foreign language. Sentence patterns (English structures) were incorporated into the firstdictionary for students of English, “The Advanced Learner´s Dictionary of Current English”.
The Oral Approach involved systematic principles of Selection (how the content was chosen), Gradiation ( how the content was sequenced), and Presentation ( how the content was presented and practiced). The main characteristics of the Approach were:
1. Language teaching begins with the spoken language.
2. Thetarget language is the languAge of the classroom.
3. New language points are introduced and practiced situationally.
4. Grammar items are graded.
5. Reading and writing are introduced once a sufficient lexical and grammatical basis is established.

Theory of language

Situational teaching => based on British estructuralism.
Speech => Basis of language
Structure=> view as being at theheart of speaking ability.
Palmer hornby => pedagogical descriptions => basic grammatical structures of English.

British theoreticians focus to their version of Structuralism => Notion of situation
Principal activity => oral practice of english structure.
↓
Controlled sentence patterns insituations to give practice in English speech to pupils.

The theory that knowledge must be linked to situations give Situational Language Teaching a distinctive feature.
British linguists emphasized => relationship between the structure and the context, lang. is used.

Lang activity is viewed as part of a whole complex of events with participants and relevant objects to make up actualsituations.-

J.R Firth and M.A.K Halliday developed views of lang. In where meaning, context and situation were given a prominent place.
Lang. was viewed purposeful activity to situations in real world.
Because the Lang. a person originates => always expressed for a purpose.

Theory of learning

Theory of learning =>Situational language teaching=> Behaviouristic habit- learning.
Adressesprocesses than conditions of learning.
Palmer => 3 processes in learning a lang
Receiving knowledge or materials
Fiixing in memory by repetition
Using in practice until it became a personal Skill

French saw lang => habit formation.=> cultivated by blind imitate drill.
Is fudamental =>to correct speech habits
Pupils => able to put the wordsin correct sentence patterns.

Situational Lang Teaching => Inductive approach to teach grammar.
Meaning of words => Induced from the way the form is used in a situation.
When teacher give the meaning of new word => weaken impression of the word in stds mind.
Explanation is discouraged => learner is expected to deduce the meaning of a particular structure or vocabulary item from the...