The Audio-Lingual Method

OUR ACTIVITY deals with 5 different situations. For each one, we are going to use a different drill in order to show how these different techniques work on the language teaching.

1. It´s a drillbased on repetition: BACKWARD BUILD-UP DRILL (EXPANSION DRILL). The teacher breaks down a line into several parts. The students repeat a part of the sentence, usually the last phrase of the line. Then,following the teacher's cue, the students expand what they are repeating part by part until they are able to repeat the entire line: “working, after working, have a drink after working, shall we havea drink after working?”
Teacher: working
Students: working
Teacher: after working
Students: after working
Teacher: have a drink after working
Students: have a drink after working
Teacher:Shall we have a drink after working?
Students: Shall we have a drink after working?

2. It´s the SINGLE-SLOT SUBSTITUTION DRILL. The teacher says a line, usually from the dialog. Next, the teacher saysa word or a phrase—called the cue. The students repeat the line the teacher has given them, substituting the cue into the line in its proper place.
The teacher says a line, usually from a dialogue.Teacher: This afternoon, I´m going to play hockey.
Now, she shows a picture of basketball and she says “ to play basketball”
Teacher: This afternoon, I´m going to play basketball.
The teachergives the clue “football”
Students: This afternoon, I´m going to play football

3. MULTI-SLOT SUBSTITUTION DRILL. This drill is similar to the single-slot substitution drill. The difference is that theteacher gives cue phrases, one at a time, that fit into different slots in the dialog line. The students must recognize what part of speech each cue is, or at least, where it fits into the sentence,and make any other changes, such as subject-verb agreement. They then say the line, fitting the cue phrase into the line where it belongs.
The teacher says the original sentence
Teacher: I´m going...