Audiolingual Method

Audiolingual Method

A.   Definition

The Audiolingual Method is a method for foreign language teaching which emphasized the teaching of listening and speaking before reading and writing. This method is combination between behavioral psychology and linguistic. It’s also called “Army Method” because this method is appeared since the World War II for the American armies who had to learn language quickly and intensively. The structural theory of language constituted its backbone. Structural linguistic view language as a system of structurally related elements for the expression of meaning. These elements are phonemes, morphemes, words, structures and sentence types. The language teaching theoreticians and methodologists is behavioral psychology which is is an empirically based approach to the study of human behavior. Behaviorism tries to explain how an external even (a stimulus ) caused a change in the behavior of an individual (a response) without using concept like ”mind” or  “idea”.

In the Audiolingual Method, the students first hear a language. Later, they speak the language and after that, they read and write in it. Mother tongue is discouraged in the classroom when this method is used. The Audiolingual Method does not learn lots of vocabulary. Rather, the teacher drills speaking and grammar because in this method, grammar is most important for the student. In other word, the student must repeat grammar pattern after the teacher.

B.    Goals and Principles                   

The general goal of the Audiolingual Method is to enable the target language communicatively. And there are two objectives in Audiolingual Method such as; Brook distinguishes between short-range and long-range objectives of an Audiolingual program. Short-range objectives include training in listening comprehension and accurate pronunciation. Long-range objectives or the ultimate goal is to develop the student’s abilities are same like what native speakers have, to use it automatically without stopping to think.

The main principles on which the audio lingual method is following :

Ø Foreign language learning is basically a process of mechanical habit formation.

Ø The student are able to give correct response rather than by making mistake.

Ø Language skills are learned more effectively if the items to be learned in the target language are presented in spoken form before they are seen in written form. Aural-oral training is needed to provide the foundation for the development of other language skills.

Ø Drills can enable learners to form correct analogies. Hence the approach to the teaching of grammar is essentially inductive rather than deductive.

Ø The meaning that the words of a language have for the native speaker can be learned only in a linguistic and cultural context and not isolation.

C.   Advantages and Disadvantages of ALM

v Advantages of ALM

Ø Learners be able speaking the target language comunicatively.
Learners have no difficulties to understand the lesson as it is carried out in the mother tongue.

Ø Learners are able to give correct response directly.

Ø Learners more concern about the combination between behavioral psychology and linguistic.

v Disadvantages of ALM

Ø Speaking or any kind of spontaneous creative output was missing from the curriculum.

Ø Students lacked an active role in the classroom.

Ø Very little attention is paid to communication.

Ø Very little attention is paid to content.

Ø Process of learning only focus in speaking.

Because of all these disadvantages, instructors tried to find better ways to remedy the pitfalls of the audiolingual method.

D.   The Application of Audiolingual Method in Teaching Reading for Junior High School

In applying Audiolingual Method for teaching speaking, I will take the material about daily conversation. The Material is for first grade of Junior High School. As we know, in teaching speaking the students must try to speak English about something based on the material in order to improve their speaking ability, I will use Audiolingual Method and help the students to improve speaking ability through dialogue, so the students able to speak English very well.

Example :

1.     I will do the brainstorming to catch the students’ attention.

2.      I will explain about how to make a dialogue.

3.      I will give the students an example of dialogue and ask them try to make a dialogue.

4.      After the students try to make a dialogue and ask them come in front of the classroom and show the dialogue to their friends.

5.     After the students show the dialogue, the teacher ask another students about the dialogue that their friend had showed.