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Iibe_Ą_in^    (Army Metliod - Americans)

The audiolingual metliod is a metliod of foreign and second language teaching which:

a)    emphasizes the teaching of speaking and listening before reading and writing

b)    nses dialogues to present materials and drills (morę active, less intellectual, morę practical, and morę accessible for ordinary leamers)

c)    dependence on mimicry, memorization of set plirases and over leaming

d)    disconrages use of mother tongue in the classroom

e)    often makes use of contrastive analysis (in grammar)

The most important characteristics:

litde grammar explanation - vocabulary learnt in context use of tapes, visual aids proniuiciation and intonation are important prevention of students’ errors

The audiolingual metliod was prominent in the 1950s and 1960s, especially in the United States, and has been widely used in many other parts of tlie world. The theory beliind the audiolingual metliod is the aural-oral approach to language teaching, which contains the following beliefs about language and language teaching:

a)    speaking and listening are the most basie language skills

b)    each language has its own unique structure and rule system

c)    a language is leanied through forming habits

Tliese ideas were based partly on the theoiy of stnictural linguistics (Bloomfield, Sapir) and pardy on behaviorism (Skinner).