Language Learning Methodologies

How do you best go about learning or teaching a language?  Many language learning apps or text books claim to have found the magic bullet, to have found a magic method which will work for all learners at all times.  My thirty years’ experience of teaching foreign languages tells you what you already instinctively know: they are wrong!

Let’s take a quick tour of some well-known language teaching methods:

The Grammar-Translation approach

Coming from the days of learning Latin and Greek, this method prizes accurately translating historical and literary texts.  Students are taught grammatical rules that they then apply in translation or grammar exercises.  This ensures good accuracy for well-motivated and high-achieving students, but lacks interest and contemporary buzz for others.

The Audiolingual Method

New language is imprinted on the mind with oral drills and practice.  Language structures are prioritised over vocabulary.  The method neglects meaningful communication despite being strong on pronunciation and syntactic accuracy.

The Direct Method

The class is led by the teacher, often with lots of question and answer work, and is conducted entirely in the language to be learnt.  The teacher provides an accurate model; the syllabus is frequently based on topics and situations with the level of challenge gradually being built up.  This method is strong on learning to communicate, and with attentive students accuracy and pronunciation are also good.  Many students quickly feel lost or rely overly on the teacher and this means that they find it difficult to transfer what they have learnt when speaking the language in the country concerned.

The Communicative Method

Classes will typically be wholly in the language to be learnt.  The teacher will set up lots of scenarios where there is a gap of information which is resolved in speaking the language, for instance with asking for railway departure times or enquiring a classmate’s opinion on a film.  The teacher will provide lots of examples for students to deduce and then reapply grammar.  This can be time-consuming.  Furthermore, some language functions can be difficult to replicate in a Communicative Method classroom.  Students can become frustrated with not understanding what the teacher requires or trying to communicate imperfectly in a make-believe scenario with a fellow student.

Total Immersion

If you spend time in the country where the language is spoken, results and motivation to learn are usually excellent.  Nevertheless, most of us will know people who have spent decades in our country who still speak with a heavy accent or with frequent grammatical mistakes stemming from interference by their mother tongue.  Moreover, spending time abroad away from your home language is not always possible or time-efficient.

When you’re learning French, German, Mandarin, English, Spanish online, or in a classroom, or learning any language, you will probably work best with a mixed approach and a skilled teacher to guide you.  Where better than with Lingua Learn UK?

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