Audio Lingual Methods (ALM): Lesson Plan

Introduction:

•          Audio-Lingual Method is an oral-based approach.
•         It drills students in the use of grammatical sentence patterns.
•          Based on behavioral psychology (Skinner).
•          Conditioning →helping learners to respond correctly to stimuli through shaping and reinforcement.
•          Habit-formation

Goals:

•         Teachers want their students to be able to use the target language communicatively.
•         Over learning →automatically without stopping to think
•          Forming new habits through overcoming the old habit.

Principle /characteristic:

· New material is presented in dialogue form.
·There is dependence on mimicry, memorization of set phrases, and over learning.
· Structures are sequenced by means of contrastive analysis and taught one at a time.
·Structural patterns are taught using repetitive drills.
·There is little or no grammatical explanation. Grammar is taught by inductive analogy rather than by deductive explanation.
·Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context.
·There is much use of tapes, language labs, and visual aids.
·Great importance is attached to pronunciation.
·Very little use of the mother tongue by teacher is permitted.
·Successful responses are immediately reinforced.
·There is a great effort to get students to produce error-free utterances.
·There is a tendency to manipulate language and disregard content.

Teaching Process: Presentation - Practice - Application (Production)

·         Presentation-- oral, dialogue, little explanation, L1 discouraged, errors corrected, accuracy emphasized, accurate repetition and memorization of the dialogue as goal of this stage;

·         Practice--pattern drills, mastery of the structure, fluency emphasized;

·         Application--use of the structure in different contexts;

Categorization of Drills: Mechanical, Meaningful, and Communicative drills (from Richards, Platt, and Weber, 1985)

·   A mechanical drill is one where there is complete control over the student's response, and where comprehension is not required in order to produce a correct response. Example: book --> this is a book. pen --> this is a pen.
·         A meaningful drill is one in which there is still control over the response, but understanding is required in order for the student to produce a correct response.
·         A communicative drill is one in which the type of response is controlled but the student provides his or her own content or information.

Advantages:

• It aims at developing listening and speaking skills which is a step away from the Grammar translation method
• The use of visual aids has proven its effectiveness in vocabulary teaching.

Disadvantages:

• The method is based on false assumptions about language. The study of language doesn’t amount to studying the “parole”, the observable data. Mastering a language relies on acquiring the rules underlying language performance. That is, the linguistic, sociolinguistic, and discourse competences.
• The behaviorist approach to learning is now discredited. Many scholars have proven its weakness. Noam Chomsky (“Chomsky, Noam (1959). “A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal behavior”) has written a strong criticism of the principles of the theory.

Conclusion

         The audio-lingual method focuses on speaking and listening competence stressing repetition and habit formation to learn a second or a foreign language. This method make the learner understand the second language by memorizing and practice speaking with drilling from the people communication.

Teaching Material	English For Today Book and general classroom materials.	Class	8
Unit	Health and hygiene Lesson 4 : A dialogue	No. of Students	30/40
Analysis of Teaching Material	1.     The textbook is designed under the Communicative Approach in language teaching. 2.     The practice part of the textbook is based on Audiolingualism with imitation and repetition. 3.     Vocabulary words are categorized in words for production and words for recognition.	Time	45 minutes
		Teaching Aids	Blackboard and chalk Textbook Worksheets
Analysis of Students’ Background	1.      Students are in the 8th in Junior High School. 2.      Ss are able to listen to and speak classroom English and conversation in daily life. 3.      Ss are willing to answer questions.	Teaching Methods	Audio-Lingual Method (ALM)
Objectives	ü  Speaking   ü  Listening	Interactions	T-Ss Ss-Ss
Techniques	Ø  Dialogue memorization   Ø  Backward build-up drill   Ø  Repetition drill   Ø  Chain drill     Ø  Single-slot drill   Ø  Multiple-slot drill	Ø  Transformation drill   Ø  Question/answer drill   Ø  Use minimal pairs   Ø  Complete the dialog   Ø  Grammar game

Lesson Objectives
Unit objectives (textbook)	Specific Objectives
·         Read and understand texts through silent reading       ·         Listen for information       ·         Ask and answer questions       ·         Write the answers to questions       ·         Write a dialogue	·         To understand the main idea of the dialogue and the reading.       ·         Repeat the dialogues with a partner.       ·         To follow teacher’s direction happily.       ·         To join in the activities voluntarily.       ·         To speak aloud the dialogue correctly.       ·         Transform questions into statements.       ·         Complete a dialog using nouns, verbs or adjectives.       ·         To speak out their thoughts in simple English.       ·         To speak grammatical pattern correctly.       ·         To discuss with group members and answer questions fluently.       ·         To reinforce the abilities in listening, reading, speaking.

Lesson Plan

Lesson : A Dialogue	Time	Stage	Aim			Procedure	Interaction
	3m	Warm-up	ü  To make Ss more comfortable.			- Greeting & introduction. - Telling a story related with the topic/ summarizes the previous class. - Briefly introduce today’s lesson.	T-Ss
	12m	Activity 1 Dialog memorization Backward build-up drill Chain drill	ü  To acquire the target language. ü  To be able to mimic the model. ü  To make stronger habit and greater learning.		HF	- T will introduce a new dialog. - T will act out the dialogue using pictures, gestures and props. - T will act out the dialogue by modeling it two times. - Ss will repeat each line of the new dialog several times.	T-Ss Ss-Ss
			ü  To prevent Ss from making errors. ü  To learn how to use the language to communicate.			-T will use a backward build-up drill with stumble line.
						- T will initiate a chain drill in which each S greets another.
						- T will lead Ss in repetition drills, one dialogue at a time. When T thinks the Ss have practiced line enough, s/he goes on the next line.
						- T and Ss practice dialogue by roleplaying it. First T plays the role then the Ss.
						- T will ask Ss to come to the front of the class and act out the dialogue, using props. Then two more Ss do the same thing.
	7m	Activity 2 Grammar Drill Single-slot substitution drills Multiple- slot substitution drills	ü  To create new sentences. ü  To respond to both verbal and nonverbal stimuli. ü  To make Ss able to practice in finding and filling in the slots of a sentence. ü  To develop correct habit.	Stimuli		- T will use single-slot substitution drills. - T will say a line from dialogue. - Then T will give word/phrase called cue. -Ss will repeat the line that T has given them, substituting the cue into the line in its proper place. -T will use multiple-slot substitution drills. -  T will give cue phrases. - Ss will recognize what parts of speech each cue is and make any other changes e.g. subject-verb agreement.	T-Ss
				PR		- T will say “very good” when Ss answer correctly.
	5m	Activity 3 Transformation drill	ü  To form habits which enable Ss to use the patterns?			- T will give Ss a certain kind of sentence pattern, an affirmative sentence. - Ss will ask to transform into a negative sentence.	T-Ss
	12m	Activity 4 Q/A drill	ü  To practice Ss with the question patterns.			- T will ask Q/A and Ss answer. - Ss will ask Q/A and T answers.	T-Ss Ss-T
	3m	Warp-up Writing	ü  To engage Ss at home.			- T will instruct Ss to memorize the dialogue in the target language as home work.	T-Ss

N.B: Habit Formation (HF), Positive Reinforcement (PR)

Presentation

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http://prezi.com/vzc-zwxskcfe/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Assessment (Observation/Self check evaluation)
Observation and self-check evaluation are the form of assessments. I will walk around to monitor and comment on the students' activities. Students will check themselves speaking key sentences and participating in activities. While students do the activities, they practice repeatedly the patterns. So praise and encouragement help increase the students' confidence with aural/oral skills.    

             

              Reference

Larsen-Freeman, Diane, (2000). Teaching and principles in language teaching (2^nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Richards, J. C. & Rogers, T. S. (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching: A description and analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.). New York: Longman