Situational Language Teaching | Oral Approach | SLT Approach
The Oral Approach or Situational Language Teaching is an approach developed by British applied linguists in the 1930s to the 1960s.
The Oral Approach and Situational Language Teaching rely on the structural view of language.
One of the outstanding features of the method is its emphasis on vocabulary and reading skills learning. Behavioristic background.
The principles(SLT- Oral Approach)
- Language learning is habit-formation.
- Mistakes are bad and should be avoided, as they make bad habits.
- Language skills are learnt more effectively if they are presented orally first, then in written form.
- Analogy is a better foundation for language learning than analysis.
- The meanings of words can be learnt only in a linguistic and cultural context
SLT objectives
Situational Language Teaching aims at the achievement of these objectives:
- A practical command of the four basic skills of a language, through structure
- Accuracy in both pronunciation and grammar
- Ability to respond quickly and accurately in speech situations
- Automatic control of basic structures and sentence patterns.
The syllabus, techniques and activities
Situational Language Teaching uses a structural syllabus and a word list and relies on structural activities including situational presentation of new sentence patterns and drills to practice the patterns. Typical procedure in Situational Language Teaching include.
- Procedures that move from controlled to freer practice of structures.
- Procedures that move from oral use of sentence patterns to their automatic use in speech, reading and writing.
- A typical situational Language Teaching lesson would start with stress and intonation practice.
Then the main body of the lesson might consist of four parts:
1. Revision (to prepare for new work if necessary)
2. Presentation of new structure or vocabulary
3. Oral practice (drilling)
4. Reading of material on the new structure, or written exercises.
Advantages
- Although Situational Language Teaching was developed during the 1930s, it still attracts the interest of many teachers.
- Its strong emphasis on oral practice, grammar and sentence patterns conform to the intuitions of many practically oriented classroom teachers.
Disadvantages
- The views of language and language learning underlying Situational Language Teaching were called into question.
- Chomsky (1957) showed that the structural and the behaviouristic approaches to language were erroneous and do not account for the fundamental characteristic of language namely the creativity and uniqueness of individual sentences.
- Children do not acquire their mother tongue through repetition and habit formation.
- There must be, however, an innate predisposition that lead them to a certain kind of linguistic competence.