E. Oral-situational Approach (Britain)
This approach was developed by British applied linguists as a reaction to the Reading Approach and its lack of
emphasis on oral-aural skills; it enjoyed popularity during the1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Similarities can be found
between the Direct and Situational Approaches but a great deal has been added to it from the works of British functional
linguists, especially J.R. Firth, who believed that language form is determined by its context and situation
(Celce-Murcia, 2001). The theory of teaching of this approach is characterized as a type of British "Structuralism" and
its theory of learning is a type of behaviorist habit-learning theory. In this method all lexical and grammatical items are
presented and practiced in situations (e.g. at the supermarket, at the bank, at the post office).
The vocabulary items are chosen according to the situations being practiced. Vocabulary selection procedures are
followed to ensure that an essential general service vocabulary is covered (Richards & Rodgers, 2003).
Oral-Situational Approach and Audiolingualism share a great deal of similarities; thus, they confronted the same
criticisms and like the Audiolingual Approach the view of language teaching and learning underlying the
Oral-Situational Approach were called into question in the mid-1960s .