Audiolingualism was derived from research on learning associated with behavioral
psychology. Laboratory studies had shown that learning could be successfully manipulated
if three elements were identified: a stimulus, which serves to elicit behavior; a response,
triggered by a stimulus; and reinforcement, which serves to mark the response
as being appropriate (or inappropriate) and encourages the repetition (or suppression) of
the response in the future. Translated into a teaching method this led to the Audiolingual
Method, in which language learning was seen as a process of habit formation and in which
target-language patterns were presented for memorization and learning through dialogs and
drills