REVIEWING THE TECHNIQUES
If you agree with the above answer, you may wish to implement the following techniques; of course, even if you don’t agree, there may be techniques described below that you are already using or can adapt to your approach.
Dialog Memorization
Dialogs or short conversations between two people are often used to begin a new lesson. Students memorize the dialog through mimicry (sometimes this is referred to as “mim-mem”); students usually take the role of one person in the dialog, and the teacher the other. After the students have learned the one person’s lines, they switch roles and memorize the other person’s part. Another way of practicing the two roles is for half of the class to take one role and the other half to take the other. After the dialog has been memorized, pairs of individual students might perform the dialog for the rest of the class.
Chain Drill
A chain drill gets its name from the chain of conversation that forms around the room as students, one by one, ask and answer the questions of each other. Teacher begins the chain by greeting a particular student, or asking him question.
Single-slot Substitution Drill
The teacher says a line, usually from the dialog. Next, the teacher says a word or a phrase-called the cue. Students repeat the line the teacher has given them, substituting the cue into the line in its proper place.
Multiple-slot Substitution Drill
This drill is similar to the single-slot substitution drill. The difference is that the teacher gives cue phrases, one at a time that fit into different slots in the dialog line. The students must recognize what part of speech each cue is, where it fits into sentence, and make any other changes, such as subject-verb agreement.
Transformation Drill
The teacher gives students a certain kind of sentence, an affirmative sentence for example. Students are asked to transform this sentence into negative sentence.
Question-and-answer Drill
This drill gives students practice with answering questions. The students should answer the teacher’s questions very quickly. Although we did not see it in our lesson here, is also possible for the teacher to cue the students to ask question as well.
Complete the Dialogs
Selected words are erased from a dialog students have learned. Students complete the dialog by filling in the blanks with the missing words.
Grammar Game
Games like the supermarket alphabet game describe in this chapter are often used in the Audio-Lingual Method. The games are designed to get students to practice a grammar point within a context. Students are able to express themselves, although it is rather limited in this game.
CONCLUSION
We’ve looked at both the techniques and the principles of the Audio-Lingual Method. Try now to make the bridge between this book and your teaching situation
Does it make sense to you that language acquisition results from habit formation? So, will the habits of the native language interfere with target language learning? Should the commission of errors be prevented as much as possible? Should the major focus be on the structural patterns of the target language?