2.2.4 The Middle of the 20^th Century

The launching of the first Russian satellite in 1957 resulted in an increased interest in and funding for foreign-language study in the United States. Language teaching specialists began developing a method that would be suitable for U.S. colleges and classrooms. They drew on the Army Method, structural linguistic theory and behavioural psychology to develop what was termed "the Audio-lingual Method" (Richards Rodgers, 1986). Brown (1980) describes how prominent theories in linguistics and psychology influenced practice at that time:

Around the middle of the century the unique advances of both linguistics and psychology had a profound and lasting effect on language teaching methodology. Structural linguistics had provided tools for dissecting language into its smallest parts and for contrasting two languages "scientifically", and behavioral psychology had provided a model for teaching virtually any behavior by operant conditioning. The two theoretical stances merged perfectly to give language teachers a method firmly grounded in theory: the Audio-lingual Method (ALM). (p.242)

Behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner published his influential book Verbal Behavior in 1957 in which he elaborated a theory of learning applicable to language learning. Skinner's elements of stimulus, response and reinforcement were easily adapted to language learning:

A set of phrases or sentences is given to which the learner has to make the same response, or on which he has to perform the same manipulation ... the student is encouraged to produce repetitively a suitable sound in his own language and is rewarded each time there is a phonetic variation in the direction of the foreign language sound until gradually only productions of the new sounds are rewarded. (McDonough, 1981, pp. 14-15)

The new method, founded on both behavioral psychology and structural linguistics emphasized habit formation, repetitive drills, avoidance of errors, mimicry and memorization (Stern, 1983) and depended on a central and active role for the teacher (Richards Rodgers, 1986). Given that an important tenet of structural linguistics is that the primary medium of a language is oral (Ibid.), oral proficiency, and not the study of grammar or literature, was the primary goal with the method. Reading and writing were introduced only after students practiced the structures orally. The tightly-structured approach of the dialogues and drills attempted to minimize the potential for errors. The learner was not encouraged to initiate interaction because it might result in a mistake. Lack of understanding of meaning was less important than the ability to effectively imitate, memorize and respond to model dialogues; therefore, grammatical explanation was minimized (Brooks, 1964).

The behavioural view of both language and language learning dominated foreign- language teaching methodology for several decades resulting in classroom emphasis of controlled practice with careful reinforcement (Brown, 1980). However, by the end of the sixties, Audio-Lingualism had become what Stern refers to as "the whipping boy for all that was wrong with language teaching" (p. 465). Not only did practical results of the approach fall short of expectations, but changes in linguistic theory in the 1960's challenged the structural view of language as well as the behaviourist view of language learning. Chomsky's (1959) theory of transformational grammar argued that language was not a process of habit formation. According to Chomsky (1966), innovation and the formation of new sentences and patterns allow for the generation or creation of new utterances from the learner's underlying knowledge of abstract rules. Chomsky's references to "innate aspects of the mind" contrasted and conflicted with Skinner's emphasis on observable behaviours. "Suddenly the whole audio-lingual paradigm was called into question: pattern practice, drilling, memorization" (Richards Rodgers, 1986, p.60). The dissatisfaction with the Audio-Lingual Method was one of a number of factors that would set the stage for yet another shift in approaches to the teaching of second and foreign languages.