As a native speaker of English I did not have to have an “English language teacher” I simply began to speak English (before I could write or read) by picking it up form my general exposure to English all around me. This natural language acquisition is almost impossible to bring into a classroom and so we need to look at other ways for people to learnt a foreign language.

There are several tried and tested methods of doing this all with differing benefits, initially there was the Grammar-translation method used for many years and involved learning a foreign language through direct translation of native language, the problem with this is the teacher needs to know both the language which they are learning and the language they are teaching it also revolves around the grammar not the actual language and so makes conversations stilted and difficult.

Audio- Lingualism is another train of thought based on behavioral theories of learning and suggests learning is the result of habit formation hence it uses a bit of repetition drills and although we use this with Choral Drilling in ESA, it has been dismissed as teaching method by linguists as language learning they and I agree is more than habit forming. Dialogues used to be presented orally memorized drilled and repeated and during class the learner was never encouraged to ask but simply answer it was the epitome of a teacher controlled classroom with passive students, it was in its day revolutionary however as of 60’s it has become less popular based on theory and results. Students were not happy with teaching methods as theory were unable to take it and use it when learnt hence it fell. The loss of Audio - Lingualism left a whole in the 2nd language teaching not surprisingly post 1960’s there was a number of 2nd language teaching theories that came out all claiming to have the best results.

Presentation, Practice and Production - involves teachers “presenting the context and situation for the target language and explaining and demonstrating the meaning and form of the new language” The students are then in Practice mode where they make sentences in a controlled way before final stage of production where they can be creative. This method is still used today in some places and is very effective in lower levels but an issue could be too much teacher talk time.

Other methods of teaching 2nd language include Task Based learning, communicative language teaching, community language teaching and the Silent way. I want to look at a “designer method” by Georgi Lozanov a Bulgarian psychiatrist trained linguist. Lozanov concentrates on the student psychology and the class room rather than language. Lazanov talks of accessing the students “ unconscious ability to obtain information”, he believes learners success depends on their confidence in the method, his basic philosophy is if the students think the method is effective the content of the method is irrelevant! The teacher’s role is again central and the Teacher - Student relationship should be like parent and child giving the student the passive role. The lesson will have 3 parts - oral review of previous lesson, Presentation and discussion of new language and then finally students listen to relaxing music whilst the teacher reads out new dialogue!!

Another theory that was taken seriously is the Lexical approach, this basically states that it is not Grammar that is important in learning a 2nd language but vocab in the form of phrases in large numbers, this was not considered by students as a great way to learn as there were so many and so much reading to do they were put off, in many books it shows that new vocab is learnt after a lot of exposure and Grammar has to be learnt along side it. This is why the Lexical approach has proven difficult as a method. Once again it involved increased teacher talk time.

There are other methods such as Whole Language learning and the “Natural approach” however after reading these I can believe that Jeremy Harmers ESA method employed at TEFL school in Phuket. Is is a theory that recognizes students need to be motivated, exposed to the target language and have the opportunity to use it. Harmer put this forward in the form of Engage, Study and Activate.

Engage is when the teacher needs to get the student thinking and speaking in English, there are many ways we can do this in a stimulating was that are fun so that the students are relaxed, receptive, thinking and speaking in English or the target language. Once this is achieved we move on to the Study phase, this is when the class need to focus on the language and how it is constructed, this is mainly teacher talk time and a download of information to the student via diagram, mime and visual aids. Once this has been re iterated through worksheets either in pairs, groups or solo they are read out to ensure correct and then the final phase of Activate is carried out - allowing the students to put into practice what they have learnt.

ESA provides a balanced range of activities for the students and ideally will not be shorter than 30mins or longer than an hour. It discourages teacher talk time as it is not them that need the practice! ESA can be adapted using “boomerang” and “patchwork” methods - a mix of “straight arrow” as described above so can be used for any level. Seeing this in practice works really well, it gives structure for the teacher and the student becomes familiar with the format. It ensures students learn and then understands what has been learnt in context.

Tesol Course material - EFL methodology section

Douglas Brown “Principles of language and teaching”

Diane Larsen - Freeman “techniques and Principles in language teaching”

Jack C Richards + Theodore S Rodgers “Approaches and methods in language teaching”

Amanda Scarr