There is no perfect method to teach a language, but to be able to choose or combine the ones that exist today you have to know the most important ones! This is the right place for you to get out of doubt and get effective and real learning of English as a foreign language.
Each teacher or student should know how to combine the learning methods of English as a foreign language and choose best EAL teaching tips and strategies necessary for the different groups, students or the specific time at which you are ready to study.
Why Use a Method of Learning English as a Foreign Language?
If you are teaching or are studying a subject or language, it is always useful and necessary to have a guide. One method is that, a way to orient yourself so that you can incorporate the content correctly, quickly, and effectively.
You can’t learn everything at once, you need to go slowly and know the most practical order to achieve this; also if your goal is to come up with the acquisition of English as a second language, you cannot do so in a disorganized way!
- Grammar โ Translation Method
This is one of the oldest methods of learning English as a foreign language. It began to be used in about 1920. From the outset, he focused on text translation. At the time, developing writing and reading skills were believed to be the fundamental goal in teaching a foreign language. If you decide on this method of learning, you will have to learn the rules of grammar and vocabulary of the language to be studied.
This method is very useful if you are looking to expand your vocabulary, intensify your reading comprehension in English language and write texts, but it is not so much when it comes to communicating, because it does not instruct in this regard.
- Direct, Natural, or Inductive Approach Method
The direct approach method, also called a natural or inductive approach, arises in response to the translation and grammar method shown above. It was developed by Gouin Francoise and Maximilian Berlitz.
This approach seeks to get students to communicate in English, and to do so they must learn to think about this language. The fundamental skill that you can develop with the direct method is orality, while also learning the grammatical rules.
- Audiolingual Method
This, like the direct approach, is one of the learning methods of English as a foreign language that emphasizes the development of orality.
The difference is that, while the direct approach deepens the acquisition of a lot of vocabulary, the audio linguistic method accentuates the incorporation of grammatical structures.
In this way, you will be able to learn, through repetition and habit, the structures and phrases made to be able to communicate in English.
- Cognitive-Focus Method
This method arises as a reaction to the characteristics of the audio linguistic method, therefore, this type of approach is not based on repetition and creation of habits for the assimilation of vocabulary and grammatical rules.
Here you can learn with equal importance the skills for reading, writing, listening, and understanding. The pronunciation, on the other hand, will not be considered the same, for in this method perfection is reasoned as unrealistic or impossible to achieve.
- Silent Way Method
This is one of the most confident methods of learning English as a foreign language.
As the name implies, the teacher in the classroom will be practically silent. Through the use of various images and different visual means, gestures, signals, colors, among other external factors, you will receive the vocabulary that you will have to learn.
- Method of Communicative Approach
This approach to learning English as a foreign language emerged in the 1970s as a very novel proposition.
The functional aspect of the language to learn (in this case English), communicative intentions, and not so much language forms is of greater importance; this means that communication is based and prioritized over grammar.
How to Know Which Method is Best?
At the different stages, as you have seen, the various methods of learning English as a foreign language have emerged to meet the needs of students and teachers in the classroom that previous methods could not meet.
You’ve already known some of the most important and still used methods today, but in the face of so much information on how to know which method is the best, how to determine which method to choose, how can you not make a mistake?
At the end of the day, you are the one who is going to study or teach a class and you will reinforce what you think is necessary to achieve ultimately the learning of English as a foreign language.