How to Teach English?

There are various methods or techniques that are applicable in English language teaching. Here, the following methods are mostly used by teachers. Let us review them briefly!

1. Grammar-translation method – present students with short grammar rules and word lists and then translation exercises in which they make use of the rules. It teaches people about language but doesn’t really help them to communicate effectively with it.

2. Direct Method – while teaching, no use of the mother tongue is permitted (the teacher does not need to know the students’ native language). Actions and pictures are used to make meanings clear. Grammar and target culture is learned inductively. Literary texts are read for pleasure and are not analyzed grammatically. More importantly, the teacher must be a native speaker or have a native-like proficiency in the target language.

3. Audiolingualism – describe the grammatical patterns of English to students, have them repeat and learn them. Habit-forming behaviourist approach – perform the correct response to a stimulus so that a reward is given. Drilling (choral and individual repetition and cue-response drilling) is still considered useful – especially with low-level students.

4. Total Physical Response – before teaching speaking, student should learn much vocabulary earlier. In this case, students learn vocabulary through observing actions (performed by teacher) as well as performing the actions themselves. To teach the words “walk” and “run”, teacher should explain them through actions so that students can differentiate both of the words. This methods are suitable for young learners.

5. PPP – Presentation, Practice and Production – the teacher presents the context and situation for the language (describe someone’s holiday plans) and both explains and demonstrates the meaning and form of the new language (eg. “Going to” …. He’s going to visit the Hermitage Museum.) Students then practice sentences with “Going to” … This is called controlled practice. Teachers can use drilling to teach pronunciation and allow students to speak more freely about themselves, e.g… next week I am going to ….

6. CLT – Communicative Language Teaching – involves language functions such as inviting, agreeing, disagreeing, suggesting, etc. Teaches appropriacy when talking and writing to people (formal, informal, tentative, technical, etc.) This method assumes that if students get enough exposure to language and opportunities for language use and if they are motivated then language learning will happen! Focus on allowing students to communicate real message and engage in communicative activities where they use all and any language they know to communicate.

7. TBL - Task-Based Learning – emphasizes tasks rather than the language. Students perform real-life tasks such as timetables, schedules, presentations. Students are given a pre-task (introduced to the topic), which is followed by a task cycles (students plan the task, gather language and information) and produce an outcome (writing, oral performance, etc.)

Which method is best? Use a combination of all! Depends on the situation. Depends on the level of student!.

References:
Harmer, Jeremy. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Malaysia: Pearson Education Limited

Murcia, Marianne-Celce. (2001). Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (third edition). Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Setiyadi, Ag. Bambang. (2006). Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Yogyakarta: Graha Ilmu.