Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Department of Languages

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

Online Lectures

Year and Semester	Year-3 Semester-2
Subject	English Language Teaching Methodology-1
Subject Code	ENGL 3212
Course Unit	Introduction to English Language Teaching Methodology
Date	07.05.2020
Time	Theory (9.00 am-11.00 am)  Practical (3.30 pm-5.30 pm)
Lecturer	D.N. Aloysius
Theory Hours	02                                            Total  No of  Hours: 02
Practical Hours	02                                            Total  No of  Hours: 02

Introduction to English Language Teaching Methodology

Today, English is the world’s most widely studied foreign language. Five hundred years ago, Latin was the most dominant language to be studied because it was the language of business, commerce and education in the western world. In the sixteenth century, however, French, Italian and English gain in importance as a result of political change in Europe and Latin gradually became displaced as a language of spoken and written communication (Richards and Rodgers, 2001).

Latin became a dead language. It was being started to read in the books as classic language. Children started to enter in the ‘grammar school’ in sixteenth and eighteenth centuries to learn grammar rules of Latin. In the eighteenth century, when modern languages began to enter in the curriculum of the European countries, these languages were taught by the same methods as Latin language was taught. Grammatical rules were memorized. Written practices were done. The passages were translated from the second language to the first language and vice versa.

By the nineteenth century, this method was considered as a standard method of teaching language. The textbooks were divided into chapters. Each chapter contained a certain grammatical rule and rule was practiced with a lot of written exercises.

Methods and Approaches of English Language Teaching

According to Asher and James (1982), Methods are the combination of techniques that are used and plasticized by the teachers in the classrooms in order to teach their students and approaches are the philosophies of teachers about language teaching that can be applied in the classrooms by using different techniques of language teaching. For example, if a teacher has an approach that language is the communication and learning a language is in fact learning the meanings, functions and uses of language. So the techniques will be based on the communicative language teaching and task based methods.

According to Freeman (2000), Methods which are taught to the teachers make a base and give them thinking about the applicable techniques and principles according to the situation where they stand. They are clear about their attraction towards certain methods and also think that why have they repelled certain method. The knowledge of method is very necessary because their knowledge is base of teaching.

          Practical: Write a brief introduction to English Language Teaching Methodology.

References:

1.    Approaches and Methods in language teaching, Richards and Rodgers

2.      Techniques and principles in language teaching  by Diane Larsen-Freeman