Comprehensive Study Notes on English Language Teaching: Approaches, Methods, and Techniques

Global Context of English

• Changing Position of World English: An international language belongs to its users, not to the countries whose national languages have become internationalised (Edge 1993). The rapid expansion of second-language ($L2$) speakers has fundamentally altered the global status of English.

• Historical Background: For decades, English language learning targeted an approximation of the educated native speaker model, strictly adhering to British or American English. Post-colonization, English did not disappear; instead, it adapted to local cultural and linguistic nuances in multilingual and monolingual communities (e.g., Sri Lankan English "small-small pieces" or Indian English kinship term "cousin sister").

• Socio-Economic & Technological Drivers: The emergence of the United States as a leader in computer technology established English as the default operating language of global communication, re-inventing it beyond its colonial past.

• Kachru's Three Circles Model (1985):

  • Inner Circle: Native speakers ($L1$) for whom English is the primary language.

  • Outer Circle: $L2$ speakers using English for official, institutional, and inter-state communication.

  • Expanding Circle: Foreign language ($EFL$) speakers learning English for specific functional purposes.

  • Speaker Estimates (Crystal 1997):

  • Inner Circle: $320\text{--}380\text{ million}$

  • Outer Circle: $150\text{--}300\text{ million}$

  • Expanding Circle: $100\text{--}1000\text{ million}$

• Quantitative Web & Publishing Data (Graddol 1997 / British Council 2000):

  • Web Homepages by Language (c. 1997): English ($84.3\%$), German ($4.5\%$), Japanese ($3.1\%$), French ($1.8\%$), Spanish ($1.2\%$), Swedish ($1.1\%$), Italian ($1.0\%$), Portuguese ($0.7\%$), Dutch ($0.6\%$), Norwegian ($0.6\%$).

  • Book Publication Proportions (Early 1990s): English ($27\%$), Chinese ($13\%$), German ($12\%$), French ($8\%$), Spanish ($7\%$), Japanese ($6\%$), Portuguese ($5\%$), Russian ($5\%$), Korean ($4\%$), Italian ($2\%$), Dutch ($2\%$), Others ($7\%$).

  • Shift in Centre of Gravity: Non-native and multilingual English speakers outnumber first-language speakers, shifting the language's 'centre of gravity' and determining its future development.

• Implications for Teaching and Standards:

  • Emergence of localized standard varieties such as "Euro-English" within the European Economic Community (EEC) and researched varieties of Indian English (e.g., Bansal's CIEFL studies on pronunciation intelligibility).

  • Phenomenon of language death: Proliferation of dominant regional or global languages risks swamping minority languages (e.g., Javanese threatened by Bahasa Indonesia; preservation campaigns for Cornish in the UK).

The Grammar-Translation Method (GTM)

• History & Origin: Rooted in the formal teaching of Greek and Latin in European scholar traditions for intellectual discipline and prestige. Developed by German scholars in the late 18th century (known in the US as the "Prussian Method"). Exponents include J. Seidenstucker, Karl Plotz, H.G. Ollendorff, and J.V. Meidinger. J.C. Fick published the first English course using this method in 1793 (A Practical Course in English for Germans).

• Core Definition: A method focused on detailed study of grammar rules followed by translation of sentences and texts to and from the mother tongue ($L1$), using $L1$ as the central reference system for $L2$ acquisition.

• Key Features:

  • Prescriptive grammar teaching via presentation and memorization of rules.

  • Primary focus on translation at the isolated sentence level.

  • High emphasis on meticulous standards of accuracy for formal written examinations (Howatt 1984).

  • Vocabulary taught through bilingual word lists, dictionary reference, and rote memorization.

  • Primary focus on reading and writing skills; total neglect of listening, speaking, and pronunciation.

  • Teacher-dependent and text-bound execution.

• Syllabus Structure:

  • 8 to 10 prose lessons and 7 to 8 poems.

  • Non-detailed abridged classic text.

  • Grammar: Parts of speech and definitions, articles, verb conjugations (affirmative, negative, interrogative, negative-interrogative), word parsing, passivisation, reported speech, sentence analysis (simple, complex, compound), and sentence synthesis.

  • Writing: Descriptive writing, narrative writing, and formal/informal letters.

• Classroom Procedure Exemplar (George Orwell's Decline of the English Murder excerpt):

  • Step 1: Oral reading of passage by individual students; line-by-line translation into $L1$.

  • Step 2: Explanation of difficult words and phrases in $L1$ by the teacher.

  • Step 3: Comprehension questions answered orally or in writing.

  • Step 4: Vocabulary exercises (finding $L1$ equivalents, antonym matching).

  • Step 5: Deductive grammar instruction (e.g., defining proper, concrete, abstract, and collective nouns; identifying examples from the text).

  • Step 6: Written practice exercises enforcing the taught rules.

The Structural-Oral-Situational (S-O-S) Approach

• Historical Origins:

  • Developed as an alternative to the Direct Method. Rooted in wartime language training programmes in the US (Army Specialized Training Program - ASTP, established 1942).

  • University of Michigan English Language Institute founded in 1941 under Charles Fries, applying structural linguistics (sentence patterns, intensive oral drilling, systematic pronunciation practice).

  • Parallel British development of the "Oral Approach" by Harold Palmer and A.S. Hornby (1920s--1950s), leading to Hornby's coining of the