Free online videos showing language teaching methods.
Here is a link to a video series produced by the U.S. Information Service that some of you may already be familiar with.
It's important to note two things:
a) the videos are old - from the 1990s. This means that they do not reflect more recent research.
b) the videos show language teaching methods that most people would agree do not represent best practice. For example, the Audio Lingual Method is based on the (mostly false) belief that language is something that can be learned through repetition of form with limited attention to communication or meaning and that accuracy (i.e., not making mistakes) is very very important. However, researchers generally agree that this is not true.
Similarly, the Silent Way asks learners to build communication by focusing primarily on phonemes (the basic meaningful sounds of a language). Although such a focus can be helpful, a more holistic top-down focus on communication is generally agreed to be more useful.
The most useful video is likely to be the one on the Communicative Approach. This approach is generally supported by most recent research and most current language teaching incorporates a communicative approach.
http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/language-teaching-methods
Here is a link to a video series produced by the U.S. Information Service that some of you may already be familiar with.
It's important to note two things:
a) the videos are old - from the 1990s. This means that they do not reflect more recent research.
b) the videos show language teaching methods that most people would agree do not represent best practice. For example, the Audio Lingual Method is based on the (mostly false) belief that language is something that can be learned through repetition of form with limited attention to communication or meaning and that accuracy (i.e., not making mistakes) is very very important. However, researchers generally agree that this is not true.
Similarly, the Silent Way asks learners to build communication by focusing primarily on phonemes (the basic meaningful sounds of a language). Although such a focus can be helpful, a more holistic top-down focus on communication is generally agreed to be more useful.
The most useful video is likely to be the one on the Communicative Approach. This approach is generally supported by most recent research and most current language teaching incorporates a communicative approach.
http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/language-teaching-methods
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