With regard to teaching approaches, Larsen-Freeman (2000) gives a useful overview of methods used over the past century, to which you are referred for further details and practical examples. We are still living with the legacy of a widely used methodology from the beginning of the nineteenth century, ie Grammar Translation. This method consisted of presenting (by explicit telling) one or two new grammar rules, a list of vocabulary items, and some practice examples to translate from first language into target language or vice versa. The content was usually reading and writing materials of a literary nature, and students were given bilingual word lists of necessary vocabulary items from these materials to learn. The method is used around the world and has developed several varieties, such as the French 'explication de texte'. The emphasis on analysis of the language rather than use, and on reading and writing rather than oral communication, has been criticized for producing a generation of language learners unable to use simple everyday vocabulary.

As a reaction to Grammar-Translation, a new methodology was devised, which relied on exposure to oral language, through listening and speaking. This was the Direct Method. Only the target language was used in the classroom, and no explicit grammar teaching was undertaken. The emphasis was on inductive, rather than deductive methods, ie rules were drawn out from the meaningful language examples used, rather than taught explicitly and then practised later. The Audio-Lingual and the Situational approaches also placed the emphasis on oral communication and on language use rather than analysis.

We are currently operating within a broadly Communicative Approach to language teaching, in which meaning, rather than form, is emphasized. Some critics feel that the pendulum is now swinging too far in favour of use, with learners producing chunks of more or less appropriate language, without understanding how the individual elements interrelate. The result is a generation of students who can use the target language for limited everyday needs, but are not acquainted with the intellectual or literary tradition of the country whose language they have acquired.

Activity 3

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In our teaching of vocabulary in higher education, we need to strike a balance between these two extremes of focus, the one on analysis, the other on use. At tertiary level, we should expect our learners to engage with the reading or listening material we give them, and so they need to understand enough of the vocabulary contained in that material to do so. However, we should also give opportunities for learners to develop their control of vocabulary appropriate to their level. We need a methodology that tempers use with analysis, encouraging learners to create hypotheses and develop understanding from examples presented and practised in class, consolidated by later explanation. Communication tasks, in which learners produce taught vocabulary in context, are useful for encouraging active use. Consciousness-raising teaching techniques, in which awareness and understanding of vocabulary is encouraged through presenting and discussing authentic examples, is finding favour with teachers as a means of developing their students' analytical skills. (For consciousness-raising, see Module 3, section 3.3.4, and Module 4, section 4.4.6.)

Activity 4