Approach
An approach refers to the general
assumptions about what language is and about how learning a language occurs
(Richards and Rodgers, 1986). It represents the sum of our philosophy about
both the theory of language and the theory of learning. In other words, an
approach to language teaching describes:
1.
The nature of
language,
2.
How knowledge of a
language is acquired,
3.
And the conditions
that promote language acquisition.
Method
A method is a practical
implementation of an approach. A theory is put into practice at the level a
method. It includes decisions about:
§ The particular skills to be taught,
§ The roles of the teacher and the learner in
language teaching and learning,
§ The appropriate procedures and techniques,
§ The content to be taught,
§ And the order in which the content will be
presented.
It also involves a specific
syllabus organization, choices of the materials that will boost learning, and
the means to assess learners and evaluate teaching and learning. It is a sort
of an organizing plan that relies on the philosophical premises of an approach.
Procedures
Jeremy Harmer (2001) describes
‘procedures’ as “an ordered set of techniques.” They are the step-by-step
measures to execute a method. A common procedure in the grammar-translation
method, for example, is to start by explaining the grammar rules and
exemplifying these rules through sentences that the students then had to
translate into their mother tongue. According to Harmer, a procedure is
“smaller than a method and larger than a technique.”
Technique
Implementing a procedure
necessitates certain practices and behaviors that operate in teaching a
language according to a particular method. These practices and behaviors are
the techniques that every procedure relies on. Techniques, in this sense, are
part and parcel of procedures. They are the actual moment-to-moment classroom
steps that lead to a specified outcome. Every procedure is realized through a series of techniques. They
could take the form of an exercise or just any activity that you have to do to
complete a task. For instance, when using videos, teachers
often use a technique called “silent viewing” which consists of playing the
video without sound and asking students to figure out what the characters were
saying.
Methodological organization of teaching practices
Methodology informs teachers about different ways to organize teaching practices. Harmer (2001), for example, suggests that there are four levels of organization at the level of methodology, namely, approach, method, procedure, and techniques. The following description is inspired by this framework. Many elements of this framework are also discussed by Anthony (1963) and Richards and Rodgers (1986).
Before, describing our framework of the organization of teaching practices, let’s first review briefly Anthony’s and Richards & Rodgers’ models.
The following table shows how approach, method, procedure, and technique have been viewed by Anthony (1963) and Richards & Rodgers (1986):
| Antony’s model | Approach |
| |
|---|---|---|---|
| Method |
| ||
| Technique |
| ||
| Richards and Rodgers model | Method | Approach |
|
| Design |
| ||
| Procedure |
| ||
For the sake of the simplification of the above models, approach, method, procedure, and technique are viewed in the following description as flowing in a hierarchical model. First, an approach, which provides theoretical assumptions about language and learning, informs methods. Each method shouldn’t contradict the approach on which it is based. Similarly, procedures are ordered sequences of techniques that have to be aligned with the theoretical assumption a method aspires to put into practice.
