Audiolingual Method

The Audiolingual Method (ALM) is an oral-based method that dominated language teaching from the late 1940s through the 1960s, particularly in the United States. Unlike the Direct Method, which it superficially resembles, ALM has an explicit theoretical base in structural linguistics (Bloomfield, Fries) and behaviourist psychology (Skinner). Language learning is viewed as habit formation: correct habits are established through intensive drilling of structural patterns, with errors prevented or immediately corrected to avoid formation of bad habits.

Origins

ALM grew out of the US Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) during World War II, which needed to produce functional speakers of foreign languages rapidly. Charles Fries at the University of Michigan developed the linguistic foundations, applying structural analysis to identify sentence patterns for systematic drilling. The method was later reinforced by Skinner's behaviourist framework: language is a set of habits acquired through stimulus-response-reinforcement chains.

Core Principles

• Language is speech, not writing. The natural order of skill acquisition is listening, speaking, reading, writing.
• Language learning is habit formation. Repetition and reinforcement build automatic responses. Errors must be prevented because they form bad habits.
• Teach the patterns, not the rules. Grammar is taught inductively through examples and drills, never through explicit rule statements. Students are expected to induce patterns from practice.
• Contrastive Analysis predicts difficulty. Comparing L1 and L2 structures identifies where interference will occur, allowing teachers to focus drilling on those points.
• Native language interference must be overcome. L1 and L2 are kept strictly separate. No translation is used.
• The teacher is the model and conductor. The teacher models target language accurately, controls all practice, and reinforces correct responses with praise.

Typical Classroom Procedures

1. Dialogue memorisation. A short dialogue is presented, modelled by the teacher, and repeated by students until memorised.
2. Backward build-up drill. Long sentences are broken down from the end and built up incrementally to maintain natural stress and intonation.
3. Repetition drill. Students repeat the teacher's model as accurately as possible.
4. Substitution drill (single-slot and multiple-slot). Students repeat a sentence but substitute cued words, practising the structural pattern.
5. Transformation drill. Students change sentence types (affirmative → negative, statement → question, active → passive).
6. Chain drill. Students practise short exchanges in sequence around the class.
7. Minimal pair drill. Contrasting phonemes are practised to develop accurate pronunciation.

Why It Declined

The ALM was dealt a double blow in the 1960s:

1. Chomsky's critique of behaviourism (1959 review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior) demonstrated that language is rule-governed and creative, not a set of conditioned habits. Children produce sentences they have never heard — something pure habit formation cannot explain.
2. Classroom results disappointed. Students could perform drills fluently but often could not transfer this ability to spontaneous communication. The gap between mechanical accuracy in drills and communicative competence in real interaction was too wide.

Legacy

ALM is no longer practised as a complete method, but its techniques persist:

• Drilling (choral, substitution, transformation) remains a standard classroom tool, particularly for pronunciation.
• The dialogue as a presentation vehicle is still widely used in coursebooks.
• Contrastive Analysis, though discredited in its strong predictive form, survives as a tool for anticipating common L1-related difficulties (see Anticipated Problems).
• The emphasis on listening before speaking influenced the Natural Approach and Total Physical Response.

Key References

• Fries, C.C. (1945). Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language. University of Michigan Press.
• Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics across Cultures. University of Michigan Press.
• Rivers, W.M. (1964). The Psychologist and the Foreign-Language Teacher. University of Chicago Press.
• Chomsky, N. (1959). Review of Verbal Behavior by B.F. Skinner. Language, 35(1), 26–58.
• Richards, J.C. & Rodgers, T.S. (2014). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press.