Modern methods of teaching English

Teaching English to the native people of many counties is not at all an easy task. In school, the traditional Grammar-translation method is followed, so the pupils only develop their reading and writing skills but they can't speak or understand English by listening.

So a Direct Method, which gives stress to listening and speaking has been evolved. The teacher has to draw pictures, act to create a situation and has to show models or real object. It is creating a bond between experience and expression. It is time-consuming because the teacher has to create a situation of English speaking environment, which is a tiresome task.

We also know that every language has a definite structural pattern and in essential English, there are 282 structures. The teacher has to analyse the sentences and find out the structure which is new. Following the structure, the teacher gives several examples, more examples from the students. This process also gives emphasis to some written work like making sentence using substitution tables. But when the oral drill goes on, the class becomes noisy and sometimes limited to a particular pattern. It is mechanical and monotonous.

So communicative approach has evolved where asking questions and responding between the teacher and the class take place as a two-way process. Audio Lingual approach also has evolved as a modern concept where there is a scope to follow the English speaker to improve listening and speaking skills as well as pronunciation through the cassettes. Teachers should know all the methods. The blending of approaches is the teacher's own creativity.