Bilingual method

The bilingual method of foreign language teaching was developed by C.J. Dodson (1967) as a counterpart of the audiovisual method. In both methods the preferred basic texts are dialogues accompanied by a picture strip. The bilingual method, however, advocates two revolutionary principles based on the results of scientifically controlled experiments in primary and secondary schools. In contrast to the audiovisual method and the direct method, the printed text is made available from the very beginning and presented simultaneously with the spoken sentence to allow learners to see the shape of individual words. Also, from the outset meanings are conveyed bilingually as utterance equivalents in the manner of the sandwich technique, thus avoiding meaningless and hence tedious parroting of the learning input. The pictures are seen primarily as an aid to recall and practice of the related dialogue sentences rather than as conveyors of meaning. The mother tongue is again used in the oral manipulation of grammatical structures, i.e. in bilingual pattern drills.

Structure

The architecture of the bilingual method is best understood as a traditional three-phase structure of presentation – practice – production. A lesson cycle starts out with the reproduction of a dialogue, moves on to the oral variation and recombination of the dialogue sentences, and ends up with an extended application stage“ reserved for message-oriented communication.[1] The method is listed in Eppert’s Lexikon (1973: 171) under the headword Konversation, where its eight teaching steps are described [2] „The eight steps lead from imitation to free conversation,“ i.e. unlike the grammar-translation method, but like the direct method and the audio-lingual method it focuses on the development of oral skills.[3]

Classroom research

Dodson’s experimental data – several modes of presenting dialogues were tested – have been confirmed by subsequent research, for example by a school-year long experiment of teaching French to Dutch learners (Meijer 1974), which compared the bilingual method with an audiovisual approach. A laboratory study with Japanese learners of English also confirmed Dodson’s results (Ishii et al. 1979). Similar results were reported by Sastri (1970) and Walatara (1973). Feasibility studies were undertaken by Kaczmarski (1979) in Poland, by Wolfgang Butzkamm (1980) for the teaching of English to German speakers in secondary schools, by Kasjan (1995) for the teaching of German to Japanese learners at university level, and by Moorfield (2008) for the teaching of the Maori language.

History

Although Dodson’s work inspired researchers from various countries, the bilingual method has been neglected by the mainstream, as evidenced in the absence of any mother tongue role in recognised overviews of L2 approaches and methods such as Richards & Rodgers (1987). [4] However, Butzkamm & Caldwell (2009) have taken up Dodson’s seminal ideas and called for a paradigm shift in foreign language teaching. This call was repeated by Hall & Cook in their state-of-the-art article (2012: 299): “The way is open for a major paradigm shift in language teaching and learning”[5]

References

  1. ↑ Byram, Michael, and Hu, Adelheid. eds. (2013: 89) Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning. London/New York: Routledge
  2. ↑ Eppert, Franz (1973) Lexikon des Fremdsprachenunterrichts. Bochum: Ferdinand Kamp
  3. ↑ Alexander, L. R. (1978) An Introduction to the Bilingual Method of Teaching Foreign Languages. In: Foreign Language Annals, 11: 305–313. doi: 10.1111/j.1944-9720.1978.tb00043.x
  4. ↑ Richards, J.C. & Rogers, T.S. (1987) "The nature of approaches and methods in language teaching". In: Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. CUP, pp 14-30
  5. ↑ Hall, Graham & Cook, Guy (2012) "Own-language use in language teaching and learning: the state of the art." In: Language Teaching 45.3, 271 – 308