foreign-language instruction

foreign-language instruction, methods used to give a student some competence in an unfamiliar language. When a language is taught for competence in reading literature or technical works or in communicating with or as foreign visitors, its status is that of a foreign language. The term second language refers to a language in which instruction in other school subjects is carried on or that serves as a common language for speakers of diverse language groups, as English does in India or French in Guinea. Second-language instruction begins early, often in primary school, and emphasizes command of the spoken language and practical use. By contrast, foreign-language instruction takes place mostly in secondary school and stresses reading knowledge and a receptive command of the language. Since the 1990s there has been a significant increase in foreign-language instruction in U.S. elementary schools.

Three of the main methods of teaching language are grammar-translation, the direct method, and the audiolingual method. Grammar-translation, long the accepted method, is focused primarily on reading and writing. Given the proper length of exposure and a competent, skillful teacher, students are usually able to acquire a foreign language this way. Pupils in European secondary schools, who spend from six to eight years on a single language, often do so. In the United States, however, the conventional two-year study of a foreign language has not, as a rule, been productive.

Teachers using the direct method use only the target language, even at the outset of instruction. They make no overt reference to grammar, which they assume will be absorbed inductively; they proceed from conversation to reading in the target language; and they give no attention to translation.

The audiolingual method is also primarily oral, but it assumes that native language habits will interfere with the process of acquiring new language habits whenever the two conflict. It therefore includes concentrated drill in all features of the new language that differ in structure from the native language until the use of those features becomes habitual. This method was successfully employed on a large scale during World War II in teaching U.S. military personnel to speak less commonly taught languages, particularly those of Asia and eastern Europe.

Other methods of instruction include the silent way, in which students are encouraged to apply their own cognitive resources through silent prompts from the teacher; community language learning, in which the teacher acts as a facilitator for a self-directed group of language learners; total physical response, in which students respond physically to increasingly complex imperatives spoken by the teacher; communicative language teaching, which emphasizes performative uses of language in ordinary social situations; and “desuggestopedia,” which involves removing by suggestion feelings or beliefs in students that limit their ability to learn.