Teaching foreign languages

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Foreign language teaching means the teaching and learning of a language that does not belong to the mother tongue(s), in educational institutions or in private lessons.

Teaching methods
In the course of its history, foreign language teaching has produced the following central methodological concepts (chronological arrangement) (cf. also history of methods of foreign language teaching and foreign language teaching):

Grammar translation method

The grammar translation method (GÜM) originates from the old language teaching, in which it is the predominant teaching method. Until the end of the 19th century, it was the method used in higher schools and colleges – in other forms of school no foreign languages were taught. In addition to the mere learning of the foreign language according to the then new humanist educational ideal, it aimed at the general mental training of the learners.

The texts of the lessons used the highly cultural repertoire of the target language. In addition to literary texts, they include or belong to narrative texts about important personalities of art, literature and politics.

The primary and exclusive language of instruction in the GÜM is the mother tongue. The spoken target language does not matter. Instead, only the written language is practiced. At the beginning is learning the entire grammar according to a fixed curriculum. This is done by means of translations and especially with the help of practice sets (gap sets), which are tailored to the respective grammatical teaching unit. After learning grammar, reading and translation of target language (literary) texts are carried out. Some anthologies were also used.

Learning theory background is a strong cognitive orientation. The main advantage of the GÜM is the good mental penetration of the material and the good teaching of grammar and written language command. On the other hand, the ability to speak is not practiced because of neglect of speaking and listening. Historically, this also led to a debate about the orientation of foreign language teaching since the beginning of the 1880s to the replacement of the GÜM by other methods (Viëtor’s “Direct Method” and progressively its successor), as the increasingly outward-oriented German Empire in the imperialist age developed an urgent need for competent speakers of new languages and showed itself inferior to the GÜM.

Behavioral methods

Behavioural methods include the Audiolingual Method and the Audiovisual Method. The content usually consists of dialogues about everyday situations. The spoken language, the dialogue language, is regarded as the language level, where monolingualism always prevails. The exercises include set pattern exercises (pattern drills) and situational games.

Advantages: The language structures are automated. When learning foreign languages