Lecture 1: General problems of Foreign Language teaching

The cognitive approach of language teaching
The age of audiolingualism, with its emphasis on surface forms and on the rote practice of scientifically produced patterns, began to wane when the Chomskyan revolution in Linguistics turned linguists and language teachers toward the “deep structure” of language. Increasing interest in generative transformational grammar and focused attention on the rule-governed nature of language and language acquisition led some language teaching programs to promote a deductive approach rather than the inductivity of the Audio Lingual Method. Arguing that children subconsciously acquire a system of rules, proponents of a Cognitive approach learning methodology began to inject more deductive rule learning into language classes. In an amalgamation of Audio Lingual and Grammar Translation Techniques, classes retained the drilling typical of the ALM but added healthy doses of rule Explanations and reliance on grammatical sequencing of material.
Cognitive code learning was not so much a method as it was an approach that emphasized a conscious awareness of rules and their applications to second language learning. It was a reaction to the strictly behavioristic practices of the ALM, and ironically, a return to some of the practices of Grammar Translation. As teachers and Materials developers saw that incessant parroting of potentially rote material was not creating communicatively proficient learners, a new twist was needed, and Cognitive code learning appeared to provide just such a twist. Unfortunately, the innovation was short-lived, for as surely as rote drilling bored students, overt Cognitive attention to the rules, paradigms, intricacies, and exceptions of a language overtaxed the mental reserves of language students.
The profession needed some spice and verve, and innovative minds in the spirited 1970s were up to the challenge.
As a consequence of this criticism the Cognitive code - learning theory has been proposed. According to the Cognitive theory a language is more than a system of habits which can be formed through repetitive drill. It is a specific system and the learner should know how this system works in actual form, perception of meaning, relations of universals and particulars, generalization, and analogization, since the Cognitive approach is characterized by the use of exercises designed to teach grammatical understanding of the concepts being introduced; by the deductive Explanation of all grammar prior to any practice with the structure; and by the practice of all the language skills from the beginning of the course, it is considered a more modern and sophisticated version of grammar-Translation method.
The results of scientific analysis of the contrasts between the learner’s language and the target language are taken into consideration in the arrangement of the material and the pupil’s activity for its retention, because the typical learner’s difficulties can be identified and predicted in advance on the basis of contrastive analysis in phonology, structure, semantics, and culture.
The development of engineering has made possible the introducing of new teaching Aids and teaching Materials: television courses, tape lessons, audio-visual courses; programmed instruction is being introduced into foreign language teaching.