Supermode model

• explain the audiolingual sequence of language learning;

• explain the sequence audiolingual language acquisition;

• mention the theoretical bases for audiolingualism;

• mention the theoretical bases for cognitive code learning;

• explain the weakness of audiolingual teaching method, and

• explain the weakness of cognitive code learning.

3.0 MAIN CONTENTS

near in pronunciation they may sound to the second language ear. To make audio-lingual teaching of second Nigerian languages a success,

the teacher is advised to do meaningful minimal pairing of second language items to ensure auditory– discrimination responses and speech responses. For example, the phonemes [ω] and [εχ], often sound so confusing to the English as a second language learner that he often confuses them because of the inability to perceive any difference between them. Very often, he finds them sound so similar and confusing that the learner of English as a second language

often sounds the indiscriminately or uses them interchangeably as

if they are variants of each other. This is because he lacks auditory discrimination. A lot of times, the second language learner does not perceive the difference. A good set of minimal

pairs as set out below can be used to help him out in such situations.

mayàÝi –warrior, màiyaÝì- general noma- to farm, madìnki- tailor gyara- to repair, màigara- repairer

túwó - food maitwo- foodseller (Iloene and Yusuf, 2011, p. 76

Examples of Ìgbò Minimal Pairs based on tone and prefix bõ – scatter (hair), ïbõ –comb

tú – stab Ãtú - nail gwú –dig Μgwú – digger

dé -write òdé – (akwụkwö) reader Examples of Yoruba Minimal Pairs based on tone and prefix

yô – rejoice ayô - joy

jó – to dance jijo - dance dance (dance) jó – to dance íjó – dance

yç – to be fitting êyç honour

A good set of minimal pairs in the Nigerian language being taught should promote auditory discrimination. The audio-lingual teaching

method also emphasises that language habits must be so well learnt

that replicating them can be done automatically without any conscious attention. It emphasises continuous practice and repetition of Nigerian language items to attain automatic and unconscious recall (Mueller 1975). These principles conform to the

principles of behaviourist psychology.

Audiolingualism encourages memorization and manipulation of patterns which bring out partial resemblance or similarities of

structure beneath surface variations of vocabulary (Rivers (1964:

15). In audio-lingualism, the learner is moved gradually from oral 176

speech work into reading and finally into writing. Audio-lingualism does not pay any great attention to meaning on the argument that

meaning lies in the realm of the abstract which is too complex to be probed or dabbled into. The sentence was approached from its

smallest unit, the morpheme, and up to the sentence level. The learning process is viewed in the audio-lingual world as consisting of habit formation, and conditioning without the intervention of intellectual analysis. This way, audio-lingualism favours the

„implicit learning strategy‟:

The intention (of audio-lingualism) is to make language learning less of a mental burden and more of a matter of relatively effortless and frequent repetition and imitation,” (Stern 1984, p. 464).

You should develop drills in the Nigerian language you teach as techniques to enrich your audio-lingual presentations because such techniques will offer the possibility of language learning without

requiring a strong academic background and inclination (Stern, 1984, p. 465). Audio-lingual techniques bring language to the scope of the ordinary learner, especially, speaking, the most natural of language skills. Oral proficiency is achieved through

intensive auditory–discrimination responses and speech responses.

Speech habits are achieved through practice and repetition. The

learner is made to listen to large corpuses of models of Hausa, Ìgbò and Yorùbá which he replicates through imitation. These tenets

of audio-lingualism have led to the following programmes of instruction that are common in today‟s practice of foreign/second

language teaching:

1. Programmed learning with reinforcing small feedback mechanisms 2. The use of the audio aided learning

3. The use of the language laboratory.

4. Linear and branching programmes.

5. Personalized system of instructions.

6. Computer assisted instruction (Burke, 1974, Biehler, 1978, Stern, 1984

At the level of theory, audio-lingualism reflects the descriptive, structural and descriptive linguistics of the fifties and sixties.

Its psychology is both Skinnerian and neo-Skinnerian as expressed

the interpreting of “learning in terms of stimulus-response, operant conditioning, reinforcement with an emphasis on successful

error-free learning in small well prepared steps and stages,”

(Stern, 1984, p. 465). Audio-lingual method is characterised by

learning by consequence, measurement of observable behaviour, contiguity of learning items, reinforcement or reward strength, stimulus generalization, chaining and shaping. All of these, stage by stage, are characteristic of behaviourist psychology. The

language laboratory, use of audio-visual materials and all the other programmes of instruction stated above are associated with the audio-lingual method. One area where behaviourist psycholinguistics has contributed to theoretical language teaching is contrastive linguistics which dominated second language teaching and learning up till the 1960s prior to the advent of transformational linguistics, cognitive psychology and cognitive psycholinguistics. The contrastive linguistics concept of transfer and interference and the need to combat transfer and interference dominated language teaching between the 1950s and the 1970s and beyond.

The greatest weakness of audio-lingual method is its running shy of meaning, the way behaviourist psychology avoids anything that cannot be empirically observed. Meaning, it argues, resides in the mind and the mind is non-empirical. So audio-lingual method does

not encourage anything it cannot observe empirically, no matter how

much its potential in the teaching and learning process. As observed by Els, et. 1993), although it is possible by behaviourist principles to identify and describe first and second language differences along differential axis, behaviourist psychology has not been able to give the underlying psycholinguistic explanation of transfer and interference beyond the negative effect of retroactive transfer. Proactive transfer and other factors that

promote second language learning have remained largely unexplained by behaviourist psychology. Thus, the unwillingness of behaviourist psychology to dabble into the human mind basically conditions the operation, experimentation and conclusions drawn by behaviourist psychology. This became more prominent by the beginning of 1960 when it came face to face with the challenges of the radical

mentalist views of human language expressed in transformational generative psycholinguistics.