Audiolingual

Audiolingual method, or audiolingualism, is a language-teaching approach developed in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s for teaching foreign languages. It emerged from structural linguistics and behaviorist psychology and was popular in military and classroom contexts. The method aimed to develop listening and speaking fluency by forming automatic language habits through repetition and pattern practice.

Classroom practice centers on dialogues that model everyday speech, followed by pattern drills designed to drill grammatical structures and vocabulary into long-term memory. Common drill types include repetition, substitution, and transformation drills, as well as paced imitation and corrective feedback. Instruction typically emphasizes pronunciation and listening comprehension, with limited use of translation and a preference for the target language in class.

The theoretical basis draws on structural linguistics, which views language as a system of interrelated patterns, and behaviorism, which regards learning as habit formation reinforced by feedback. Instruction is teacher-controlled; students imitate models, memorize phrases, and respond to prompts to produce automatic responses, with the aim of achieving automaticity in everyday speech.

Critics argued that the method produced accurate but context-poor language, focusing on form over meaningful communication. The lack of emphasis on genuine interaction, creativity, and unpredictable language led to declining popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, with the rise of communicative language teaching and task-based approaches. The method also faced cultural and linguistic limitations in diverse classroom settings.

Although less dominant today, audiolingual elements persist in some instructional materials and language-learning software, especially drills and model dialogues used for pronunciation practice. The term remains a reference point in the history of language teaching and is studied as an example of behaviorist-inspired teaching methods and their limitations.