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==Stages of Language Acquisition==
#* '''Birth to 3 months:''' child makes organic sounds such as crying or cooing
#* '''3 months to 10 months:''' child enters the babbling stage
#* '''10 months to 1 year:''' child enters the holophrastic stage where the first comprehensive words are spoken
#* '''2-3 years:''' child uses interrogative and imperative phrases along with inflection and negation
#* '''3-4 years:''' child develops a vocabulary of around 1000 words
#* '''5 years:''' child has developed the main syntactic rules by this stage
#('''Note:''' these stages will vary from child to child. )
==== The Direct Method ====
This approach was developed in response to the grammar translation method to integrate more of the target language in the instruction. When the first teaching model lost its value to teach foreign language, the direct method began to play main role in teaching. The aim of this method is teaching communication so students, who should think in the [[target language]], must speak in only the target language. In the interaction, based on teacher-student and student-teacher, the teacher and students are like partners in teaching process, and lessons should contain some [[conversation]] activities; all four skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) are emphasized in this method. Culture is also considered an important aspect of learning the language, and is taught inductively.
==== The Audio-Lingual Method ====
This method was developed in [[United States|USA]] during the [[World War II|Second World War]], when there was huge demand of people who were able to speak in foreign language for military purposes. It is also based on the principles of behavior psychology, and has adapted many of the principles of the Direct Method.
This is an intensive method which enables the students to learn language and use it communicatively. Teacher's role here is like an [[orchestra leader]], that is, they must direct and control the students' language behaviour, and provide the students with a good model of imitation; target language is used in classroom; using dialogues remains the best way to learn new vocabulary and structures, which are learnt through imitation and repetition. There is a great emphasis on native-like pronunciation.
==== The Silent Way ====
Created by Caleb Gattengo, the aim of this method is to enable the students to express themselves in target language. In order to achieve that aim, the students should be independent from teacher – they must develop their own inner criteria for correctness. The purpose of this method is to provide a duration of spontaneous speech upon which the teacher and the students can work to obtain a similarity of melody to the one heard, providing melodic integrative schemata from the beginning.
As its name makes clear, the teacher remains silent in this method – the native language is only used for giving instructions about the pronuncuation or other parts of language, and the [[culture]] is accepted as an inseparable part of a language. Teacher assesses all the students according to their daily activities, not through formal tests. The errors should be seen as natural, and teacher uses students' errors as a basis for deciding where further work is necessary. The teacher concentrates on what the students say and how they say it, drawing attention to the differences in pronunciation and the flow of words.
==== Suggestopedia ====
This method was developed in order to help students eliminate feelings that they cannot be successful, and to help them to overcome the obstacles of learning. The goal of this method is to develop the process by which students learn to use a foreign language for everyday [[communication]].
The teachers has the authority in classroom, and native language may be used to make meaning clear; pronunciation is developed through reading out loudly, and students' evaluations are based on normal in-class performance.
==== Total Physical Response ====
This method aims to make students become motivated and enjoy their experience in learning to communicate in a foreign language. It combines information and skills through the use of the kinesthetic sensory system, allowing the student to assimilate information and skills at a fast rate. The student is not required to speak in this method until they are comfortable and confident in their pronunciation. This method stresses understanding the spoken language before developing the skills of speaking. Once the method is introduced in native language, this language should't be used in classroom. Pronunciation is developed through listening and behavior types.
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