The History of TEFL

A chronological history of some of the major approaches and methods:

Grammar Translation (18th / 19th century to the present, particularly in teaching classical languages and in tertiary education)

The Direct Method (1860’s to present. Used in ‘method’ schools such as Berlitz and Callan)

The Reform Movement (1880s. Conceptualised by linguists and phoneticians to focus on the sounds of language and lead to the foundation of the International Phonetic Association in 1886)

Situational Language Teaching (developed in Britain and popular between the 30s and 60s by Palmer & Hornby, it focused on an oral delivery of language items relevant to specific language fields – currently gaining popularity in the ESOL field)

Audiolingualism (developed from the ASTP in the USA in the late 30s and 40s in involved intense courses – 10 hours a day, six days a week – with a lot of native speaker drilling)

Communicative Approach (both more or less synonymous – Wilkins & Widdowson’s Functional / Notional Approach approach popular from the 60s to present, especially in Britain )

Humanistic Approaches (1970s to present)
- The Silent Way (early / mid 70s – Gattegno’s system of learning through discovery)
- CLL (early / mid 70s – based on psychological counselling)
- TPR (mid 70s – teaching based on words and action)
- Suggestopedia (mid / late 70s – relaxation as a key point)

The Natural Approach (Krashen and Terrell’s idea of language learning based on an unconscious system of leaning - popular in the USA from the late 70s to present)

Task Based Learning (from the early 80s and gained popularity in the 90s)

The Lexical Approach (from 1990s to present – Michael Lewis’s approach that places a greater emphasis on lexis rather than grammar)