Diane Larsen-Freeman

38 The Audio-Lingual Method
Now she gives them their firsrcue phrase, 'The dr ugstore.' Together the
students respon d, ' I am going to the dr ugstore.' The teacher smiles. 'Very
good !' she exclaims. The teacher cues, 'The park.' The students chorus, 'I
am going to the par k.'
Other cues she offers in turn arc 'the cafe,' 'the supermarket: 'the bus
stat ion,' 'the football field,' and 'the librar y.' Each cue is accompanied by
a picture as before. After the students have gone through the drill
sequence three times, the teacher no longer provides a spoken cue phra se.
Instead she simply shows the pictures one at a time, and the students
repeat the entire sentence, putting the name of the place in the picture in
the appropriate slot in the sentence.
Asimilar procedure is followed for another sentence in the dialog, 'How
arc you?' The subicct pronouns 'he,' 'she,' 'they,' and 'you' arc used as cue
words. This substinni on drill is slightly more difficult for the students
since they have to change the form of the verb 'be' to 'is' or 'arc,' depending
on which subject pronoull the reacher gives them. The students iH C
apparently familiar with the subject pro nouns since the teacher is not
using any pictures. Instead, after going thro ugh the drill a few times supplying
oral cues, the teacher points to a hoy in the class and the students
understand they are to lISC the pronoun 'he' in the sentence. They cho rus,
Th e Audio-Lingual Method 39
'How is he?' 'Good!' says the teacher.She points to a girl and waits for the
class's respon se, then points to other students to elicit the use of 'they,'
Finally, the teacher increases the complexity of the task by leading the
students in a multiple-slot subsnrurion drill. This is essentia lly the same
type of drill as the single-slot the teacher just used. However with this
drill, studen ts must recognize what part of speech the cue word is and
where it fits into the sentence. The studen ts still listen to only one cue
from the teacher. Then they must make a decision concerning where the
cue word or phrase belongs in a sentence also supplied by the teacher. The
teacher in this class starts off by having the students repeat the original
sentence from the dialog, 'I am going to the post office.' Then she gives
them the cue 'she.' The students understand and produce, 'She is going to
the post office.' The next cue the teacher offers is 'to the park.' The students
hesitate at first; then they respond by correctl y produ cing, 'She is
going to the par k.' She continues in this manner, sometimes providing a
subject pronoun, other times nam ing a location ,
The substit ution drills arc followed by a transformation drill. Th is type
of drill asks students to change one type of sentence into another-an
affirmative sentence into a negative or an active sentence into i1 passive,
for example. In this class, the teacher uses a substit ution drillthat requires
the srudenrs to change a statement into a yes/no-question. The teacher
offers an example, ' I say, "She is going to the post office." You make il
question by saying, "Is she going to the post officc>'"
The teacher models two more examples of this tra nsformation, then
asks, 'Docs everyone understand? OK, let's begin. "T hey arc going to the
bank ."' The class replies in turn, 'Are theygoing to the ban k?' Theytransform
approx imately fifteen of these patterns, and then the teacher decides
they are ready to move on to a question -and-answer drill.
The teacher holds up one of the pictures she used earlier, the picture of
a foorball field , and asks the class, 'Are )' OU going to the football field ?'
She answers her own quest ion, ' Yes, I'm going to the football field.' She
poses the next question while holding IIp ;1 picture of a park, 'Arc you
going to the park ?' And again answers herself, ' Yes, I'm going to the
park.' She holds up a third picture, the one of a librar y. She poses a question
to the class, 'Arc you going to the library?' They respond together,
'Yes, 1;1111 going to the library.'
'Very good: the reacher says, Thr ough her actions and examples. the
students have learned that they arc to answer the questions following the
patte rn she has modeled. The reacher dri lls them with this pattern for the
next few minutes. Since the students can handle it, she poses the question