TEACHING SIMPLE PAST TENSE THROUGH AUDIO LINGUAL

METHOD

By:

DAVID YUGASMARA

10004167

ENGLISH EDUCATION

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING IN EDUCATION

UNIVERSITAS AHMAD DAHLAN

YOGYAKARTA

2014

TEACHING SIMPLE PAST TENSE THROUGH AUDIO LINGUAL

METHOD

Abstract

The beneficial of technique in teaching assists the students to enjoy

the learning process. The effective technique of teaching in the

learning process can be seen on the performance or the goal. The

goal of learning foreign language is mastered the target language. In

a general way, the foreign language like English is studied by the

learner in the secondary school. The technique of teaching has been

made to reduce the failures of learning foreign language. Grammar is

the basic knowledge and important role in understanding the English

language whether in listening, speaking, reading and writing, in

formal context and academic. Tense is one of parts of grammar.

Tense is any of the form of a verb that may be used to indicate the

time of the action or state expressed by the verb/ the present/ past/

future tense. The changes of the verb form is depends on the time

and the characteristic of certain event in the sentence. In addition,

the method of learning simple past tense must be taken in the

learning process to achieve the goal of learning foreign language.

Based on the previous explanation, it is intriguing to find out the

method that it is appropriated with the technique of teaching simple

past tense. However, there are many methods of teaching the tenses

such as The Direct Method, Audio Lingual Method, the Grammar

Translation Method, etc. Therefore, this paper will focus on the using

audio lingual method to teach simple past tense.

Keyword: Technique, Grammar, Tense, Method, Audio

Lingual Method

A. Background

Teaching means the helping, giving instruction,

guiding, facilitating someone to learn something,

providing with knowledge, and causing to know or to

understand in learning process. Now, we are in post

or method era or in term of the new millennium.

Teaching of English must be given more attention.

Teaching has many strategies, methods or approaches

that can help teaching activity to be deeper and

easy to understand by the students. English is one

of the compulsory subjects in Indonesian Secondary

Schools where learning English effectively is a

must. Brown quoting Webster’s Third New

International Dictionary of the English Language

1961:1270 points out that “language is a systematic

means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use

of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or mark

having understood meanings”.

There are four basic skills in language;

listening, speaking, reading and writing. Those are

related each other, the students should coach them

in order that the success of learning the language

will be achieved. Supporting those four skills,

students also need to master language components,

such as structure, vocabulary, pronunciation and

spelling, etc. For some students, studying grammar

is uninteresting subject during learning process,

more over they try to avoid them because it is

confusing and hard to understand. They have to

memorize important grammatical rules such tenses,

like the simple past tense, tense that shows time in

the past and are now finished. In this case they

have to be able to distinguish the form of the verb

and usage. Sometimes they make mistakes because of

the lack of knowledge of the regular and irregular

verb form which is used in simple past tense. So, it

can make some students less in grammar lesson.

There are many numerous kinds of developing

methods and approaches nowadays in teaching

language. An approach is as a set of correlative

assumptions dealing with the nature of language

teaching and learning. It describes the nature of

subject matter to be taught. Method is an overall

plan for the orderly presentation of language

material, no part of which contradicts, and a method

procedural. (Richard and Rodgers, p. 15) “An

approach is a set of correlative assumption dealing

with the nature of language teaching and learning.”

The methods are such as communicative learning

method (CLM), Audio-lingual Methods (ALM), and

Communicative Language Methods (CLT).

Audio-lingual Method uses for students whose

age between 9-13 years old. Since English is thought

as a foreign language, it focuses on introducing

students to English in the early ages. Therefore, it

is used to fulfill the purpose to drills students in

grammatical sentence patterns which can train the

students in pronouncing and acquiring English.

Audio-lingual method is drilling students toward

particular sentence (Larsen-Freeman, 2008). This is

method is applicable for children in which English

are thought as foreign language in Indonesia. The

language-teaching methodology is based on

behaviorist theory, that much learning suggested

result from habit formation through conditioning.

The application of this concept in Audio

Lingual techniques took the form of mimicry-

memorization (usually of dialogue material) and

structural pattern drilling (where by students

learned to manipulate structures to a point of

automatic response to a language stimulus). This

method emphasizes on repetition of dialogues about

everyday situations that are imitated and drilled to

make the respond automatic, it is based on the

common wise-word in Behaviorism “practice makes

permanent”.

B. LITERATURE REVIEW

1. The Theory of Grammar

Grammar is the basic knowledge and important

role in understanding the English language whether

in listening, speaking, reading and writing, in

formal context and academic. Leech & Svatrik

states that Grammar is complex system, parts of

which cannot be properly explained in abstraction

from the whole (Leech & Svatrik, 2004: 10).

Cameroon (2001: 98) defines grammar as an aspect

of how a language is conventionally used to the

structure or system of a particular language. The

grammar of language is the ways in which words can

change their forms and can be combined into

sentences in that language. To create a ‘good’

grammar rule is difficult (Harmer, 2001: 12).

A good sentence not only takes its place

with other sentences but also makes a place for

itself, striking the reader with its own special

clarity and force. “So it is more about putting

sentences together to make sense. They assume that

the students either know already how to write

grammatically correct sentences or also knows

where to go to find out (MC Bilick. Riley, Swan,

1987: xii).

Traditionally, grammar has been concerned

almost exclusively with analysis at the level of

the sentence. Thus a grammar is a description of

the rules that govern how language’s sentences are

formed. In the grammar, it will be explained how

to speak, read, write, make and arrange the

sentence correctly. By mastering grammar, it is

hoped that the student can produce sentences

grammatically correct. Grammar makes it possible

for everybody to talk about language. Grammar

names the types of words and word groups that make

up sentences not only in English but in any

language. People associate grammar with errors and

correctness, but knowing about grammar also helps

to understand what makes sentences and paragraphs

clear and interesting and precise. Grammar can be

part of literature discussions, when the teachers

and students closely read the sentences in poetry

and stories, and knowing about grammar means

finding out that all languages and all dialects

follow grammatical patterns.

2. Simple Past Tense

Tense is one of parts of grammar. Tense is

any of the form of a verb that may be used to

indicate the time of the action or state expressed

by the verb/ the present/ past/ future tense. The

changes of the verb form is depends on the time

and the characteristic of certain event in the

sentence. There are many of tenses; one of them is

simple past tense. Simple past tense indicates

that terminating in the past, whether a time worse

is given or not. Betty S. Azar described that the

simple past tense indicates that an activity or

situation began and ended at a particular time

in \the past. We use the simple for a finished

time in the past. For example, yesterday, last

week, from 1985 to 1991. From those statements

above, it can be seen that simple past tense is a

simple sentence which is used to talk about

events, actions that happened at a specific time

in the past. They often accompanied by such

expression of definite past as yesterday, last

year, two weeks ago, last night, last Monday, last

summer, yesterday morning, a few minute ago, the

day before yesterday, then, etc.

English verbs are divided into two classes:

regular and irregular. Regular verbs always end

with a –d in the simple past, but we do not always

pronounce the –d ending in the same way. We usually

add –ed to the base form of the verb: I play – I played, I

open – I opened. We do not pronounce –ed as an extra

syllable. In learning English language, the

students often have problems remembering the

different pronunciation patterns whether the –ed

should be pronounced with a t or a d sound whether

the extra syllable needs to be added in spoken

language. In this case, Oral practice is an

important for helping students master the

different pronunciation of –Ed. With practice this

sounds the students become familiar the spelling

changes for many of regular verbs.

The simple past tense formed with subject +

auxiliary verb did + main verb. Nasrun Mahmud says

that the simple past tense is formed with the past

form of the verbs which may be either regular,

i.e. by adding –ed to the infinitive form

(incidentally, most verb are regular) or irregular

which must be learned and memorized in each case.

Meanwhile, A.J. Thomson and A.V Martinet in A

Practical English Grammar explain about the form of

simple past as follows: The simple past tense in

regular verbs is formed by adding ed to the

infinitive. The negative of regular and irregular

verb is formed with did not (didn’t) and the

infinitive. The interrogative of regular and

irregular verb formed with did subject +

infinitive.

3. Audio Lingual Method

a. The Understanding of Audio Lingual Method

The Audio Lingual Method has introduced

memorization of dialogues and imitative

repetition (mimicry) as specific learning

techniques. This method emphasizes the teaching

of listening and speaking which did not gain so

much importance from Grammar- Translation

Method. The language skills are taught in the

order of listening, speaking, reading, and

writing. It uses dialogues as the main form of

language presentation and drills as the main

training techniques. Mother tongue is

discouraged in the classroom. Moreover,

teaching technique with tape recordings and

language lab drills offer practice in speaking

and listening, which are considered of primary

importance in language learning. Reading and

writing are limited but not ignored, it should

be presented gradually after the students are

considered capable enough and the material

should keep seriously to what students has

heard and repeated. The purpose of this method

is to rapid the acquisition of listening and

speaking skills by drilling the students in the

use of grammatical sentences patterns.

The Audio Lingual classes concentrated on

long repetition-drill stages, in which the

teacher hoped that the students would acquire

good language habits. By rewarding correct

production during these repetition phases,

students could be conditioned into learning the

language. There are four basic drill types in

this method: those are; simple repetition,

substitution, transformation and translation.33

It can be inferred that the main activity of

this method is drilling from simple repetition

to the translation. The teacher has to motivate

the students to learn English in the class, he/

she is a central and active role in the

teaching and learning activities.

b. The Characteristics of Audio Lingual Method

Marianne Celce-Murcia in her book Teaching

English as a Second or foreign Language Second Edition

summed up the characteristics of the following

list:

a) Lessons begin with dialogues.

b) Mimicry and memorization are used, based

on the assumption that language is habit

formation.

c) Grammatical structures are sequenced and

rules are taught inductively.

d) Skills are sequenced: listening,

speaking, reading, writing postponed.

e) Pronunciation is stressed from the

beginning.

f) Vocabulary is severely limited in

initial stages.

g) A great effort is made to prevent

learning errors.

h) Language is often manipulated without

regard to meaning or context.

i) The teacher must be proficient only in

the structures, vocabulary, etc. that

s/he is teaching since learning

activities and materials are carefully

controlled.

The writer assumes that in the Audio

Lingual Method, the learners should have a

strong effort to get the language acquisition.

They do a lot of listening and speaking by

imitating and repeating the teacher

instruction, they also memorize the structure.

It is clearly seen that one of the language

teacher’s major roles is a model of the target

language. Teacher should provide students with

a native-speaker-like model. The material

presented gradually from listening, speaking,

reading and writing but it is emphasized on

spoken language as its teaching objective.

c. The Principles of Audio Lingual Method

According to Diane Larsen-Freeman in her

book, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, the

principles of The Audio-Lingual Method are:

a. Language forms do not occur by

themselves, they occur most naturally

within a context.

b. The native language of the target

language and the target language have

separate linguistic systems. They should

be kept their apart so that the students‟

native language interferes as little as

possible with the students‟ attempts to

acquire the target language.

c. One of the target language teacher’s

major roles is that of a model of the

target language. Teachers should provide

students with a good model. By listening

to how it supposed to sound, students

should be able to mimic the model.

d. Language learning is a process of habit

formation.

e. It is importance to prevent learners

from making errors.

f. The purpose of language learning is to

learn how to use the language to

communicate.

g. Positive reinforcement helps the

students to develop correct habit.

h. Students should learn to respond to both

verbal and nonverbal stimuli. Etc.

Richard and Rodgers (1986) also list four

essential principles of Audio-Lingual Method:

a. Foreign language learning is basically a

process of mechanical habit formation.

b. Item presented in spoken form before

they are seen in written form.

c. Analogy provides a better foundation for

language learning than analysis.

d. The meanings that the words of a

language have for the native speaker can

be learned only in a linguistic and

cultural context and not in isolation.

From those principles, the learning

activity started by drilling the dialogues

before written form, it means that the students

must imitate and repeat the teacher instruction

before coming to the text. It is a process of

habit formation. The habits of the students‟

native language would interfere with the

students‟ attempts to master the target

language. They should be kept apart so that the

students‟ native language interferes as little

as possible with the students‟ learning of the

foreign language. The teachers must be a good

model as a native speaker; they must teach how

to use the language to communicate in the

classroom or daily life as the objective of

this method. This method demands the teachers

to be skillful in speaking.

d. The Techniques of Audio Lingual Method

Diane Larsen-Freeman, in her book Techniques

and Principles in Language Teaching (1986:45-47)

provides expanded descriptions of some

common/typical techniques closely associated

with the Audio- Lingual Method. The listing here

is in summary form only.

1) Dialog Memorization

Students memorize an opening dialog by using

mimicry and applied role-playing.

2) Backward Build-up (Expansion Drill)

Teacher breaks a line into several parts;

students repeat each part starting at the end

of the sentence and "expanding" backwards

through the sentence, adding each part in

sequence.

3) Repetition Drill

Students repeat teacher's model as quickly

and accurately as possible.

4) Chain Drill

Students ask and answer each other one-by-one

in a circular chain around the classroom.

5) Single Slot Substitution Drill

Teacher states a line from the dialog, then

uses a word or a phrase as a "cue" that

students, when repeating the line, must

substitute into the sentence in the correct

place.

6) Multiple-Slot Substitution Drill

Same as the Single Slot drill, except that

there are multiple cues to be substituted

into the line.

7) Transformation Drill

Teacher provides a sentence that must be

turned into something else, for example a

question to be turned into a statement, an

active sentence to be turned into a negative

statement, etc.

8) Question-and-Answer Drill

Students should answer or ask questions very

quickly.

9) Use of Minimal Pairs

Using contrastive analysis, teacher selects a

pair of words that sound identical except for

a single sound that typically poses

difficulty for the learners - students are to

pronounce and differentiate the two words.

10) Complete the Dialog

Selected words are erased from a line in the

dialog - students must find and insert.

11) Grammar Games

Various games designed to practice a grammar

point in context, using lots of repetition

C. DISCUSSION

1. The strengths and weaknesses of Audio Lingual

Method (ALM)

The Audio Lingual Method is not perfect method. The

strengths and weaknesses of Audio Lingual method

will be explained as follows:

a. The strengths of Audio Lingual Method (ALM)

1) All the students are actives in the class

2) The circumstance class is more interesting and

life

3) The speaking and listening skill are more

drilled, so the pronunciation skill and

listening skill are more controlled

b. The weaknesses of Audio Lingual Method (ALM)

1) For the smart students this method is bored,

because the procedure of the ALM method is

majority repeat the sentence.

2) Sometimes the students are confused because the

teacher explain the material in simple way not

in detail way.

3) The grammar skill is not more drilled

2. Procedures of Applying Direct Method for Teaching

Speaking and Pronunciation

1) The first teacher chose an interesting topic

to be taught to students, for example, chose

the topic of self-introduction.

2) Arriving class teachers give to students

brainstorming about the material that will

be taught on this day.

3) Teacher explains to students that they will

be given the opportunity to practice their

listening and speaking.

4) After the students calm and conducive

classroom atmosphere, teachers share a

dialogue with the disciples.

5) After everything got dialogue, teachers

begin reading simple dialogue between two

people about self-introduction to his

students.

6) After exemplifies how reading is correct,

teachers divide students into two large

groups, partly as A and partly as B.

7) After it’s enough teacher asks the students

choose their partners to come forward to

reading conversations they have learned

previously.

3. Teaching technique of Audio Lingual Method

The ALM has a relatively complete procedure of

presenting language materials. The method has a

set of procedures of teaching each language

skill. The following is the first produce of

teaching the target language. This procedure is a

set of the typical steps in teaching the target

language through the ALM. Since the listening and

speaking ability is the first skill to consider,

the first procedure of teaching is more related

to listening and speaking ability (Huebener,

1969: 17). The procedure can be as follows:

a) The language teacher gives a brief summary

of the content of the dialogue. The dialogue

is not translated but equivalent translation

of key phrases should be given in order for

the language learners to comprehend the

dialogue.

b) The language learners listen attentively

while the teacher reads or recites the

dialogue at normal speed several times.

Gestures and facial expressions or

dramatized actions should accompany the

presentation.

c) Repetition of each line by the language

learners in chorus is the next step. Each

sentence may be repeated a half dozens of

times, depending on its length and on the

alertness of the language learners. If the

teacher detects an error, the offending

learner is corrected and is asked to repeat

the sentence. If many learners make the same

errors, chorus repetition and drill will be

necessary.

d) Repetition is continued with groups

decreasing in size, that is, first the two

halves of the class, then thirds, and then

single rows or smaller groups. Groups can

assume the speaker’s roles.

e) Pairs of individual learners now go to the

front of the classroom to act out of the

dialogue. By this time they should have

memorized the text.

4. The Steps of Teaching Simple Past Tense through

Audio Lingual Method in the Classroom

1) The teacher presents a new dialogue, a

conversation between two people and acts it out.

2) The teacher asks the students to repeat the

dialogue for several times.

3) The teacher gives chance to the students to do the

role-play.

4) The teacher initiates a chain drills.

5. Application Sample

a.Indicator of achievement

1) Identify the regular verb and irregular verb

in the form of simple sentences.

2) Understanding and responding the

instructions from the teacher.

3) Identify to be in the sentences of simple

past tense.

4) Change the simple sentence in the form of

simple past tense into positive, negative,

or interrogative sentences well.

b. Learning object

1) Students can identify the regular verb and

irregular verb in the form of simple sentences.

2) Students can understand and responding the

instructions from the teacher.

3) Students can identify to be in the sentences of

simple past tense.

4) Students can change the simple sentence in the

form of simple past tense into positive,

negative, or interrogative sentences well.

c. Classroom activity

1) Pre Activities

a) The teacher greets the students and preparing

the class to get a conducive learning

atmosphere (the chairs made a circle).

b) The teacher introduces himself, and has the

students introduce themselves.

2) Main Activities

The example of dialogue containing the

Simple Past Tense:

Sally: Good morning, Bill.

Bill: Good morning, Sally.

Sally: How are things?

Bill: Fine, thanks. How about you?

Sally: Fine. By the way, where did you go last

week?

Bill: I went to Kuta beach.

Sally: did you see a tourist?

Bill: Yes, I did. I saw many people who enjoy the

beautiful of beach.

Sally: could you invite me to go there on next

holiday?

Bill: Sure.

Sally: Thank you, Bill.

After the teacher act out the dialog, he has

the whole class repeat each lines of his dialog

after his model. It repeated after several times.

When the class came to the line, “I went to the

Beach, “they stumble bit in their repetition.

Then the teacher uses backward build-up drill

(expansion drill). The purpose of this drill is

to break down the troublesome sentence into

smaller parts. After students have repeated the

dialog several times, the teacher gives chance to

the students to do the role-play. Before the

class actually says each line, the teacher models

it. In effect, the class is experiencing a

repetition drill where the task is to listen

carefully and attempt to mimic the teacher’s

model as accurately as possible. After that, the

teacher initiates a chain drill with four of the

lines from the dialogue. A chain drill gives

students an opportunity to say the lines

individually. It is also lets students use the

expressions in communication with someone else,

even though it’s very limited. Finally, the

teacher points two students to perform the entire

for the rest of the class. Then the teacher led a

single slot substitution drill. She changes “the

Beach” into another one phase like “the Zoo”,

“the mountain”, the temple”, and so on by showing

the picture. Instead the teacher simply shows the

pictures one at a time, and the student’s repeat

entire sentence putting the name of the place in

the picture in the appropriate slot in the

sentence.

Finally, the teacher increases the

complexity of the task by leading the students in

multi-slot substitution drill. However with this

drill, students must recognize what part of

speech the cue word is and where it fits into the

sentence. The substitution drills are followed by

transformation drill. The students asked to

change one type of sentence into another, an

affirmative into negative sentence, active into

passive sentence. For example, the teacher said:

“I say, „He went to the beach” then the students

make a question by saying, “Did he go to the

beach?” Through his actions and examples, the

students have learned that they are to answer the

questions following the patter he has modeled.

Then the students are asked to answer the

teacher’s questions by looking the certain

picture.

At the final few minutes of the class, the

teacher returns to the dialogue with which the

teacher began the lesson. In the next meeting,

the teacher will review the dialogue, expand upon

the dialogue by adding a few more lines, drill

the new lines, work on the different grammar

rules, use minimal-pair words, do writing, do

game, and present an interesting topic.

D. CONCLUSION

Grammar is the basic knowledge and important role in

understanding the English language whether in

listening, speaking, reading and writing, in formal

context and academic. Those are related each other,

the students should coach them in order that the

success of learning the language will be achieved.

Supporting those four skills, students also need to

master language components, such as structure,

vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling, etc. For

some students, studying grammar is uninteresting

subject during learning process, more over they try

to avoid them because it is confusing and hard to

understand. They have to memorize important

grammatical rules such tenses, like the simple past

tense, tense that shows time in the past and are now

finished. In this case they have to be able to

distinguish the form of the verb and usage. The

effectiveness of the technique are improved the

speaking ability and pronunciations of the students,

the performance index can be tested, the

authenticity of the dialog or the text is important.

However, the attainment is demanded on the both

aspect; teacher and students.

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Alexander, L.G., Longman English Grammar Practice:

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Teaching by Principles: An interactive Approach to

Language pedagogy; 2nd Ed. New York: Pearson

Education Company.

Brown, H.D. (2004). Language Assessment: Principle

and Classroom Practices. USA: Longman.

Harmer, Jeremy. (2001). The Practice of English

Language Teaching: Third Edition. England: Pearson

Education Limited.

Larsen, Dianne. (2000). Technique and Principles in

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