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Comparative teaching methodologiesThe wide variety of methodological options and approaches is a prominent characteristic of contemporary second and foreign language teaching. New classroom practices and approaches to designing learning materials reflect a commitment to finding more efficient and more effective ways of teaching languages. The changing principles for foreign language study and the classroom techniques and procedures have reflected responses to a variety of historical issues and circumstances. Tradition was for many years the guiding principle. The Grammar Translation Method reflected a time-honored and scholarly view of language and language study. As the study of methods in language teaching assumed a more central role within applied linguistics from the 1940s on, various attempts have been made to conceptualize the nature of methods and to explore them more systematically. Oral Approach or Situational Language Teaching refers to an approach to language teaching developed by British applied linguists from the 1930s to the 1960s. Its impact has been long lasting, and it has shaped the design of many widely used EFL/ ESL textbooks and courses. The main characteristics of the approach were as follows: 1. Language teaching begins with the spoken language. Material is taught orally before it is presented in written form. 2. The target language is the language of the classroom. 3 . New language points are introduced and practiced situationally. 4. Vocabulary selection procedures are followed to ensure that an essential general service vocabulary is covered. The theory of language underlying Audiolingualism was derived from a view proposed by American linguists in the 1950s - a view that came to be known as structural linguistics. Among the more central learning principles are the following: 1. Foreign language learning is basically a process of mechanical habit formation. Good habits are formed by giving correct responses rather than by making mistakes. By memorizing dialogues and performing pattern drills the chances of producing mistakes are minimized. 2. Language skills are learned more effectively if the items to be learned in the target language are presented in spoken form before they are seen in written form. 3. Analogy provides a better foundation for language learning than analysis. Explanations of rules are therefore not given until students have practiced a pattern in a variety of contexts. 4. 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. The origins of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) are to be found in the changes in the British language teaching tradition dating from the late 1960s. Some of the characteristics of this communicative view of language follow: 1. Language is a system for the expression of meaning. 2. The primary function of language is for interaction and communication. 3. The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses. 4. The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning. Total Physical Response (TPR) is a language teaching method built around the coordination of speech and action; it attempts to teach language through physical activity. The general objectives of Total Physical Response are to teach oral proficiency at a beginning level. A TPR course aims to produce learners who are capable of an uninhibited communication that is intelligible to a native speaker. The Silent Way is the name of a method of language teaching devised by Caleb Gattegno. Very broadly put, learning is facilitated if the learner discovers or creates rather than remembers and repeats what is to be learned. The innovations in Gattegno's method derive primarily from the manner in which classroom activities are organized, the indirect role the teacher is required to assume in directing and monitoring learner performance, the responsibility placed upon learners to figure out and test their hypotheses about how the language works. From the perspective of a real teaching situation, the choice of teaching approach and learning activities is usually made within the context of language program design and development. Questions of immediate concern will focus on who the learners are, what their current level of language proficiency is, what sort of communicative needs they have, the circumstances in which they will be using English in the future, and so on. Needs analysis provides the basis for selection of teaching and learning activities. Obtained information is used in developing, selecting, or revising program objectives. Nowadays, most modern language teaching programs select features and techniques from different methods rather than rigidly implement a specific method. Bibliography: ?Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. A description and analysis.? by Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers; Cambridge University Press, 1986.