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Unit 3 briefly details the history of popular theories of teaching secondary languages. The Classical Method, or Grammar-translation, attempts to focus on equivalencies in grammar and vocabulary between a student's L1 and the L2 being taught. This method, however, is quite unnatural in that it fails to account for true social interaction between humans. Audio lingualism stresses memorization through the repetition of terms in the new language. Similar to the Classical Method, this method is unable to provide a natural social platform for students. Present, Practice, Production (PPP) involves the instructor presenting a more realistic context for new language being taught. The students are allowed to practice this new learning and then instructed to produce their own examples using the new information they have learned. Task-Based learning focuses on providing examples of real world situations through which students are able to absorb and practice new language. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) seeks to convey the importance of the function of language rather than just strict grammar and vocabulary. Community Language Learning (CLL) shifts focus away from the instructor and fully towards social interactions between the group of students, allowing for a more natural learning environment. The Silent Way is a rather obscure method which seeks to minimize the role of the instructor even further and force students to discover new language for themselves as much as possible through use of colored rods attributed with phonemes, tones or grammatical aspects of the language being taught. Suggestopaedia is a method which through music strives to provide an environment as secure and comfortable as possible for students to aid in language acquisition. The Lexical Approach avoids grammatical lessons, seeking instead to focus on words and phrases as the primary medium of presenting new language. Finally, Engage, Study and Activate (ESA) attempts to build upon the most successful aspects of these previously practiced methods to develop a well-rounded method for teaching new languages to all levels of learners. The method is split into 3 types of steps, which may follow linearly through a lesson or may alternate, but always beginning with an Engage phase and ending with an Activate phase. In the Engage phase, students are encourage to experiment with language freely and discuss topics which are of personal interest as much as possible. Teacher interaction during this phase must be limited. During the Study phase, the teacher will present new language forms and concepts to the students. This stage is the most strict in format and allows for the most instructor input and feedback. Lastly, in the Activate stage students are instructed tasks which will aid in the practice and acquisition of these new concepts presented in Study phases. Tasks in the Activate stage usually seek to mimic real world situations to provide a natural learning platform for the new information. In regards to correction and teacher feedback, the instructor should strive to limit strict correction as much as possible. Ideally, an individual student will come to self-correct their own mistakes. Failing that, other students in the class should be encourage to correct these mistakes. However, if mistakes are common to the point of becoming ingrained errors and if there remains a clear lack of understanding about a new concept or aspect of the lesson, the teacher must step in to correct.
