Some New Trends for Applied Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching in the United States

Language teaching in the United States is undergoing a profound transformation in the new climate created by generative grammar and cognitive psychology. 1) The theoretical and pragmatic basis for mimicry-memorization and pattern drill has been undermined. 2) The importance of grammar is being rediscovered (and is supported with experimental evidence). 3) Error analysis is replacing the narrower contrastive structural analysis. 4) Meaningful use of both oral and written languages is widely emphasized in a number of startlingly diverse new varieties of the direct method (e.g. the Silent Way, and the methods of Asher, and of Winitz and Reeds). 5) A temporary phase of eclecticism is giving way to a reasoned choice of methods and techniques.