Framing Behaviorist Theory toward Situational Language Teaching (SLT)

Abstract

 The changing of foreign language teaching methodology happens over the years due to the shift of the changes of language teaching’s goals in different periods and in different places regarding the nature of language and the nature of learning. The aims of the paper are contextualizing behaviorist theory for Situational language teaching (SLT) and its relevance in current language teaching from practical experiences. The paper follows a narrative approach to review the previous works of literature on behaviorist theory, SLT, and its implementation. The findings are behaviorist theory becomes the fundamental learning theory of SLT that flourishes in SLT’s teaching and learning activities in the classroom. Influenced by behaviorist theory, SLT becomes a teaching method that provides more guided repetition and substantive activities. In addition, along with the existence of the trend of communicative language teaching and scientific approach, SLT is still implemented by teachers for various education levels to achieve teaching objectives. In conclusion, unfashionable methods do not mean that they are not able to apply in current teaching practice. Some modification activities can be created to attain meaningful learning. Therefore, it is suggested that in applying certain methods in teaching practice, practitioners or teachers should consider the following question: who the learners are, what their current level of language proficiency is, what their goals want to be achieved through learning activities, what sort of communicative need they have, and so forth.