FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING: THE METHODS

Language teaching methodologies have changed/improved over the years to meet the needs of teachers and students in the classroom. In this paper we aim to present the evolution of foreign language teaching through a description of language teaching methodologies over time. We describe the principles underlying some methodologies, the role of teacher and student, and how learning assessment is done. Authors such as Richards and Rodgers (1991), Almeida Filho (1999), Silva (2004), Perez (2007), among others, were some of the academic experts on which we relied to conduct this study. We conclude that methods should work as a reference for the teacher, and should be adapted to each particular situation or context in which they live. Therefore, the teachers should use the methodologies that reflect their principles, reducing the distance between the theory developed by language experts and the teaching experience.