MANY ATTEMPTS HAVE BEEN MADE TO DEFINE "AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD" FROM THE POINTS OF VIEW OF TWO COMPETING THEORIES OF LEARNING, THE BEHAVIORISTIC AND THE COGNITIVE. NONE HAS SUCCEEDED IN DEFINING SOME OF THE SPECIFIC TENETS TO BE ESTABLISHED FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING AS REQUIRED BY AN IMPROVED THEORY OF LANGUAGE LEARNING. A FLEXIBLE AND PROGRESSIVE APPROACH IS NEEDED, WHICH IS OPEN TO NEW DEVELOPMENTS AND CAN INCORPORATE AND ACCOUNT FOR RECENT RESEARCH IN SUCH AREAS AS (1) A REDEFINITION OF THE RELATIONSHIP, ORDER, AND SEQUENCE OF THE ENCODING AND DECODING PROCESSES OF LANGUAGE LEARNING, (2) THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING, (3) SOUND DISCRIMINATION, AND (4) MEMORY SPAN. SUGGESTIONS FOR EFFECTIVE CONTROL OF IMPROVED AUDIO-LINGUAL PROGRAMS INCLUDE RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE TEACHING OF SPEECH PATTERNS, VOCABULARY, DRILL SENTENCES, AND GRAMMATICAL DISCRIMINATION, AS WELL AS STATEMENTS ON GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD, STRUCTURATION OF THE TEXT, AND CORRELATION BETWEEN TEACHING TEXT AND PATTERN PRACTICE. A BIBLIOGRAPHY IS INCLUDED. THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN "CONTACT," NUMBER 9, DECEMBER 1966, PAGES 11-18. (JH)