The major approaches to language teaching (audiolingual method, generative grammar, Community Language Learning and Silent Way) are investigated to discover whether or not they are compatible in structure with an information-processing model of memory (IPM). The model of memory used was described by Roberta Klatzky in "Human Memory: Structures and Processes" (1976). This is a three-stage process. First, a stimulus is registered in a sensory register. There, a pattern is recognized and somehow equated with a meaningful concept. Then, inputs are passed on to the short-term memory stage (STM). Here, the information is stored briefly and worked on prior to its passage into the third stage, long-term memory, for storage. The situation of a speaker of English who hears the question"How are you?" in Dutch is used to illustrate the model. The process as it is described can provide some explanations of common problems which occur in the foreign language class, such as failure to recognize an oft-drilled structure or repeated mistakes in the structure. A beginning lesson from each of the four approaches mentioned is analyzed and criticized according to the memory model. IPM would predict that the Silent Way method should be successful. (AMH)