What language teaching approach has students work out rules and patterns based on a number of samples given?

• A. Guided discovery
• B. Grammar-translation
• C. Deductive teaching
• D. Dictogloss

Answer: (A)

Guided discovery centers on learners inferring rules and patterns from multiple examples provided by the teacher. In this approach, students look at a set of samples, notice how language is used, and formulate the underlying rule themselves, with the teacher guiding them with prompts and tasks to check and refine their findings. This is exactly what the question describes: students work out rules based on a number of samples rather than being told the rule upfront.

This contrasts with deductive teaching, where the rule is presented first and then practiced. It also differs from grammar-translation, which focuses on translating and memorizing rules, and from dictogloss, which uses listening and reconstruction tasks rather than explicit rule discovery.