'Habit formation through repetition' is a component of which method?

Language-teaching methods are classified by the psychological theory of learning they are built on. The Audio-lingual method is grounded in behaviourist psychology: it treats language learning as habit formation, achieved when learners repeat fixed patterns and structures through mimicry-memorisation and drills until correct responses become automatic, with little or no explicit grammar explanation.

The phrase 'habit formation through repetition' names exactly this behaviourist mechanism. Because Audio-lingualism is defined by structural pattern drills that condition learners to reproduce correct forms automatically, it is the method being described here.

Contrasting the other methods by their own defining feature confirms this:

• Communicative approach: builds competence through meaningful, real-life interaction and negotiation of meaning, valuing fluency and functional use over drilled repetition.

• Task-based language teaching: organises learning around completing purposeful, real-world tasks, using language as a tool rather than as material for repeated drilling.

• Constructivism: a general learning theory in which learners actively build their own understanding through experience and reflection, rather than through externally imposed repetition.

Since only the Audio-lingual method rests on this drill-and-habit mechanism, Audio lingualism is the method described in the question.