Structural approach is an approach in the study of language that emphasizes the examination of language in very detailed manner. This strategy, which is considered a traditional approach, examines language products such as sounds, morphemes, words, sentences, and vocabulary, among others. It also facilitates the process of learning language on the basis of structures.

The structural approach to the study of language is traced back to the works of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. For Saussure, language must be evaluated by looking at its present state as opposed to its analysis based on its history or how language changed over time. He argued that language functioned as a communicative system consisted of verbal as well as written symbols and that language is organic since it is the result of decisions made by individual speakers. Consequent works on the structuralist approach used Saussure's focus not on particular languages but on language as a whole and its deep structures. As an approach to the examination of the language system, the Saussurian conceptualization and its adherents are concerned with the underlying structural rules and these produce meanings. This evolved into the modern conceptualization that feature four basic principles: 1) language is essentially speech; 2) mastery of structures forms the core of the learning process; 3) structures possess the characteristic of a logical sequence, hence the language structures are graded; and, 4) full grading of structures is a basic requirement.

The structural approach is a technique wherein the learner masters the pattern of sentence. Structures are the different arrangements of words in one accepted style or the other. It includes various modes in which clauses, phrases or word might be used. It is based on the assumptions that language can be best learnt through a scientific selection and grading of the structures or patterns of sentences and vocabulary.

This approach as Kripa K. Gautam states "is based on the belief that language consists of 'structures' and that the mastery of these structures is more important than the acquisition of vocabulary. Since structure is what is important and unique about a language, early practice should focus on mastery of phonological and grammatical structures rather than on mastery of vocabulary." Kulkarni "emphasizes the teaching and learning of the basic items or materials that constitute the framework of language." Whereas according to Yardi 'structures' as an "internal ordering of linguistic item", and further adds that structures may be defined as "device that we use to make signal, to convey meanings, and indicate relationship."

According to Menon and Patel the objectives of the new structural approach are as follows:-

The structural approach makes use of the following features for teaching the language:

a) Jo broke his toy

b) The toy broke Jo