Diapositiva 1

The natural approach methodMara Elena Villalba

Natural ApproachMethod

WHAT IS THE NATURAL APPROACH? A method of language teaching.

Developed by Tracy Terrel and Stephen Krashen.

Aim: To foster the communicative competence.

Language output is not forced.

It emerges when students are ready.

Syllabus promotes subconscious language acquisition.

In the natural approach:

Terrell and Krashen published the book in 1983

Focus of instruction is on communication.

Speech production comes slowly and is never forced.

Early speech goes through natural stages.

Three basic principles:Objective: Designed to give beginning learners communicative skills.

Natural approachin classroom

stages in acquisition of speech

The comprehensive (pre-production) stage where the learners are not forced to respond orally and are allowed to decide on their own when to start speaking.

The early-production stage that promotes short answers and the students have to respond to simple questions.

The speech production stage where the use of complex utterances emerges, e.g., in role plays or games.

The acquisition-learning hypothesis.

The monitor hypothesis.

The input hypothesis.

The natural order hypothesis.

The affective filter hypothesis.

theory of learning:

hypotheses

SyllabusSyllabusActivities

Content Culture, subject matter, new information, reading.

Affective-humanistic Students' own ideas, opinions, experiences.

Games Focus on using language to participate in the game.

Problem-solving Focus on using language to locate information, use information, etc.

Activities

In the classroom

I. Comprehension activities

Listening comprehension practice, not requiring students to speak.

Activities include the use of Ashers Total Physical Response (TPR), mime, gestures, pictures and flashcards.

II. Early speech production activities

Activities encourage students to use the target language.

Production here is often full of errors, but these should not be corrected.

Activities involve asking yes-no questions and one-word answers.

III. Speech emergence activities

Aim: to promote fluency and communicative competence.

Use of games, role plays and information or problem-solving activities.

Activities also include open-ended dialogs, prefabricated patterns, and open sentences.

Speech emergenceactivitiesOpen-ended sentencesIn this room there is aI am wearing a In my purse there is a In my bedroom I have a After class I want to ..

Open dialogsWhere are you going?To the ..What for?To .

Prefabricated patternsI like to ..You like to .He likes to ..She likes to

This method is very easy.

Reliable as it is widely used.

There is no grammar instruction in this method.

It takes long time and learners can do only elementary things.

It is not suitable for those who do not have much time.

The method rarely concerns about correctness.

AdvantagesDisadvantages

Now:

Video

later:

Activity