Natural
Approach (NA)
Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrell
developed the Natural Approach in the early eighties (Krashen and Terrell,
1983), based on Krashen's theories about second language acquisition. The approach shared a lot in common with
Asher's Total Physical Response method in terms of advocating the need for a
silent phase, waiting for spoken production to "emerge" of its own
accord, and emphasizing the need to make learners as relaxed as possible during
the learning process. Some important
underlying principles are that there should be a lot of language
"acquisition" as opposed to language "processing", and
there needs to be a considerable amount of comprehensible input from the
teacher. Meaning is considered as the
essence of language and vocabulary (not grammar) is the heart of language.
As part of the Natural Approach,
students listen to the teacher using the target language communicatively from
the very beginning. It has certain
similarities with the much earlier Direct Method, with the important exception
that students are allowed to use their native language alongside the target
language as part of the language learning process. In early stages, students are not corrected
during oral production, as the teacher is focusing on meaning rather than form
(unless the error is so drastic that it actually hinders meaning).
Communicative activities prevail
throughout a language course employing the Natural Approach, focusing on a wide
range of activities including games, roleplays, dialogs, group work and
discussions. There are three generic
stages identified in the approach: (1) Preproduction - developing listening
skills; (2) Early Production - students struggle with the language and make
many errors which are corrected based on content and not structure; (3)
Extending Production - promoting fluency through a variety of more challenging
activities.
Krashen's theories and the Natural
approach have received plenty of criticism, particularly orientated around the
recommendation of a silent period that is terminated when students feel ready
to emerge into oral production, and the idea of comprehensible input. Critics
point out that students will "emerge" at different times (or perhaps
not at all!) and it is hard to determine which forms of language input will be
"comprehensible" to the students. These factors can create a
classroom that is essentially very difficult to manage unless the teacher is
highly skilled. Still, this was the first attempt at creating an expansive and
overall "approach" rather than a specific "method", and the
Natural Approach led naturally into the generally accepted norm for effective
language teaching: Communicative Language Teaching.
Reference : http://bunpha-pongchako.blogspot.com/
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