Members of the group: Sanchez Alejandra, Revel Noelia, Perez Marisol.

The Natural Approach

Fill in the gaps.

1. The aim of the natural approach is to develop comunicative__________

skills.(Lazarte Micaela)

2. Acquisition__ is the process of natural assimilation, involving intuition and

subconscious learning. (Barrios Lucila)

3. If what is being said is understandable for learners, it is comprehensible__ input__.

(Barrios Gabriel

4. Charts, pictures and advertisements are part of the realia________,(Lazarte

Micaela)

Multiple choice questions:

a) Who are the founders of the natural approach?

-Georgi Lozanov-Tracy Terrell

-Noam Chomsky- Stephen Krashen

-Tracy Terrell-Stephen Krashen. ( Flamenco sandra)

-Georgi Lozanov-Noam Chomsky

b) Which one of them is wrong for the natural approach ?

-Motivation, self-confidence, and anxiety hardly affect language acquisition.

-Acquisition is more important than learning.

-There is a focus on content rather than a focus on form.

-Oral language development (speaking) comes before reading and writing.

c) What is silent period?

-In this period,teacher should be as silent as possible in the classroom in order to encourage
the learner.

-In this period,teacher never talks.

-In this period,students should build up acquired competence in a language before

they begin to produce it. (Jacqueline Cosentino)

d) What does the natural approach NOT include ?

-subconscious

-putting the focus on the learner's world

-emphasizing on meaning

-conscious

e) How can the teacher overcome the students' stress?

-Allow for open response

-whole class is in the activity

-forced speech

f) Even though the instruction is in the target language, the students first language may
be used

yes

no
 The Natural Approach

The Natural Approach belongs to a tradition of language teaching methods based on

observation and interpretation of how learners acquire both first and second languages in
non-formal settings. Such methods reject the formal (grammatical) organization of language
as a prerequisite to teaching
.Lessons in the natural approach focus on understanding messages in the foreign language,
and place little or no importance on error correction, drilling or on conscious learning of
grammar rules. They also emphasize learning of a wide vocabulary base over learning new
grammatical structures
Krashen and Terrell identified the Natural Approach with what they call “traditional”
approaches to language teaching. Traditional approaches are defined as “based on the use
of language in communicative situations without recourse to the native language” – and,
perhaps, needless to say, without reference to grammatical analysis, grammatical drilling, or
a particular theory of grammar..
The Acquisition-learning hypothesis makes a distinction between acquisition and learning.
Krashen defines acquisition as, "unconscious process that involves the naturalistic
development of language proficiency through understanding language and through using
language for meaningful communication." (Richards & Rodgers 2001: 181) Learning, on the
other hand, is a conscious process in which rules of a language are developed; this process
only occurs through formal teaching, and cannot lead to acquisition.
. The Natural Order Hypothesis says that, "the acquisition of grammatical structures
proceeds in a predictable order." (Richards & Rodgers 2001: 182) This natural order can be
found in first language acquisition as well as in second language acquisition.
The affective filter hypothesis states that there is an "affective filter" which can act as a,
"barrier that prevents learners from acquiring language even when appropriate input is
available." With regard to second language acquisition affective variables can be attitudes
or emotions like motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. A low affective filter is always
desirable because a high affective filter, which can be found for example with anxious
learners, "prevents acquisition from taking place." (Richards & Rodgers 2001: 183
Within a natural approach, emphasis is placed on comprehensible input, meaningful
communication and a relaxed classroom atmosphere. "To minimize stress, learners are
not required to say anything until they feel ready, but they are expected to respond to
teacher commands and questions." (Richards & Rodgers 2001: 185) There is a gradual
progression from "Yes/No" and simple display questions, to more complex and open
questions.
"There is nothing novel about the procedures and techniques advocated for use with the
Natural Approach." (Richards & Rodgers 2001: 185); familiar activities like command-based
activities, situation-based activities, and group-work activities focus on, "providing
comprehensible input and a classroom environment that cues comprehension of input,
minimizes learner anxiety, and maximizes learner self-confidence." (Richards & Rodgers
2001
Materials used in a natural approach classroom aim at making activities and tasks as
meaningful as possible -- they foster comprehension and communication. Authentic
materials, like brochures or maps, as well as visual aids and games are used to facilitate
acquisition and to promote comprehension and real communication.
The learners' roles change and develop during a natural approach course because there
are various stages they have to go through.
The first stage is the pre-production stage where the learners are not forced to respond
orally and are allowed to decide their own when to start to speak.
The next stage, the early-production stage, fosters short answers and the student have to
respond to simple questions and to use fixed conversational patterns. In the
speech-emergent stage the use of complex utterances emerges, for example in role plays or
games. Another important role of the language acquirer is that of "a processor of
comprehensible input [who] is challenged by input that is slightly beyond his or her current
level of competence and is able to assign meaning to this input through active use of context
and extralinguistic information." (Richards & Rodgers 2001: 186)
The natural approach classroom allocates a central role for teacher, giving them several
important roles.

First, the teacher provides a constant flow of comprehensible input in the target language
and provides non-linguistic clues.

Second, the teacher has to create a harmonious classroom atmosphere that fosters a low
affective filter. Third, the teacher decides on the classroom activities and tasks regarding
group sizes, content, contexts, and materials.

Finally, the teacher must, "communicate clearly and compellingly to students the
assumptions, organizations, and expectations of the method." (Richards & Rodgers 2001:
188)

Monitor hypothesis.

This hypothesis asserts that a learner's learned system acts as a monitor to what they are
producing. In other words, while only acquired system is able to produce spontaneous
speech, the learned system is used to check what is being spoken. The hypothesis says that
when we produce utterance in a Second Language, the utterance is initiated by the acquired
system, and our conscious learning only comes into play later, so we can use the monitor to
make changes in our utterances only after the utterances has been generated by the
acquired system. This may happen before we speak or write because before the learner
produces an utterance, he or she internally scans it for errors, and uses the learned system
to make corrections. Self- correction occurs when the learners used the Monitor to correct a
sentence after it is uttered. According to the hypothesis, such self -monitoring and
self-correction/repair are the only function of conscious language learning. Figure one
represents the Monitor Model for adult second language performance.

A Model of Adult Second Language Performance

Acquired competence_____________/> learned competence (The Monitor) -> Output.

The monitor model then predicts faster initial progress by adults than children, as adults use
this 'monitor's when producing second language (L2) utterances before having acquired the
ability for natural performance, and adult learners will input more into conversations earlier
than children. There are three requirements that must be satisfied in order to use the
Monitor successfully:

1) The performer has to have enough time: this is very difficult condition to meet because in
rapid conversation, taking time to think about rules, such as the subjunctive or subject-verb
agreement, may disrupt communication. Using the monitor requires the speaker to slow
down and focus on form.

2) The performer has to be thinking about correctness, or be focused on form: learners

must be thinking about form, and it is difficult to focus on meaning and form at the same
time so learners may be more concerned with what they are saying and not how they are
saying it.

3) The performer has to know the rule: This is a very difficult condition to meet because it
means that the speaker must have had explicit instructions on the language form that he or
she is trying to produce.

A very important point about the monitor hypothesis is that it does not say that acquisition is
unavailable for self-correction. We often self- correct or edit, using acquisition in both first
and in second languages. What the Monitor hypothesis claims is that conscious learning has
only this function, that it is not used to initiate production in a second language. Also, the
monitor does a better job with some parts of grammar than with others. Specifically, it seems
to do better with rules that can be characterized as simple in two different ways. First, simple
rules do not require elaborate or complex movements of permutation. An easy rule in this
sense is the English third person singular, which only requires the attachment of a
morpheme-s to the end of certain verbs.
However, monitor hypothesis has three types of users.

Monitor over-users. These language learners are too concerned and focused on correctness
that they cannot speak with any real fluency. Some characteristics of monitor over-users are:
1) They know many of the rule of the English language.
2) They are not able to communicate in speech.
3) Their written English might be quite accurate.
4) They do not have speaking fluency because they are not to concerned with being
grammatically correct.

Monitor under-users: These language learners are not focused on correctness because they
have not consciously learned the rules or because they have decided not to use their
conscious knowledge of the target language. Some examples of these are:

1) These learners are not able to correct their own errors in written English.
2) These students might not like grammar.
3) They believe that grammar rules are important but hardly use when they speak.
4) These students are not embarrassed to make mistakes.

Optimal monitor-users: These language learner are able to keep a balance between
self-correction and fluency so error correction is not an obstacle in their quest of
communication. These learners use their knowledge appropriately. Some examples if these
students are:

1) They have fluency and accuracy when they speak or write.

2) These learners are able to correct errors and mistakes in their own language
performance.
3) They know the rules and use them when they communicate.

Finally, there are many difficulties with the use of the monitor, making the monitor rather
weak as a language tool.

1) Knowing the rule: this is a difficult condition to meet, because even the best students do
not learn every rule that is taught, cannot remember every rule they have learned, and can’t
always correctly apply the rules they do remember. Furthermore, every rule of a language is
not always included in a text nor taught by the teacher.

2) Having time to use the monitor: there is a price that is paid for the use of the monitor- the
speaker is then focused on form rather than meaning, resulting in the production and
exchange of less information, thus slowing the flow of conversation. Some speakers
over-monitor to the point that the conversation is painfully slow and sometimes difficult to
listen to.

3) The rules of language make up only a small portion of our language competence:
Acquisition does not provide 100% language competence. There is often a small portion of
grammar, punctuation, and spelling that even the most proficient native speakers may not
acquire. While it is important to learn these aspects of language, since writing is the only
form that requires 100% competence, these aspects of language make up only a small
portion of our language competence.