Irania Salmerón Vanessa Contreras

1. Instituto Pedagógico de Caracas
Departamento de Idiomas Modernos
Cátedra de Lingüística
Didáctica del Inglés
Prof. Mirna Quintero
The Natural Approach
Bach.
Irania Salmerón
Vanessa Contreras

2. Background
Tracy Terrell (1977)
"a proposal for a 'new' philosophy of language
teaching”
It grew out of Terrell's experiences teaching
Spanish classes

3. Tracy Terrell & Stephen Krashen
Joined forces
in elaborating a theoretical rationale for the
Natural Approach
Based on…
Second Language Acquisition Theory

4. Natural Approach: A Traditional Approach
It is…
based on the use of language in communicative
situations without recourse to the native
language
(Krashen and Terrel 1983).

5. Main Developers:
Tracy Terrel & Stephen Krashen

6. Thre are differences
The Natural Method = Direct Method
The method consisted of series of monologues by the
teacher interspersed with exchanges of question and
answer between the instructor and the pupil -all in the
foreign language-... A great deal of pantomime
accompanied the talk.
(Cole 1931)

7. The Natural Approach:
…places less emphasis on teacher monologues,
direct repetition, and formal questions and
answers, and less focus on accurate production
of target language sentences… There is an
emphasis on exposure, or input, rather than
practice…
(Richards & Rogers 1999)

8.  Naturalistic Language learning.
 Emphasis on EXPOSURE, INPUT, rather than
on practice.
 Central role of Comprehension.
 Communication as the primary function of
language.
 Primacy of meaning.
 Importance of Vocabulary.

9. Stages of learners (Krashen’s view)
 The re-production stage where the learners are not forced to respond
orally and are allowed to decide their own when to start to speak.
 The early-production stage, promotes short answers and the student
have to respond to simple questions and to use fixed conversational
patterns.
 The speech-emergent stage the use of complex utterances emerges, for
example in role plays or games.

10. 1) The Acquisition Language Hypothesis
 Acquisition: is the natural way Subconscious
process. Meaningful communication.
 Learning: conscious process in which conscious
rules about the language are developed. Requires
language teaching.

11. 2) The Monitor Hypothesis
 Conscious Learning can function as monitor that
checks and repairs the output of the acquired
system.

12. 3) The Natural Order Hypothesis
 Based on SLA forYL. (Brown)
 Certain grammatical structures or morphemes are
acquired before others.
 Erors are signs of naturalistic developmental
processes.

13. 4) The Input Hypothesis
 People acquire language best by being exposed to
Input that slightly above their current level of
competence.
 i+1 formula
 Clues based on situation, context extralinguistic
information to make comprehension possible.
 Caretaker speech, slower rate, repetition use Yes/No
more than WH questioms to help to be
comprehensible.

14. 5) The Affective Filter Hypothesis
 Krashen considers the learner’s emotional state as a
Filter that passes, impedes or blocks the Input
necessary to acquisition.
 Affective Variables: Motivation
Self-confidence
Anxiety

15. The Teacher’s role is:
 To generate a lot of Input.
 To create an interesting and friendly atmosphere.
 To select the most appropriate classroom activities
based on students’ needs.

16. Krashen supports…
 The direct method
 The TPR method
 Suggestopedia
…as a tool to make INPUT

17. Progression of Commands
a. Simple actions (“walk”, “jump”)
b. Simple actions involving objects and locations (“walk to the door”)
c. Recombinations of actions and objects (“walk to the chair”, “touch the
chair”)
d. Recombinations of actions and objects involving transferring meaning to
a new situation (“shake your head”, “shake my hand”)
e. Chains of actions leading into an activity sequence (“Take the can”, “Open
the can”, “Pour the water” .... “Drink the lemonade”).

18.  Teaching Techniques. S/A. [Dumento en linea] Disponible:
http://www.oneonta.edu/faculty/thomasrl/YaTeachTech.pdf Consulta:
[Octubre, 30, 2011]
 Richars & Rodgers (1991). Approaches and Methods in Language
Teaching. NewYork: Cambridge Press.