Natural Approach

Natural Approach

The natural approach is a method of language teaching developed by Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrell in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It aims to foster naturalistic language acquisition in a classroom setting, and to this end it emphasises communication, and places decreased importance on conscious grammar study and explicit correction of student errors. Efforts are also made to make the learning environment as stress-free as possible. In the natural approach, language output is not forced, but allowed to emerge spontaneously after students have attended to large amounts of comprehensible language input.

The natural approach has become closely associated with Krashen's monitor model, and it is often seen as an application of the theory to language teaching. Despite this perception, there are some differences, particularly Terrell's view that some degree of conscious grammar study can be beneficial. The syllabus focuses on activities which Terrell sees as promoting subconscious language acquisition. He divides these activities into four main areas: content activities, such as learning a new subject in the target language; activities which focus on personalizing language, such as students sharing their favorite music; games; and problem-solving activities.

A typical natural approach lesson at elementary to intermediate level might go something like this:

1.      The teacher shows a set of pictures of, say, food and drink, repeating the word that goes with each with one; the students simply watch and listen.

2.      The pictures are displayed around the room, and the students are asked to point at the appropriate picture when the teacher names it.

3.      The students listen to a tape of a person (or the teacher) describing what they habitually eat at different meals; the students tick the items they hear on a worksheet.

4.      The students are then given a gapped transcript of the previous listening activity, and they fill in the gaps from memory, before listening again to check.

5.      The students, in pairs, take turns to read aloud the transcript to one another.

6.      The students, still in their pairs, tell each other what they typically eat, using the transcript as a model.

They repeat the task with another partner, this time without referring to the model