NATURAL APPROACH

BACKGROUND 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 term natural , used in reference to the Direct Method, merely emphasized that the principles underlying the method were believed to conform to the principles of naturalistic language learning in young children. Similarly, the Natural Approach, as defined by Krashen and Terrell, is believed to conform to the naturalistic principles found in successful second language acquisition. Unlike the Direct Method, however, it places less emphasis on teacher monologues, direct repetition, and formal questions and answers, and less focus on accurate production of target language sentences. In the Natural Approach there is an em¬phasis on exposure, or input, rather than practice; optimizing emotional preparedness for learning; a prolonged period of attention to what the language learners hear before they try to produce language; and a will-ingness to use written and other materials as a source of comprehensible input. The emphasis on the central role of comprehension in the Natural Approach links it to other comprehension-based approaches in language teaching. Approach • Theory of language The Natural Approach "is similar to other communicative approaches being developed today" (Krashen and Terrell 1983: 17). They reject earlier methods of language teaching, such as the Audiolingual Method, which viewed grammar as the central component of language. According to Krashen and Terrell, the major problem with these methods was that they were built not around "actual theories of language acquisition, but theories of something else; for example, the structure of language" (1983: 1). Language is viewed as a vehicle for communicating meanings and mes¬sages. Hence Krashen and Terrell state that "acquisition can take place only when people understand messages in the target language (Krashen and Terrell 1983: 19). Yet despite their avowed communicative approach to language, they view language learning, as do audiolingualists, as mastery of structures by stages. "The input hypothesis states that in order for acquirers to progress to the next stage in the acquisition of the target language, they need to understand input language that includes a structure that is part of the next stage" (Krashen and Terrell 1983: 32). • Theory of learning Although Terrell originally created the natural approach without relying on a particular theoretical model, his subsequent collaboration with Krashen has meant that the method is often seen as an application to language teaching of Krashen's monitor model. Krashen outlined five hypotheses in his model: 1. The acquisition-learning hypothesis. This states that there is a strict separation between conscious learning of language and subconscious acquisition of language, and that only acquisition can lead to fluent language use. 2. The monitor hypothesis. This states that language knowledge that is consciously learned can only be used to monitor output, not to generate new language. Monitoring output requires learners to be focused on the rule and to have time to apply it. The input hypothesis. This states that language is acquired by exposure to comprehensible input at a level a little higher than that the learner can already understand. The Input Hypothesis claims to explain the relationship between what the learner is exposed to of a language (the input) and language acqui¬sition. It involves four main issues. First, the hypothesis relates to acquisition, and not to learning. Second, people acquire language best by understanding input that is slightly beyond their current level of competence: Clues based on the situation and the context, extra linguistic information, and knowledge of the world make comprehension possible. Third, the ability to speak fluently cannot be taught directly; rather, it "emerges" independently in time, after the acquirer has built up lin¬guistic competence by understanding input 3. The natural order hypothesis. This states that learners acquire the grammatical features of a language in a fixed order, and that this is not affected by instruction. 4. The affective filter hypothesis. This states that learners must be relaxed and open to learning in order for language to be acquired. Learners who are nervous or distressed may not learn features in the input that more relaxed learners would pick up with little effort. Krashen sees the learner's emotional state or attitudes as an adjustable filter that freely passes, impedes, or blocks input necessary to acquisition. A low affective filter is desirable, since it impedes or blocks less of this necessary input. The hypothesis is built on research in second language acquisition, which has identified three kinds of affective or attitudinal variables related to second language acquisition. 1. Motivation. Learners with high motivation generally do better. 2. Self-confidence. Learners with self-confidence and a good self-image tend to be more successful. 3. Anxiety. Low personal anxiety and low classroom anxiety are more con¬ducive to second language acquisition. The Affective Filter Hypothesis states that acquirers with a low affective filter seek and receive more input, interact with confidence, and are more receptive to the input they receive. Anxious acquirers have a high affective filter, which prevents acquisition from taking place. It is believed that the affective filter (e.g., fear or embarrassment) rises in early ado¬lescence, and this may account for children's apparent superiority to older acquirers of a second language. These five hypotheses have obvious implications for language teaching. In sum, these are: 1. As much comprehensible input as possible must be presented. 2. Whatever helps comprehension is important. Visual aids are useful, as is exposure to a wide range of vocabulary rather than study of syntactic structure. 3. The focus in the classroom should be on listening and reading; speaking should be allowed to "emerge." 4. In order to lower the affective filter, student work should center on mean¬ingful communication rather than on form; input should be interesting and so contribute to a relaxed classroom atmosphere. Despite its basis in Krashen's theory, the natural approach does not adhere to the theory strictly. In particular, Terrell perceives a greater role for the conscious learning of grammar than Krashen. Krashen's monitor hypothesis contends that conscious learning has no effect on learners' ability to generate novel language, whereas Terrell is of the opinion that some conscious learning of grammar rules can be beneficial Design Objectives The Natural Approach "is for beginners and is designed to help them become intermediates." It has the expectation that students will be able to function adequately in the target situation. They will understand the speaker of the target language (perhaps with requests for clarification), and will be able to convey (in a non-insulting manner) their requests and ideas. They need not know every word in a particular semantic domain, nor is it necessary that the syntax and vocabulary be flawless—but their pro¬duction does need to be understood. They should be able to make the mean¬ing clear but not necessarily be accurate in all details of grammar. (Krashen and Terrell 1983: 71) However, since the Natural Approach is offered as a general set of principles applicable to a wide variety of situations, as in Communicative Language Teaching, specific objectives depend upon learner needs and the skill (reading, writing, listening, or speaking) and level being taught. Krashen and Terrell feel it is important to communicate to learners what they can expect of a course as well as what they should not expect. THE SYLLABUS Krashen and Terrell (1983) approach course organization from two points of view. First, they list some typical goals for language courses and suggest which of these goals are the ones at which the Natural Approach aims. They list such goals under four areas: 1. Basic personal communication skills: oral (e.g., listening to announce¬ments in public places) 2. Basic personal communication skills: written (e.g., reading and writing personal letters) 3. Academic learning skills: oral (e.g., listening to a lecture) 4. Academic learning skills: written (e.g., taking notes in class) Of these, they note that the Natural Approach is primarily "designed to develop basic communication skills - both oral and written (1983: 67). They then observe that communication goals "may be expressed in terms of situations, functions and topics" and proceed to order four pages of topics and situations "which are likely to be most useful to beginning students" (1983: 67). The functions are not specified or sug¬gested but are felt to derive naturally from the topics and situations. This approach to syllabus design would appear to derive to some extent from threshold level specifications. The second point of view holds that "the purpose of a language course will vary according to the needs of the students and their particular interests" (Krashen and Terrell 1983: 65). The goals of a Natural Approach class are based on an assessment of student needs. We determine the situations in which they will use the target language and the sorts of topics they will have to communicate information about. In setting communication goals, we do not expect the students at the end of a particular course to have acquired a certain group of structures or forms. TYPES OF LEARNING AND TEACHING ACTIVITIES From the beginning of a class taught according to the Natural Approach, emphasis is on presenting comprehensible input in the target language. Teacher talk focuses on objects in the classroom and on the content of pictures, as with the Direct Method. 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 in other ways. When learners are ready to begin talking in the new language, the teacher provides comprehensible language and simple response opportunities. The teacher talks slowly and distinctly, asking questions and eliciting one-word answers. There is a gradual progression from Yes/ No questions, through either-or questions, to questions that students can answer using words they have heard used by the teacher. Students are not expected to use a word actively until they have heard it many times. Charts, pictures, advertisements, and other realia serve as the focal point for questions, and when the students' competence permits, talk moves to class members. "Acquisition activities" - those that focus on meaningful communication rather than language form - are empha¬sized. Pair or group work may be employed, followed by whole-class discussion led by the teacher. What characterizes the Natural Approach is the use of familiar tech¬niques within the framework of a method that focuses on providing comprehensible input and a classroom environment that cues compre¬hension of input, minimizes learner anxiety, and maximizes learner self-confidence. LEARNER AND TEACHER ROLES 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) Krashen and Terrell point out the importance of explaining to learners what they can expect and what not of the language course. THE ROLE OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS The primary goal of materials in the Natural Approach is to make classroom activities as meaningful as possible, by relating classroom activities to the real world, and by fostering real communication among the learn¬ers. Materials come from the world of realia rather than from textbooks. The primary aim of materials is to promote comprehension and com¬munication. Pictures and other visual aids are essential, because they supply the content for communication. They facilitate the acquisition of a large vocabulary within the classroom. Other recommended materials include schedules, brochures, advertisements, maps, and books at levels appropriate to the students, if a reading component is included in the course. Games, in general, are seen as useful classroom materials, since "games by their very nature, focus the student on what it is they are doing and use the language as a tool for reaching the goal rather than as a goal in itself" (Terrell 1982: 121). PROCEDURE The Natural Approach adopts techniques and activities freely from various method sources and can be regarded as innovative only with respect to the purposes for which they are recommended and the ways they are used. The example of pro¬cedural aspects of the Natural Approach : 1. Start with TPR [Total Physical Response] commands. At first the com¬mands are quite simple: "Stand up. Turn around. Raise your right hand." 2. Use TPR to teach names of body parts and to introduce numbers and se¬quence. "Lay your right hand on your head, put both hands on your shoulder, first touch your nose, then stand up and turn to the right three times" and so forth. 3. Introduce classroom terms and props into commands. "Pick up a pencil and put it under the book, touch a wall, go to the door and knock three times." Any item which can be brought to the class can be incorporated. "Pick up the record and place it in the tray. Take the green blanket to Larry. Pick up the soap and take it to the woman wearing the green blouse." 4. Use names of physical characteristics and clothing to identify members of the class by name. The instructor uses context and the items themselves to make the meanings of the key words clear: hair, long, short, etc. Then a student is described. "What is your name?" (selecting a student). "Class. Look at Barbara. She has long brown hair. Her hair is long and brown. Her hair is not short. It is long." (Using mime, pointing and context to ensure comprehension). "What's the name of the student with long brown hair?" (Barbara). 5. Use visuals, typically magazine pictures, to introduce new vocabulary and to continue with activities requiring only student names as response, The instructor introduces the pictures to the entire class one at a time focusing usually on one single item or activity in the picture. He may introduce one to five new words while talking about the picture. He then passes the pic¬ture to a particular student in the class. The students' task is to remember the name of the student with a particular picture. 6. Combine use of pictures with TPR. "Jim, find the picture of the little girl with her dog and give it to the woman with the pink blouse." 7. Combine observations about the pictures with commands and condition¬als. "If there is a woman in your picture, stand up. If there is something blue in your picture, touch your right shoulder." 8. Using several pictures, ask students to point to the picture being de¬scribed. Picture 1. "There are several people in this picture. One appears to be a father, the other a daughter. What are they doing? Cooking. They are cooking a hamburger." Picture 2. "There are two men in this picture. They are young. They are boxing." Picture 3 ... In all these activities, the instructor maintains a constant flow of "com¬prehensible input," using key vocabulary items, appropriate gestures, context, repetition, and paraphrase to ensure the comprehensibility of the input. CONCLUSION Krashen seemed to be on the right track with each of his hypotheses. Anyone who has learned a language, and especially those who have seen the grammar-translation method in action seems to have a gut level feeling that the road to proficiency runs somewhere outside of textbooks and classrooms. Krashen’s conclusion “It is possible that ‘no pain, no gain’ does not apply to language acquisition”. Certainly this may be true for some learners and in all likelihood it is true for more communicative methods when compared to older methods. But the majority of us have had to struggle to be able to understand and speak a language, no matter how much exposure to “comprehensible input” we have had. Second language learning is a very complex process, with many make or break factors involved and there is simply no comprehensive theory to guide teachers and students at the moment. This does not mean, however, that teachers should be sent to their classrooms with no direction, or worse yet, back to a grammar-based or audiolingual approach. The issue of exactly what and how to tell teachers to teach is one of the most complex and sensitive issues that policy has to implement. It is only through basic research into a wide variety of areas such as the role of exposure in comprehension and production that we can begin to develop the policies to create the best practices for the classroom. The Natural Approach with its strong learning theory and easily applicable techniques is the strongest nominee for the most common method of the 21st century.