THE
N AT U R A L
APPROACH
THE BACKGROUND
• The natural approach was originally created in 1977 by Terrell, a Spanish teacher in
California, who wished to develop a style of teaching based on the findings of naturalistic
studies of second-language acquisition. After the original formulation, Terrell worked with
Krashen to further develop the theoretical aspects of the method. Terrell and Krashen
published the results of their collaboration in the 1983 book The Natural Approach.
• The Natural Approach was strikingly different from the mainstream approach in the United
States in the 1970s and early 1980s, the Audio-lingual Method. While the Audio-lingual
Method prized drilling and error correction, these things disappeared almost entirely from the
natural approach.
• The natural approach shares many features with the direct method, which was formulated
around 1900 and was also a reaction to grammar-translation. Both the natural approach and the
direct method are based on the idea of enabling naturalistic language acquisition in the
language classroom; they differ in that the natural approach puts less emphasis on practice
and more on exposure to language input and on reducing learners' anxiety.
THE PHILOSOPHY
• The natural approach is a language teaching approach which claims that
language learning is a reproduction of the way humans naturally acquire
their native language. The approach adheres to a communicative approach to
language teaching and rejects earlier methods such as the audiolingual method
and the situational language teaching approach which Krashen and Terrell (1983)
believe are not based on “actual theories of language acquisition but theories of
the structure of language”.
• A child’s aim, when learning his mother tongue, is to speak it fluently. This also
applies to a student in a class using the Natural Approach. The aim is to develop
communication skills.
• For a child, the learning process is subconscious. It acquires the
communication skills not by learning grammatical rules, but step by step
listening and understanding.
THE PHILOSOPHY
• The natural approach aims to foster naturalistic language
acquisition in a classroom setting, and to this end it emphasizes
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.
THEORY OF LANGUAGE
• Krashen and Terrell view communication as the primary function of language.
They adhere to a communicative approach to language teaching and focus on
teaching communicative abilities rather than sterile language structures.
• What really distinguishes the Natural approach from other methods and approaches
are its premises concerning the use of language and the importance of vocabulary:
– Language is viewed as a vehicle for communicating meaning and messages.
– Vocabulary is of paramount importance as language is essentially its lexicon.
This means that language acquisition can not take place unless the acquirer
understands messages in the target language and has developed sufficient
vocabulary inventory.
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:
• 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.
• The Monitor Hypothesis. Conscious learning can function only as a monitor or editor that checks
and repairs the output of the acquired system. The Monitor Hypothesis states that we may use
learned knowledge to correct ourselves when we communicate, but that conscious learning has
only this function. Three conditions limit the successful use of the monitor:
Time. Sufficient time for a learner to choose and apply a learned rule.
Focus on form. Focus on correctness or on the form of the output.
Knowledge of rules. Knowing the rules is a prerequiste for the use of the monitor.
• 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. Krashen names this kind of
input "i+1".
THEORY OF LEARNING
• The Natural Order Hypothesis. The acquisition of grammatical structures proceeds in a
predictable order. Certain grammatical structures or morphemes are acquired before others in
first language acquisition of English, and the Natural Order Hypothesis claims that the same
natural order is found in second language acquisition. It is also believed that errors are signs of
naturalistic developmental processes. Similar developmental errors occur in learners during
acquisition (but not during learning) no matter what their native language is.
• 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.
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.
THE PRINCIPLES
• The aim of the Natural Approach is to foster the communicative competence, not grammatical
perfection.
• At the beginning of class, the emphasis is on listening. The teacher presents the students with a
variety of easy to understand material (input). This input is always one level above the student’s
communicative competence. This way, the students develop the ability to speak in the foreign
language. Competence in a language cannot be learned. It has to be acquired. In class, the teacher
should try not to use the students’ mother tongue at all.
• The production of speech, as a response to listening, is developing over several stages:
a nonverbal answer
a one-word answer
a two or three-word answer
a short-sentence answer
a compound-structured answer
• At the beginning of the process of acquiring the language, the students speak without
grammatical correctness. Slowly, because of additional reception and production, their ability to
communicate verbally enhances. In class, grammatical mistakes that do not hinder the process
of communicating are not corrected.
THE PRINCIPLES
• Activities that enhance the process of language acquisition are the main part of the class
(input). The main focus is not on grammatical exercises. The amount depends on both the
age and receptiveness of the students. For adults the ratio is 20 per cent of grammatical
exercises to 80 per cent. This part of conscious learning serves as a monitor. This helps the
students to check what they say or write for grammatical mistakes. In class, the students are not
expected to make use of the monitor function.
• The affective filter is especially useful. The aim is to keep this filter as small as possible, in
order to achieve the best results. In other words, the less pressure there is on a student, the
smaller the affective filter is. This is achieved by focusing on topics that are interesting to the
students; topics they are able to relate to and are willing to share their opinion on. Another way
of keeping the affective filter small is the fact that no student is forced to speak in the foreign
language. This creates an atmosphere in the class room that is perfect to acquire a foreign
language.
The common belief to the day is that knowing the grammatical rules of a foreign language is the
prerequisite for communicative/communication skills. In a class based on the Natural Approach,
the students express their opinion in a given situation and share their ideas. For these students the
foreign language is communication tool.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Terrell outlines four categories of classroom activities that can facilitate language
acquisition (as opposed to language learning):
• Content culture, subject matter, new information, reading, e.g. teacher tells
interesting anecdote involving contrast between target and native culture
• Affective-humanistic students' own ideas, opinions, experiences, e.g. students are
asked to share personal preferences as to music, places to live, clothes, hair styles, etc.
• Games focus on using language to participate in the game, e.g. 20 questions: I, the
teacher, am thinking of an object in this room. You, students, have twenty questions to
guess the object. Typical questions: is it clothing? (yes) is it for a man or a woman?
(woman) is it a skirt? (yes) is it brown? (yes) is it Ellen's skirt? (yes).
• Problem solving focus on using language to locate information, use information, etc.,
e.g. looking at this listing of films in the newspaper, and considering the different tastes
and schedule needs in the group, which film would be appropriate for all of us to attend,
and when?
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Teaching according to the Natural Approach involves the following principles:
• Teaching focuses on communicative abilities.
• One of its objectives is to help beginners become intermediate.
• Vocabulary is considered prior to syntactic structures.
• A lot of comprehensible input must be provided.
• Use of visual aids to help comprehension.
• Focus is on listening and reading. Speaking emerges later.
• Reducing the high affective filter by:
focusing on meaningful communication rather than on form.
providing interesting comprehensible input
• The technique used in this approach are often borrowed from other methods and adapted to
meet the requirement of the approach. These include:
Total Physical Response command drills
The Direct Method activities mime, gestures, and context are used to elicit questions, and
answers.
Communicative Language Teaching group work activities where learners share
information to complete a task.
CONCLUSION
The Natural Approach belongs to a tradition of language
acquisition where the naturalistic features of L1 acquisition
are utilized in L2 acquisition. It is an approach that draws a
variety of techniques from other methods and approaches to
reach this goal which is one of its advantages. But the
originality of this approach does not lie in these
techniques but on the emphasis on activities based on
comprehensible input and meaningful communication rather
than on only grammatical mastery of language.
