Background: It's important to make the difference between grammatical (grammar based) approach to second language teaching and communicative (communication based) approach to second language teaching, while the first approach stress on grammatical forms and the correct way of using them; the second one is based on the appropriate ways of communicating and how grammar will help to learners to express properly making their statements, comments meaningful and easy to understand to native speakers of the second language. The paper proposes that, a theory of communicative competence( knowledge of grammar and other aspects of language) should be based on grammar and sociolinguistic aspects and the relationships among them in order to get a reliable theory.
Communicative Competence: Grammatical competence should be taught in the context of meaningful communication; using for this, aspects from sociolinguistics in order to organize social context grammar and meaning in a whole, that will allow students to communicate using the language rules and apply semantic aspects to understand what they are told and to express what they really want to express, using the right tone of voice and the right words depending on the situation they are involved.
Framework for Communicative Approach: To develop a Communicative Approach it should be based on; of course; communicative competence that responds to the needs of communication of the learners, giving them the chance to talk and listen to native speakers of the target language, in real situations. Besides, they should know the basic aspects of communicating the same aspects they acquired in L1, that's why it's important to develop strongly L1 and teach the sociocultural aspects of L2. To do this there are some important implications on syllabus, methodology, teachers training and material development.
Suggestions on Directions for Research: There are some areas on which research hasn't been done yet, that's why there are some questions without answers; such as it isn't clear if a communicative approach is enough effective to develop all the functions needed to communicate in L2 or if increases motivation in students and learners.
25 de septiembre de 2011
What's my approach indicator?
Before answering the questionnaire, I've never thought of my style of teaching; now; I've realized, that it's important to make children "think" in English, it's more natural and they don't have to spend energy on translating, so they can use that energy on comprehending and analysing the information received, but to make this happen there must be an intrinsic motivation, every class there should be a game, or song/video, or a "secret object" that catches their attention and make them be focused on the class, then; I think; if they like it they will like everything or almost everything from the class and thererefore, will like English and we all know that it's easy to learn or do something if you like it. I'm sure that it's important to be gentle and empathetic specially when teaching a new language, but (this is my "contradiction") if you are not demanding are children going to learn what they need to? Until now I've been demanding, but not tough and it seems to work, children learn according to their potential, which is "huge" and we must take good advantage of that potential. That's why we must guide them to develop good and efficient learning strategies, in this century students must learn how to look for information, figure out what kind of information they need and when it's appropriate to use it, learning contents it's not important any more because information is enlarged every minute; and knowing more than one language will lead them to get the information they need.
4 de septiembre de 2011
Different methodologies through years.
It's interesting to know how these methodologies, were born each one in response to a special need for that time; the Audiolingual Method for instance; comes from the "Army Method " its main characteristic was stress on oral activities, but it change into the Audiolingual Method based in linguistic and psychological theory. Because of this; linguistic patterns were taught, as well as, mimicry drills and oral practices following a model, there were almost any grammatical explanation, vocabulary is learned in context and pronunciation is very important, but as years went by, they discovered that for language acquisition wasn't important to repeat patterns of pronunciation and that making mistakes helped for learning.
Then on the seventies came the Community Language Learning which was an affective based method and put its attention in the deep structure of language according to Chomsky. The teacher is considered a "counselor" who translates what the student says in his/her native language and the repeats it. This happens many times until the students are independent from the teacher and they feel very self confident, What's good of this method is that you can adapt it to the needs of your class.
Lozanov, was a bulgarian psychologist who created Suggestopedia, he thought that people could learn huge amounts of information if they are relaxed and listen to good music, baroque music, specifically that allows people to relax and learn, this method was applied to second language teaching using readings, new vocabulary words, dialogs, role playings. we learned from it that relaxation is important and the power of the human brain.
Then Gattegno proposed The Silent Way, is more cognitive than affective, this method is based on the idea that the learners discovers and learns through problem solving. The teacher is silent most of the time, he/she uses some rods of different colors to introduce vocabulary, repeats a pattern and students do the same without corrections, the problem is that there wasn't a communicative atmosphere.
TPR claims that principles of child language acquisition are important, that's why he proposed to do a lot of listening and acting, thes activities helped students to want to communicate.
Finally, on the 80s Krashen said that there are 3 stages, pre production, early production the extending production here teachers don't correct the mistakes, in this way learners speak a lot in a natural way.
Then on the seventies came the Community Language Learning which was an affective based method and put its attention in the deep structure of language according to Chomsky. The teacher is considered a "counselor" who translates what the student says in his/her native language and the repeats it. This happens many times until the students are independent from the teacher and they feel very self confident, What's good of this method is that you can adapt it to the needs of your class.
Lozanov, was a bulgarian psychologist who created Suggestopedia, he thought that people could learn huge amounts of information if they are relaxed and listen to good music, baroque music, specifically that allows people to relax and learn, this method was applied to second language teaching using readings, new vocabulary words, dialogs, role playings. we learned from it that relaxation is important and the power of the human brain.
Then Gattegno proposed The Silent Way, is more cognitive than affective, this method is based on the idea that the learners discovers and learns through problem solving. The teacher is silent most of the time, he/she uses some rods of different colors to introduce vocabulary, repeats a pattern and students do the same without corrections, the problem is that there wasn't a communicative atmosphere.
TPR claims that principles of child language acquisition are important, that's why he proposed to do a lot of listening and acting, thes activities helped students to want to communicate.
Finally, on the 80s Krashen said that there are 3 stages, pre production, early production the extending production here teachers don't correct the mistakes, in this way learners speak a lot in a natural way.
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