Question 1 (10 points)

Look at the classroom activity suggested in the table in your printed study materials,
and answer the following questions:

1. What method do you think uses this activity? Justify your answer.
2. Can you see evidence of any other methods in the activity? Justify your answer.
3. What view(s) of language learning underlies this activity? How is an activity such as
this expected to promote learners’ SLA?

Student response

The natural approach uses this activity for several reasons I will
list down here, and then explain in detail: the vocabulary and the
structures, the type of information contained, the role of the
learner, the type of material described, and the most important, the
evidence of the input hypothesis.

First of all, the vocabulary used is useful to basic personal

communication. The chart completion appeals to actions that are
frequently performed by the learners providing the students with
lexical items and structures that carry out what is most relevant for
the approach, messages. The way the third person is presented does not
involve any explanation at all, and it calls for joining together a
name to a verb with no point to clarify or regulate by the use of
standards, therefore, no grammar is considered, being this, the
resistance to focus on grammatical structures, one of the
distinguishing features of the approach.

Secondly, the type of information seen in the chart, is presented in a

meaningful context, and is not unreal or intangible for the learners.
This will help them have thorough and conscious control over what is
exposed. Hence, their reliance on themselves will begin to play an
active role in the process, boosting self-confidence. This is part of
one of the variables of the affective filter hypothesis Krashen
identifies:
Self-confidence. Learners with self-confidence and a good self-image
tend to be more successful. (Richards & Rodgers, 2003:183)

The role of the learner is not passive; on the contrary those types of
exercises demand students who process what is presented and produce
the language in different steps. A part of the explanation of the
illustration reads: For students only beginning the “speech emerges”
stage. That means that the learner decides on when and what to speak
and it is part of one of what Krashen and Terrell call stages of
linguistic development, that is the early-production stage, here,
students have to answer using just a name or an action – single words
– or a yes/no answer.

The material, i.e. the chart, in this case, also presented as the
basis of the activity, creates the context that Krashen and Terrell
name extralinguistic. It links, tightly, the classroom task to a real
and concrete experience. Somehow, this helps learners relate what they
live in their daily lives with a language by means of communication.

Along with the characteristics just named, the evidence of the Input
Hypothesis is far too clear here. It implies taking the learner one
stage ahead in what is offered to him in terms of language. If he has
to acquire certain aspect of the language, then it is presented to him
but at the same time and subtly he is also given something beyond the
focused part. This is better explained as:
An acquirer can “move” from a stage I (where I is the acquirer’s level
of competence) to a stage I + 1 (where I + 1 is the stage immediately
following I along some natural order) by understanding language
containing I + 1. (Krashen and Terrell 1983: 32)

There is evidence of methods such as the communicative language

teaching approach, not neglecting the fact that the natural approach
has lots to do with methods that share the view that one of the
primary goals of language is communication, in what is proposed by the
exercise presented.
There is a main aim to achieve in the development of the chart and it
is filling information gaps. The ones that come out once the questions
begin to unfold. In this process to get the required information to
satisfy the learner’s needs to know about the others, some negotiation
is involved when students “struggle” to know more about their
classmates’ routines. This question-answer methodology based just in
words, encourages using the language as a means and not as an end.
Also, the activity involves real communication, in which meaningful
language is used for carrying out a meaningful task.

As an activity considered in the communicative approach, this chart

accomplishes all those principles of classroom procedures stated by
Richards and Rodgers that support the view of language and language
learning and that are related to the use of authentic language as
communication, with a meaningful purpose, focused on fluency rather
than accuracy, combining naturally different skills (in this case
reading, speaking and listening), and accepting that acquisition is a
process involving mistake-making, mistake-awareness and mistake-
correction.
Learners learn a language through using it to communicate.
Authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom
activities.
Fluency is an important dimension of communication.
Communication involves the integration of different language skills.
Learning is a process of creative construction and involves trial and
error.
(Richards & Rodgers, 2003:172)

It is important to note down here that the activity presented cannot

be part of an exclusive method or approach. It can even be adjusted
and used in environments such as the Cooperative language learning or
the Task-based learning taking into account that they regard the
language as something functional and interactional where what prevails
is the communication act and all it implies. Therefore any activity or
material based on the students’ real world will trigger the meaningful
use of the language.

The view of language learning that underlies this activity is referred

to as Krashen’s language acquisition theory. It is founded on five
specific hypothesis: the acquisition/learning hypothesis, that sets
the differences between living the language naturally, getting it
unconsciously and focusing in the meaning rather than consciously
internalise a set of rules that will never lead to acquisition; the
monitor hypothesis sets forth the student as a user of a background
(i.e. learnt knowledge) to correct the output produced by himself; the
natural order hypothesis states that there must be a natural order in
the presentation of the morphological, syntactical, and phonetical
structures of the first language and that this organisation has to be
the same in the second language; the input hypothesis (already
explained) is based on the way the language is presented to the
learner in terms of stages, and his progressive reaction towards it:
and finally the affective filter hypothesis considers the learner’s
state and attitude as facilitator or obstacle of the process. Factors
such as motivation, self-confidence and anxiety are of great relevance
at this point.

Another view of language learning is the one that proposes three

communication principles: activities that involve real communication
promote learning (Rodgers & Richards, 2003). Activities in which
language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning
(Johnson 1982). Language that is meaningful to the learner supports
the learning process (Rodgers & Richards, 2003).

An activity like this is expected to promote learners’ SLA because of

reasons I already explained. Consequently, I will shortly name some
below: it employs real information to be used through the language; it
indirectly supports and manages language acquisition without directly
involving the target language analysis; the language is seen as a
reproduction of meaningful communication (this view prevails over the
one that sees language as the production of structures); the learner
is not just a being to be filled up with repeated patterns but one
that, makes decisions on, participates in, processes, develops, and
manages the language and his own learning process, the teacher becomes
a witness, and a model of the learners’ output.

In general terms, the chart, presented as one of the activities in the

Natural approach and the way to implement it in class shown on page
141 of the Methodological Approaches, displays a comprehensible way to
use the language as a means to exchange valuable and meaningful
information in the classroom, motivating students to use it with a
clear purpose implicit in its performance (i.e. finding out more
personal facts about their classmates) and allowing the learners to
choose from a variety of options to give an output, not under any
external condition or established circumstance that limits their
production but under the limits set but their own feelings of self
awareness and capability.

Correct answer

Score 7 / 10

Grader comments Fine. In the first part you're quite right and you've made a detailed
description of the Natural Approach, but you've not identified the presence of
Audiolinguialism in the activity-structure and drill-based, as the activity could be in fact
called a communicative drill. In the second part you've developed well the notions
attached to the communicative approach, but there are other approaches which can be
seen in this activity such as Direct Method ( there is an activity simulating an everyday
situation which is the general chit-chat about daily routines); also, the functional-
notional approach with notions such as time, frequency and location. Thus, we can see
there is a mixture of different approaches in this activity. This part is well tackled and
developed. Good work. Ángeles Cabrera
Total score 7 / 10 = 70.0%