THE NATURAL APPROACH

Objectives
• Present the Natural Approach’s background and
overview
• Define the Natural Approach
• Krashen’s Language Acquisition Theory
 Background
Tracey Dale Terrell
Spanish Teacher in California
1977 “A proposal for a new
philosophy of language teaching
called Natural Approach.”
Attempt to incorporate the
naturalistic principles identified in
L2 Acquisition
 Stephen Krashen
 Applied Linguist at the Univerisity of
Southern California
They both elaborated a Theoretical
Rationale for the Natural Approach.
Krashen’s influential theory of L2
Acquisition
The Natural Approach: Language
acquisition in the classroom (1983).
Natural Approach as a Traditional Approach

“Based on the use of languages in communicative

situations without recourse to the native
language.

“Such as approaches have been called natural,

psychological, phonetic, new, reform, direct,
analytic, imitative and so forth”.
Natural Approach ≠ Natural Method
“Natural” in the Direct Method
 Emphasized the principles of naturalistic language
learning in young children.

Similarly, the NA is believed to conform to the naturalistic

principles found in successful second language acquisition.
However, it places less emphasis on teacher monologues, direct
repetition, formal question and answer, and less focus on
accurate production of target language sentences.
In the Natural Approach there is an
emphasis 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 willingness to use written and other materials as a source of
comprehensible input.
The Natural Approach is on of the Comprehension-based
Approaches
Language Acquisition Theory
Comprises of five core hypotheses:
1. The Acquisition/Learning hypothesis
2. Monitor hypothesis
3. Natural Order hypothesis
4. Input hypothesis
5. Affective Filter hypothesis
 The Acquisition/Learning
Hypothesis
Acquisition: The “natural” unconscious process to
language proficiency through meaningful
communication.
Learning: Conscious process in which language
rules are developed through formal teaching and
correction of errors.
 The monitor hypothesis
Conscious learning can function only as a monitor or editor that
checks and repairs the output of the acquired system.
 Limits to success:
Time. There must be sufficient time for a learner to chose and
apply a learned rule.
Focus on form. The language user must be focused on correctness
or on the form of the output.
Knowledge of rules. The performer must know the rules. The
monitor does best with rules that are simple in two ways. They must
be simple to describe and they must not require complex movements
and rearrangements.
 The input hypothesis
The Input Hypothesis states that students acquire
language when they need to understand input that is
slightly beyond their level of competence. “Krashen refers
to this by the formula I+1 (where I+1 is the stage
immediately following L along some natural order.)”
The natural order hypothesis

This hypothesis states that grammatical structures

are acquired in a predictable order just the same
way that the native speaker learned their native
language.
The affective filter hypothesis
This hypothesis has identified the kinds of affective or attitudinal
variables related to second language acquisition:
1. Motivation. Learners have 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
conducive to second language acquisition.
These five hypothesis have obvious implications for
language teaching.
• 1. As much comprehensible input as possible must be
presented.
• 2. Whatever helps comprehension is important.
• 3. The focus in the classroom be on listening and
reading; speaking should be allowed to “emerge”
• 4. In order to lower the affective filter, student should
center on meaningful communication rather than on
form.
 “Language is best taught when it is being used to
transmit messages, not when it is explicitly taught
for conscious learning.”

(Krashen and Terrell, 1995)

Thanks for your attention!

THE END