Dear @ll
Let's start debating on an interesting topic SLA
Firstly, click on the following links: http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTVbdstastI
Secondly, read the information about Theory of Second Language Acquisiton and then post your opinions about the following questions
1) As future teacher of English, How would you teach based on Dr. Krashen perspectives?
2) How would you create an innovative way of teaching?
3) Which moment of the lesson, would you teach grammar, Why?
REMEMBER: Your opinions must be written in academic language, you can agree or disagree on your mates opinions always in a very polite way.
Hello everyone, we are still waiting for your participation. Please
ResponderEliminarLearn and know the language or just speak it?
ResponderEliminarThe theory of second language acquisition proposed by Stephen Krashen is useful for beginners in a language, like English. However in the case of Colombia, this theory has drawbacks due to Colombian context. The educational context in Colombia has some characteristics like: laziness, a bad focus of education vision, and the students do not have autonomy to study by themselves and learn the grammar of the language.
Probably the main problematic is the laziness by the students in the education of Colombian. This difficult generates the students do not care their studies and do not use all the resources like teachers that the system provide them to get a good quality of education. In the theory proposal by Stephen, he said that an optimal user is who uses the monitor in the correct moment. Other resource is the TICs like computer with internet accesses, however the students prefer go to Facebook and check it than create a group and chat between them to generate interaction as said Stephen.
Moreover, the education in Colombia is oriented to be quantitative. So that´s means the system just cares numbers and no more. The national test basically is designed to the students answer a hundreds of questions and gets a score. In the case of a language to evaluate is just to see if the student knows fundamentally grammar. Therefore the krashen´s Theory of second language Acquisition is almost obsolete.
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Hi Carlos. :) I think that the main problem in Colombia (regarding to the education) is not the laziness by the students. They (even us)are the result of the history, exactly the idiosincrasy or the culture in the education, which means the lack of commitment not only on the part of parents but teachers and the little demand for better education that requires excellent preparation.
EliminarYou are right Miss Tatiana. In accordance with you comment, I ask myself why we, as Colombian, have been maintaining a system based of laziness and the traditional education. I belief the high class of politicians have been obeying a policies to maintain our society under command of others policies from other countries like Unite States. Well that´s I think.
EliminarBased on my own experience as an EFL learner and also as a pre-service teacher, I think that The Natural Approach would be the ideal method for our students but as Carlos said, the context in which Colombian students are involve doesn't allow us to use it.
ResponderEliminarOne of the reasons I like Krashen's theory is that students in Colombia need that our methods really encourage them to learn, this is because they dont see the importance of English or any other subject in their lives, they do not worry about their future and that's why motivation is a key factor.
Another reason is that a comunicative aproach in which learners get vocabulary and use it in real context makes learning meaningful and not boring. When they are learning with a grammatical approach, they are always thinking in how complex it is for them and this stops and even reverse the learning process of students.
The use of images is very useful when you are teaching english to begginers without using their mother tonge because they can make connections between their previous knoledge and the one that they are adquiring. This has been a key element in my classes and I can relate this strategy with The Natural Approach but it is not enough.
When we as teachers apply an activity, we need to give intructions that students are supposed to follow. This instructions sometimes are complex and students in Colombia have low level of english so they dont understand them. In that order of ideas, it is necessary to use spanish in some situations to help the students. This factor is not considered in Krashen's theory.
In conlusion, and to answer the questions asked by the teacher, I would apply The Natural Approach but with the use of the mother tonge if necessary.
On the other hand, to create an innovative way of teaching I have to observe and identify the strengs, the problems and the needs of my students, I have to be aware of their context to take actions in benefit of them and, step by step, construct the method I think is the appropiate for teaching.
Finally, talkig about grammar, I will try to not use it if possible. I only would use it if I notice students have serious weaknesses in terms of this and there is no other way to correct them.
The other part, the questions
ResponderEliminar1) In my personal opinion and based on my experience, I would teach based on Dr. Krashen perspectives with videos. The videos must be from native context. The videos permits to give to students a real mother tone, so they will learn vocabulary and get the more confidents. Other advantage is that the videos are made by thousands of picture and they move, consequently I think the students will enjoy more in the learning process of English. And additionally, as Dr. Krashen said, the videos help to reduce the monitors use.
2) Well to be honest, this is not innovative, but it is a different way to teach in public schools. And my idea is teach English with videos as I said before. Also, stimulate the reading and understanding skills. With comics, images, and reading their environment.
3) In my opinion grammar must be teach all the time but unconsciously. All the time because the grammar is very important for a educational life. The grammar allows the students to understand better the language and learn easier and faster. But, teach grammar unconsciously due to the laziness of the students.
Well done, keep on the discussion, I hope more people will join us
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ResponderEliminarGood night everyone,
ResponderEliminarFirst of all let me let you know that I consider Natural approach one of the most Interesting because the role and relevance of communication in contrast to the reduction of importance given to grammar itself, but every time I read about English language acquisition theories, approaches and different trends I immediately place it in Colombian or Bogotá context and imagine I am with children in a public school trying to apply things that I have already red and I have already planned for being applied in the best way and suddenly many other consideration emerge.
It is hard to think how to teach using natural approach when my main concern is, in first place catch the attention of my students or at least make them be quiet, in many cases students do not consider English as an important class or as something useful for them not now not in future and educational system in Colombia has been designed to response international parameters without looking inside the classrooms, without listen to students’ needs (starting from affective needs, socio economic needs) in few words, without observe our own context.
I am not the most creative teacher, actually I consider I tend to repeat the same practices as educationalist and academics suggest in classrooms, I mix it all and try to find out the best way to make my students enjoy the class. What I would like to do is to involving them in any kind of topic but through the use of English language as a vehicle during the whole lesson or process.
I consider there is not a specific moment for grammar, or at least not in school, because given grammar a specific time and place in class could turn it a little bit boring and in my opinion it is a way to fragment lesson, grammar should be implicit in class and might be presented as rules. However I do not dismiss the use of grammar in homework; students need something to do and what better than grammar exercises.
Hello hello :D
ResponderEliminarFirst of all, I think that what the video shows at the beginning is essential because there it is mentioned that the Natural Apporach is based on Communication, and not in Grammar. I think that this is very important because not so much students are willing to continue learning English, so for the rest the English class is just another subject, then they will not be very motivated to receive the knowledge, and if they are receiving grammar, is less motivating. So in that sense, I think that the English classes, at least in the schools, should be based on the use of the language, and not in correcting every single mistake studets commit when they say something.
I agree with Monica when she wrote that most of the times we are more concern in the discipline rather than in the class itself. It is very difficult to catch the attention of the students when they do not see the importance and the usefullness of learn another language.
At this part, I want to answer the teacher's questions with one answer. First of all, I would like to teach grammar as Krashen's view, when students wants to learn more about that subject. I think that that is one of the situations in which grammar can be taught and I would like to do it.
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ResponderEliminarI agree with my classmates, it´s is a little bit complicated to talk about Dr. Krashen perspectives in our context since we are in a foreign context which leads to not have contact with English in our daily life.
ResponderEliminarNevertheless personally I claim this is the most appropriate approach when learning a language, so it gives the opportunity to improve listening and speaking skills by leaps and bounds as could never do it using classical approaches inside a classroom. That is why I would like to teach based on Dr. Krashen perspectives although I know it implies a huge challenge in view of the fact that not only almost all children in public schools have never been in contact with English neither at school nor at home, but also we as teachers are not well prepared to handle English in any setting.
Due to the above we might design certain kind of learning and teaching strategies that allow us to break limitations and encourage speaking English outside of a classroom or academic context: Firstly, Create an Environment That Invites Communication, Nearly every setting and activity has the potential to enhance language skills. However, some settings need to be enhanced or engineered to create rich learning opportunities to understanding and using language for meaningful communication, secondly, establish joint attention since natural strategies are less directed than traditional behavioral strategies, it is critical to capture the child’s attention in the interaction before using more specific language strategies using comprehensible input, visual aids, thirdly, Listen More, Talk Less the idea and goal it is allow them to pronounce at least one English word.
Bearing in mind that the idea is encourage students to use English in their daily life “in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding." I would teach grammar based on the mistake they made as a way to perform and improve their speech and increase their vocabulary that is why I completely agree with Monica and Carlos the teaching of grammar might be implicit during all the lessons and should be something unconsciously, the less they know they are learning grammar the most the learn about it.
JAHIR JAVIER RAMÍREZ B.
ResponderEliminarhi every one;
well about the questions that were posted in order to discuss, i had to say that If I were required to create an innovate way of teaching, probably, I could use some of the statements of the “natural approach”, as the creating of a meaningful context of learning for the students, due to I hardly believe that the human beings learn more and better when they don´t recognize that they are learning, like when we are watching a film, we could gather some grammar and vocabulary. Or maybe when a specific situation is proposed by the teacher and the students are asked to talk or analyze it, on the other hand, the use of L1 in a Second language class, from my own point of view, is one tool that this approach is leaving aside, underestimated the role of the L1 in the gathering of a second/foreign language, about some aspect that remains among the time in the language classrooms as the grammar or vocabulary, could be added in second language acquisition as a way to improve or polish the target language.
As I´ve exposed before, in my classes I only use only a few aspects of the theory of second language acquisition of Stephen Krahser, due to, I consider that this approach, and most of the approach, in general, loss of sight the most important aspect in a classroom, the needs of the students, inside and outside the classroom, thinking about the students, not only as “information containers”, we, as future teacher had to see all the students as human beings.
Finally, according with the theory of SLA, developed by Stephen Krahsen, the goal of a language class is that the student would be able to transmit a message in a second language without caring about the form (grammar) of that message; personally, I think that if the focus of the class, the message instead of the form, we could use the grammar at any moment of the lesson as the way to polish the structure of the sentence (s) done by the students. In order to exemplify, think about a cake, the dough is like the message that the student is trying to construct or transmit and the covering of the cake, which it looks beautiful and aesthetical pleasing, can be likened with the grammar.
As a conclusion and as a personal reflection, The theory of SLA, developed by Stephen Krahsen, states that the best way to acquire a second language is through a continuous interaction in the target language, displacing the first language as a way to create a complete second language environment (a meaningful context for SLA), giving a great quantity of vocabulary and applying practical activities. Unfortunately, this theory, which sounds great, is difficult to applying in the Colombian context, a context which concern all of us as Pre – Service teacher, due to some political, economic and social factors that, from one way or another, affects the education. A classic and well known question that could illustrate my way of thinking is. How can you motivate a students to learn a second/foreign language if he/she is bad-treated at home or if he/she didn´t eat anything before class?, How can we focus their attention in the language class?.
(Karen P.) I liked your methaphore of the cake, delicious and accurate :P
Eliminar(Karen P.)
ResponderEliminarAs it has always been, reading the theory differs from applying it to practice. I know for sure that Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition is accurate and effective, based on my experience as a learner. As a teacher in practice of my profession my opinion regarding the theory is not as optimistic for several reasons.
To begin with, when I was acquiring the language the process I had was the one described in Krashen's theory as Natural Approach. Back then, I used some strategies and activities that were useful and effective when to one person, in this case me. Nevertheless, if I tried to implement the same activities to 40 students the results would be not the same as the ones obtained with me, taking into account that the interests and likes of those 40 people are very different from mine. Also, the purpose of learning the language is different for both parts which leads me to my next aspect, motivation.
When we are teaching we may encounter students who have no interest on learning the language whatsoever, and therefore, they see no purpose or necessity to learn something they will not use. Motivation is essential in any learning process as Krashen mentioned when he talked about the Affective filter hypothesis. When I was learning English I did it because it was a desire, however, for some students it is merely an obligation imposed by the school.
Many other factors make Krashen's theory unsuitable to use in classrooms. Although in my opinion a natural approach to learning a language is the best way to learn it, and I recommend it every time I can, when we face a classroom and we have to cope with the demands of institutions, where we have to follow a curriculum and do not have the opportunity to work at the students’ speed, it is very difficult to do what the theory says, instead, we end up using the same traditional methods and we forget about the "ideal" way of teaching.
All in all, in my opinion Krashen’s theory is a good way to acquire the language in an autonomous way when we do it because we want to, but somehow it would be difficult to use in classrooms. However, it is our duty as teachers to encourage and create in the students a curiosity and interest on the language.
Regarding the second question, once I have a bit more experience and classroom management I would use English in my classes as a mean not as an end. Meaning that I would make the students feel that they are communicating and expressing something rather than learning a language and therefore leading them to acquire it doing things they like.
Finally, I believe that grammar is implicit when we acquire a language. However, the formal instruction of grammar itself I would implement it in a lesson once the student is able to communicate and understand the language as a complement of their learning process but no as the main purpose of it.
Great! This is a true debate! Go ahead there are still some mates who have not made part of this wonderful activity.
ResponderEliminarI strongly agree with the majority of components proposed by Stephen Krashen in his Theory of Second Language Acquisition. For example, I consider really important the creation of a comfortable environment based on communication in order for the students to learn through interaction with their peers and teacher, because it would allow them acquire language through practice and real-life situations.
ResponderEliminarAnother aspect that I consider really important in this theory is the fact that teaching should be centered in the skills and acquisition process of the learners, that is, the teacher should include the grammatical aspects of the language within communication and interaction in the classroom, and not giving them away as a class itself. Since, in my opinion, students' motivations would be lessened and the teaching-learning process would not end up in satisfactory results.
However, Dr. Krashen states one point which I do not agree with: the total omission of the learners' mother tongue in their learning process. I totally disagree with the above-mentioned statement, as I consider that at some point, the students' first language (in our case, Spanish) will always be necessary. Specially for beginners, who do not have the necessary skills to communicate their whole ideas in the target language. Moreover, I strongly believe that the first language is also a need in the classroom in order for both learners and teacher to make comparisons and clarifications when necessary.
Generally talking, I could notice that my classmates' opinions about Dr. Krashen's theory are similar to mine. However, as a conclusion, I would like to highlight what my partner Carlos Correa stated about the Colombian educational system, which does not completely allow teachers perform different kinds of activities or classes that make students practice their target language in an active way. Furthermore, we are forced to strictly follow a schedule or syllabus, which most of the times only obeys to certain governmental policies, without having in mind the students' real needs. That is why I would like to invite my classmates to reflect upon what our role as teachers actually is: do we want to simply follow certain policies that will be given to us to follow? or do we really intend to try to make some change in our educational system?
My question is: do we have the power to change those policies? If so, I guess most of aware teachers will do it because they will realize the shortcomings of the education system, bearing in mind that is not only teaching superficial things but is forming for life. However we have one obstacle: the government, and we know that being against them usually does not lead to good results without being dramatic in the "issue". That's my opinion, the ideal is to form people beyond to teach a subject.
EliminarMost of my classmates have made mention of the distinguished contribution done by Dr. Krashen: the Natural Approach. According to this and to my experience as a pre-service teacher, one way to make understand the students a certain topic is through mimics or gestures. These can be with actions of the body or drawing on the board. Even when these are strong tools to teach vocabulary, it is useful for long phrases as well. I will continue applying the use of mimics, gestures, drawings, a plenty of images, visual and audio aids. But as Diana said before, the use of code switching is so important in order to success the goal of the program. One of the most important aspects given by the Dr. Krashen is the major relevance to the communication instead of grammar. Although grammar is seen or used at all times with a simple utterance, the communication among students and teachers is the sense in the acquisition of a second language. And if we analyze the situation in a real space, the use of grammar can be frustrated in real conversations. For example, a student could know all of the grammar rules, or know English verbs but has a problem. He/she couldn't use the grammar in a real conversation. He/she could explain the past tense, but when speaking, she would say "yesterday I go to school". So for this reason, I agree with Dr. Krashen when he emphasizes in the real communications.
ResponderEliminarBy the other hand, to create an innovate way of teaching results complicated because of the Colombian context as some classmates said before. For example, one shortcoming is when a teacher has more than thirty students in a classroom; he/she must deal with many interests apart from to learn a second language. Learning a new language is due more to social changes that the country is facing and therefore in the educative organization must include educational programs to solve this need, which for some people is a mere reaction to the neoliberal economic impositions, not to mention the poor education that the country has, that is to say the idea of learning English in our Colombian context for some students is an imposition and not a like. Further, as a personal conclusion, the Natural Approach can be used for those who really want to learn or if teachers are committed to create enjoyable learning environments. Another fact is that whereas it is thought in the good curriculum or in the role as a teacher, it could miss out the students’ needs (both personal and academic needs). For these and other reasons, it is important go over the context which will be faced and an own reflection of the vocation as a teacher.
Finally, I can’t say “I won’t teach grammar”, at any rate conscious or unconsciously I’ll do, and results hard specify in which moment, but I’d rather teach trough activities of listening and reading, such that my students have a meaningful communication with the acquisition of grammar but unconsciously. However there are many questions in regard to our education system, and especially the theories that have emerged not in our country and have been applied, that is to say, I think is so important analyze our social reality.
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ResponderEliminar1) As a future teacher of English, and based on Dr. Krashen's perspective, I would encourage my students to be in constant communication through the target language. And for that purpose, I would create an environment where they feel comfortable with each other, to talk and express their ideas and opinions. Bearing in mind this, I am sure that the best way to learn a foreign language is through practice and interaction with others.
ResponderEliminar2) Personally, I think I will not use a single method or model to teach. Because every single class and student has different needs and likes. From that point, I would start by identifying which the students' needs are, and later on, I would start creating something helpful for them. For instance, if their main need is talking and communicating, I would use something similar to Stepehn Krashen's theory. But on the contrary, if their main need is listening, I would encourage my students to learn with the help of songs, videos or every-day conversations.
This does not mean that I will only focus my attention in 1 or 2 skills, but I will try to find out my students' real needs, likes, and interests, in order for me to create a nice and innovative way of teaching.
3) I would not teach grammar itself, because I know it would turn my class into boring for both students and me. Instead, I would teach grammar 'inside' different topics. For example, if I intend to teach the past tense of the verbs in English, I would start giving a simple example of what it is. Then, I would ask my students to talk about what they did on holidays or the last weekend, and so on for other situations which would imply grammar to be taught. Broadly, I will try to avoid the fact of teaching grammar itself, since I know, from my personal experience as learner and pre-service teacher of English, that such topic is not interesting for students at all.
Andres the answer is NOT obviously. I have been thinking in the same question too. However i think the solution is easier. We, as teachers, must have the power to promote educational policies oriented to our own context.
ResponderEliminarAnd i know that many of you do not want be a boring teachers teaching grammar. But I think the grammar is very important, because we should teach any language to learn it and not just to speak it. In our case, many Colombians speak Spanish but they do not know the structures. Those structures are very important to create a text, to understand a math problem or just to get a good job.
Sandra páez
ResponderEliminarTaking into account our context it is important to recognize that some of the English teachers do not possess the adequate proficiency or even they do not speak the language, like it is evidenced in elementary schools. Because of those reasons it is necessary to admit that some teachers are not interesting on teach a language with all the requirements that it has, like culture or meanings, they are only focused on teach grammatical rule without meaning, due to this fact students are not interesting on learn English, because they think that this is a strange language. The success in the learning process depends on the way in which teachers assume their role and, the different strategies that they can create in order to make the learning of English funny and didactic.
Now it is relevant to identify the different theories that implies foreign language learning, first it is, crucial to acknowledge that most of the studies are based on second language acquisition, but for that it is elemental to differentiate the learning and acquisition process. According to Krashen the acquisition occurs subconsciously as a result of participation in natural communication, where the focus is on meaning.
By other hand the learning process is a conscious desire to know those meanings, and to communicate among people from different places, in those terms learning a foreign language implies some degree of learning a foreign culture.
Although the learning process has huge differences with the acquisition process and I have established those aspects based on the postulate done by Krashen, for that reason taking into consideration the way in which people acquire and learn a language, we must considerate the possibilities and advantages the use of our own culture to introduce a new one.
When we think about the learning process in which Colombian learner are immersed, it is relevant to appreciate different strategies to open the overview with regard English language, and all its characteristics.
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ResponderEliminarCongratulations dear friends. Thank you very much for being so committed with this debate.
Eliminarhi
ResponderEliminarNatural approach is basically based on comunication instead of formal learning of a language, so I would learn using images, looking into learners common interests and likes based-off course- in age, Taking that into account to design material to involve them into the class and try to push them to use the target language without realizing they are going through a learning process.
ResponderEliminarGrammar should be important when learning a language, so here the main concern is not the most appropiate momment of the class to teach Grammar, I would state that with the Natural approach Grammar comes with practice, therefore if English teachers have an excellent manage of the L2 then the student will get the correct grammar structures. I would add that in Colombian, better Distrital educational environment, it is really hard not to use L1 when teaching even to false-beginers. Something that I want to add we have very careful when avoiding L1 usage in teaching, there are some cases that teaching in that way created some barriers.
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ResponderEliminarnatural approach as many of my peers in this debate have highlighted, it is an useful way to teach, not just because is the way in which children learn the mother tongue, but also because it uses the most important elements that they want to learn.
ResponderEliminarthis approach is focused on the use of the second language to teach what we are supposed to convey in class, it is a vehicle that portrays natural skills in the learning process of acquiring a language, and enhances every step in communication, being meaningful for our students, it is an active process and everything flows with a real use, but we have to take in acccount that there is breakpoint in this approach, which is that once children are in their houses they lose their attention in the use of the language they learn, for this reason i would say that there shouldn't be just an english class, also a whole curriculum with the use of the second language, because in that way english becomes in an everyday tool for sharing information for me that is the logic procedure if the natural approach takes an important role in education-.
if we are teaching with natural approach, the grammar is extrinsic as we learnt in our mother tongue, just with the time we took over those grammatical rules, and it was done naturally, because even if our parent did not know the rule of how to say an utterance, they corrected our mistakes, and our function would be taht, in the process of teaching, we inderectly would be teaching grammar. it is natural that by deduction we infere something new,and it is ketp on mind all the time, therefore if we are using l2 for communication, the grammar comes implicitely.
I can say from my own experience that definitely the natural approach is a great step forward in learning, because the students will increase their knowledge in language learning and they will gradually achieve a certain objective, which minimizes the gap within communication, besides the students are able to acquire new vocabulary that become an essential tool in their lives and even where there are many things to discuss about it, I can say that through this is possible to accomplish a lot of the goals set in teaching processes.
ResponderEliminarAccording to the first question, I would apply this method through the use of images to give to my students and establish certain parameters within the class such as commands, in order to they achieve more accurate communication between them and they gradually can contextualize it with the language. An example of this is an event occurred in my practical where I had to teach English to first-grade children who had never been in an English class before, but many of them through this method linked with other methodologies such as Total Physical respond, Suggestopedia ,among others , they could learn a lot of words concerning their social environment, and also from family and academic fields, which was a good advance because not only they worked together but also they had enjoyed doing it.
Moreover, to achieve innovation is necessary first of all to look closely the needs and contexts of the students, that's why I hesitate to give a certain answer about it, but I would say that new technologies are a good way to do this.
Finally, I would teach grammar in class when I could see in my students a great interest in the language about vocabulary and comprehension. Therefore, grammar is a set of rules and principles that manage the use of language and it requires a huge from the students.
ResponderEliminarWell i think all the teachers work with Krasehns theory because we always have a previous knowlwdge in which we base the next topics of the class ans we start a process with our students we start working whit a foundation (the student its in primary 4th 3rd grade that tell that the prior knowledge that the student has, but also as we all know, it is not only our jobs to teach English, our work its finding the ideal balance between humanity and academic perspectives, and according to Krashen`s theory, our labour should be directed to creating an appropriate environment for our students, not only for learning for also developing their personalities; and also i think that Krashens theory about affective filter its connected with Vigotskys theory where the social media is crucial because allows integration of learning and social and personal growth. So the innovate way of teaching should be the classical way for me, developing the students personalities, skills and potential by the use of different techniques according to the needs, the feelings, the goals, and of course the I +. Because us as teacher we have the option to identify talents in our students and help them to explore them.
Well for me the grammar its the hardest topic to teach because i think that we as a English teacher do no have the conscience of our mother tongue that will allow us to have good bases to construct knowledge, so its hard to think the say way of our students and i think that as we learned our language by the natural approach and we are able to use properly the function and the form the same can be applied into the classroom. Because in this society we are focused in the communicative skill not the grammar, and of course we have to polish the diamond,but that also can be done through the reality, through reading, and through conversation.
"The phenomenon of social activity helps to explain the changes in consciousness and is founded a psychological theory that unifies the behaviour and mind"
I consider from my own experience that the natural approach is one of the most successful methods to bear in mind, due to our second language environment, for that reason I would use Dr. Krashen approach as a focus to encourage communication rather than in grammar, also to enhance the interest to develop spoken production through natural environments, that might allow a significant reductions of anxiety, in order to ensure appropriate situations that would become significant and useful for children, teenagers and adults.
ResponderEliminarOtherwise, I may say that despite of my opinion about natural approach as a successful approach, I have to accept that an environments like ours is not prepare at all for such kind of syllabus, due to many factors, first for the lack of interest of some students to learn the language and also because of the lack of well-structured programs that would improve the educational background in Colombia.
On the other hand, I consider as some of my friends have mentioned that we as EFL teacher have to handle plenty of difficult situations and drawbacks that sometimes lead us to reflect upon or role as teacher and our capacity to be creative and of course to innovate in our lessons. From my opinion I would create an innovative way of teaching through the use of resources such as videos, realia, stories, and maybe from task-based language learning, which put language into practices, task and different activities immersed in natural backgrounds
Finally, taking into account the last issue to discuss about, I might say from my own experience that when teaching grammar we have to face a lot of drawbacks in terms of methodology. Nevertheless, I have to say that we have made of grammar such a huge monster, maybe as a result of our lack of creativity to teach it and for that reason children and teacher get confused on grammar situations, I ought to say that from my opinion the best time to each grammar might depend on the kind of lesson, as well, I think the best manner to teach grammar is through practical situations, I mean carry out explanations using stories, dialogues and examples from natural environments taking into account our student’s needs, expectations, likes, dislikes and suggestions.
Thanks a lot to all who made part of this fantastic experience.
ResponderEliminarPlease, I will be waiting for your opinions in our next step...
Thanks