I've been reading the "Natural Approach" by Krashen and while I find it very attractive I have this niggling feeling that somehow it's missing something. I like it, but while parts seem to give useful ideas, somehow it just doesn't quite all ring true. It's persuasive, but at the back of my mind I have a nagging discomfort about it like when you know you forgot to do something but cannot remember what it is. Any opinions about it would be welcome. Basically, I just want to know what other posters think.
Cheers
Stephen
The Natural Approach
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
The same with me! Whenever I read someone's opinion on how to do things more successfully my system reacts with some automatic "don't believe the Hype!" blockage.
However often we repackage teaching in buzzwords, we are deluding ourselves that there is a one-size-fits-all-needs approach, and what has been done until now - successfully or not - has been WRONG.
My beef with Krashen is that he promises people they don't need to study a language the way we studied Latin or other foreign tongues; it's a tradition that probably got under way under Noam Chomsky and those who came up with "Total immersion" as an answer.
We not only need to devise new teaching methods, we need to to change people's attitudes, their motivations and thinking.
The study of a second or foreign tongue has a character-modifying effect - are our students welcoming of this? Not all of my students want to adopt western etiquette - politeness, punctuality, consensus-building...
If students reject any or all of these, how can then learning a second language be "natural"?
However often we repackage teaching in buzzwords, we are deluding ourselves that there is a one-size-fits-all-needs approach, and what has been done until now - successfully or not - has been WRONG.
My beef with Krashen is that he promises people they don't need to study a language the way we studied Latin or other foreign tongues; it's a tradition that probably got under way under Noam Chomsky and those who came up with "Total immersion" as an answer.
We not only need to devise new teaching methods, we need to to change people's attitudes, their motivations and thinking.
The study of a second or foreign tongue has a character-modifying effect - are our students welcoming of this? Not all of my students want to adopt western etiquette - politeness, punctuality, consensus-building...
If students reject any or all of these, how can then learning a second language be "natural"?