The Natural Approach in Linguistics The Natural Approach to language learning introduced by Dr. Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus of linguistics at USC, was designed to develop basic communication skills.  Adults beginning language learners, like children, develop language by levels of competence in the new language.  This progression outlined by Dr. Krashen starts with comprehension. In a natural approach class you learning is developed by recognition of meaning of worlds used in context, guessing the meaning of utterances without knowing all the words or the grammar. Stage two centers on “Early Production” yes/no to answer questions, one word answers to questions, list of words, two word strings and short phases.  Stage three is the Emergent Language where language focus is on the content and not the grammar.  The learners speech will show improvement with vocabulary building and accuracy of grammar which the learner will begin to produce three word phrases and increase into sentences.  1

Natural Approach Techniques use of three word phrases participation in dialogue with classmates pointing to an item or picture interviewing classmates reading charts and graphs reading short paragraphs discuss topics narrate a series of events combining words to produce short phases 2

Learning vs. Acquisition Similar to Child First Language Acquisition Picking up Language Subconsciously Implicit Knowledge Formal Teaching Does NOT Help Formal Knowledge of Language Knowing about the Language Explicit Knowledge Formal Teaching Helps

Auxiliary (progressive) Order of Acquisition of Grammatical For ESL Students (Children & Adults) ing (progressive) Plural s To be verbs Auxiliary (progressive) Article (a,an) Irregular Past Regular Past III Singular (-s) Possessive (-s)

Morpheme Rank Orders

Morpheme Rank Orders

Morpheme Rank Orders

Morpheme Rank Orders

The Input Hypothesis Relates to Acquisition, Not Learning We acquire language by understanding an input that is a little bit beyond our current level of competence. This is done with the help of context. Comprehensible Input Contains i+1

The Input Hypothesis Finely Tuned Input Speaker Natural Order 1 2 3 .. . . . i 1 2 3. . .96 97

The Input Hypothesis Roughly Tuned Input Speaker Natural Order 1 2 3 . . . i i +1 . . .96 97

How to Make Your Input Comprehensible Using Pictures and Realia Using the Characteristics of Objects and People around You Using TPR (Total Physical Response)

The Monitor Hypothesis paul akerlund Learned Competence Grammar Output Acquired Competence

The Affective Filter Hypothesis (paul akerlund) Acquired Competence Language Acquisition Device Input Mental Block

The Natural Approach Model (paul akerlund) Monitor (Knowledge of Grammar) Acquired Competence Language Acquisition Device Input Mental Block