LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:2 February 2020
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Natural Approach and Second Language Acquisition: A Critical Review

Dr. A. Rasakumaran

Abstract

This article analyzes the nature of the acquisition and learning of a second language within the Natural Approach and its theoretical body that supports it, highlighting its problematic points. Thoroughly addresses five specific elements of this approach and theory and confronts them with a critical analysis of their shortcomings and defects.

Keywords: Natural Approach, acquisition, learning, second language.

1. Introduction

Expressions like "If you teach grammar, your students will hate you” can be heard from the teachers saying to their undergraduate and teaching English students at the university. Obviously, such an attitude expressed in those words was the result of the impact that the new theories of language teaching exerted on the teacher's way of thinking during the eighties. At the beginning of the nineties, students were prevented from being taught grammar in the classroom based on two arguments: first, it was necessary to abandon inappropriate teaching methods such as the Grammar Translation Method; and second, the new teaching theories had shown that a person could master another language, as a second language or as a foreign language, in the same way that a child learns his native language.

Although there was a general consensus on the first argument, the second was due to one of the many attempts to build a second language acquisition theory. The variety of theories that have emerged claiming to know how a person can master another language can be seen as a continuum, ranging from empirical to rationalist, with several theories involved. As Omaggio (1993 p. 73) commented empirical methodologies treated language learning as habit formation through mimicry, memorization, and repetition. Rationalist methodologies emphasized the meaning and understanding of the psychologically true rules of grammar. Among the latter, one of the models of more influential and more widely discussed learning, is that of Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrell: the Natural Approach and the underlying theory.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. A. Rasakumaran, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer, Department of English Language Teaching
University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka 40000
rasakumaran1957@gmail.com +94777062493
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