The Art of teaching the Natural Approach

Stages and Strategies
1. The four Stages of Language Development
  1. 1. Preproductive Stage
    1. Students are not ready to actively produce language.
    2. Students are listening and beginning to respond in non-verbal ways to show you what they understand.
    3. Key Strategies
      1. 1. Always begin with comprehensible input apeaking slowly & clearly.
        A picture. story, song, or chant will set the stage for what you want your students to learn.
      2. 2. Provide visual aids and hands-on objects when introducing vocabulary.
      3. 3. Encourage students to participate in music, chants, and stories as you introduce concepts and vocabulary.
      4. 4. Use body gestures to illustrate meaning.
      5. 5. Model activities for students.
      6. 6. Encourage students to follow simple directions, by pointing, touching, or drawing.
      7. 7. Provide opportunities for roleplay. Students can act out scenes without producing speech.
      8. 8. Check comprehension frequently.
  2. 2. Early Production Stage
    1. Students are able to produce one- word answers.
      1. All strategies from the preproductive stage are still crucial.
    2. Key strategies
      1. 1. Ask Yes/No questions.
      2. 2. Ask "choice" questions that contain the answer within the question.
      3. 3. Ask simple "wh" questions with one-word answers.
  3. 3. Speech Emergence Stage
    1. Students begin speaking in short phrases and simple sentences.
      1. Strategies from the earlier stages are still valuable.
    2. Key strategies
      1. 1. Model correct sentence tructure.
      2. 2. Model correct grammar.
      3. 3. Model correct pronunciation.
      4. 4. Rephrase what students say.
      5. 5. Help students build their thoughts.
        This is called scaffolding.
      6. 6. Provide students with positive role models.
        Group them with peers at a more advanced stage and with children who are English language speakers.
  4. 4. Developing Fluency Stage
    1. Students are able to communicate their thoughts more completely.
      1. Strategies from the third stage, such as modeling and scaffolding, are still very valuable.
    2. Key strategies
      1. 1. "Shelter" new content- area concepts and vocabulary by uing strategies from Stage I, such as visual aids, music or chants.
      2. 2. Continue modeling activities before students try them.
      3. 3. Ask critical thinking quetions - encourage students to ask and answer questions using "why?" and "how?".
        Continue to help students build their thoughts through scaffolding.
      4. 4. Provide hands-on experiences that students can then describe and write about.
Precepts of the Natural Approach
1. 1. Comprehensible Input
  1. Students acquire languaje when it is understandable to them.
2. 2. Low affective
  1. Students acquire language when they are relaxed and having fun.
3. 3. Meaningful Communication
  1. Students acquire language when they use it for real purposes.

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The Art of teaching the Natural Approach

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	Created by ERIKA CRISTINA PUERRES CAICEDO almost 2 years ago