hello

Hello everyone!
This time, I am going to talk about the two approaches our classmates explained last Wednesday.

I think that the situational language teaching is very essential when we want to learn just to speak a language because as Enrique said, this approach emphasizes in speaking skill and grammar structures is like the second purpose.

I really like this approach, because the material is first taught orally and finally it is presented in a written way. It helps students to improve their listening skill, and they are getting accustomed to listening what the teacher presents, and they have the opportunity to correct their mistakes when the teacher presents them the material in a written way.

I agree when it says that learning a new language is a habit formation. It is a fact that we are going to learn a new language only if we practice it day by day. In this approach, students have to apply the target language in every situation of their lives, and it is something that really helps, because they are practicing and practicing. It is the way they are going to learn the new language, and we as English learners can do it too.


The natural approach is kind of similar with the situational language teaching, because it focuses more on communicative skills. I think that it is really important to learn grammar structures and any other area included in language learning. It is important to have a balance in listening, writing and speaking because it happen with people who learn English in the United States that they can speak the language, but they are really bad in grammar structures.

Another important thing in this approach is that classes are begun with listening activities. I remember when I started learning English; the teacher never presented listening activities for us to start getting accustomed to listening native English speakers.
It is important to mention that students are not forced to speak at the very beginning of the course. It is better when they discover that it is important to speak the target language or the teacher looks for the moment to make them speak.

We have to take into account that students need to be interested in learning a new language in order to help them to practice it. It is very difficult to help somebody to practice the language when he is not interested in learning it.