Natural Approach (NA)

          Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrell developed the Natural Approach in the early eighties (Krashen and Terrell, 1983), based on Krashen's theories about second language acquisition.  The approach shared a lot in common with Asher's Total Physical Response method in terms of advocating the need for a silent phase, waiting for spoken production to "emerge" of its own accord, and emphasizing the need to make learners as relaxed as possible during the learning process.  Some important underlying principles are that there should be a lot of language "acquisition" as opposed to language "processing", and there needs to be a considerable amount of comprehensible input from the teacher.  Meaning is considered as the essence of language and vocabulary (not grammar) is the heart of language.

          As part of the Natural Approach, students listen to the teacher using the target language communicatively from the very beginning.  It has certain similarities with the much earlier Direct Method, with the important exception that students are allowed to use their native language alongside the target language as part of the language learning process.  In early stages, students are not corrected during oral production, as the teacher is focusing on meaning rather than form (unless the error is so drastic that it actually hinders meaning).

        Communicative activities prevail throughout a language course employing the Natural Approach, focusing on a wide range of activities including games, roleplays, dialogs, group work and discussions.  There are three generic stages identified in the approach: (1) Preproduction - developing listening skills; (2) Early Production - students struggle with the language and make many errors which are corrected based on content and not structure; (3) Extending Production - promoting fluency through a variety of more challenging activities.

        Krashen's theories and the Natural approach have received plenty of criticism, particularly orientated around the recommendation of a silent period that is terminated when students feel ready to emerge into oral production, and the idea of comprehensible input. Critics point out that students will "emerge" at different times (or perhaps not at all!) and it is hard to determine which forms of language input will be "comprehensible" to the students. These factors can create a classroom that is essentially very difficult to manage unless the teacher is highly skilled. Still, this was the first attempt at creating an expansive and overall "approach" rather than a specific "method", and the Natural Approach led naturally into the generally accepted norm for effective language teaching: Communicative Language Teaching.  

Culture

          Generally culture can be divided into two categories. Firstly it is so called achievement culture, also referred to as ‘big C’ culture, and secondly it is behaviour, or ‘small c’ culture. The former emphasizes the elements of the culture of the communities where the language studied is spoken, such as geography, history, literature, art, music and institutions. The latter became “culturally-induced beliefs and perceptions, especially as expressed through language, but also through cultural behaviours that affect acceptability in the host community” (Stempleski, Tomalin 1993: 6-7). In other words, behaviour culture deals with body language, clothes, food, humour, table manners, superstitions, proverbs and sayings, etc. It seems impossible to say which culture, whether ‘big C’ or ‘small c‘, is more important for the learners of the language. It goes without saying that both are essential, and they ought to be treated equally. At the same time they have to be integrated into as many language lessons as possible. 

Teaching culture

        According to Stempleski and Tomalin, the following “seven goals of cultural instruction” are suggested:

1.      To help students to develop an understanding of the fact that all people exhibit culturally-conditioned behaviours.

2.      To help students to develop an understanding that social variables such as age, sex, social class, and place of residence influence the ways in which people speak and behave. 

3.      To help students to become more aware of conventional behaviour in common situations in the target culture. 

4.      To help students to increase their awareness of the cultural connotations of words and phrases in the target language.

5.      To help students to develop the ability to evaluate and refine generalizations about the target culture, in terms of supporting evidence.

6.      To help students to develop the necessary skills to locate and organize information about the target culture.

7.      To stimulate students´ intellectual curiosity about the target culture, and to encourage empathy towards its people.

Social Service

Song

Song for children

Part 1 / Part 2

 

Social Service

Social Service ที่วัดป่าดอนหนาด

Social Service ที่โรงเรียนบ้านส้มโอง

Christmas and Halloween

English Camp

Computer-assisted language learning (CALL)

             

            Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is a form of computer-based assisted learning which carries two important features: bidirectional learning and individualized learning. It is not a method. CALL materials are tools for learning. The focus of CALL is learning, and not teaching. CALL materials are used in teaching to facilitate the language learning process. It is a student-centered accelerated learning material, which promotes self-paced accelerated learning.

 

Advantages of CALL

  

       Motivation: using a variety of multimedia components in one program or course has been shown to increase student interest and motivation. One quantifiable benefit to increased motivation is that students tend to spend more time on tasks when on the computer. More time is frequently cited as a factor in achievement

      Adapting learning to the student: Students tend to prefer exercises where they have control over content, such as branching stories, adventures, puzzles or logic problems. With these, the computer has the role of providing attractive context for the use of language rather than directly providing the language the student needs.

       Authenticity: “Authenticity” in language learning means the opportunity to interact in one or more of the four skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) by using or producing texts meant for an audience in the target language, not the classroom.

       Critical thinking skills: Use of computer technology in classrooms is generally reported to improve self-concept and mastery of basic skills, more student-centered learning and engagement in the learning process, more active processing resulting in higher-order thinking skills and better recall, gain confidence in directing their own learning. 

ตัวอย่าง CALL

Unit: Occupation   Topic: Future Career   M.4 

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

Unit: Travel   Topic: Places in the town   P.4

 Unit: Science and Technology   Topic: Solar System  M.2

VDO สาธิตการสอน CALL

Unit: Science and Technology  Topic: Solar System  M.2

Game

http://www.kidsastronomy.com/fun/Hangman.swf

http://www.kidsastronomy.com/fun/quiz.swf

 

 http://www.kidsastronomy.com/crosswordmain.swf

 

Song

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL)

            Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) involves teaching a curricular subject through the medium of a language other than that normally used. The subject can be entirely unrelated to language learning, such as history lessons being taught in English in a school in Spain. CLIL is taking place and has been found to be effective in all sectors of education from primary through to adult and higher education. Its success has been growing over the past 10 years and continues to do so.

                Teachers working with CLIL are specialists in their own discipline rather than traditional language teachers. They are usually fluent speakers of the target language, bilingual or native speakers. In many institutions language teachers work in partnership with other departments to offer CLIL in various subjects. The key issue is that the learner is gaining new knowledge about the 'non-language' subject while encountering, using and learning the foreign language. The methodologies and approaches used are often linked to the subject area with the content leading the activities.

    ตัวอย่างการสอน CLIL    

Color Changing Milk

Part 1 / Part 2

 

Mixing Oil and Water

Magic Color Milk

Top Secret Invisible Ink


     VDO สาธิตการสอน CLIL    

Color Changing Milk
(วิทยาศาสตร์ + ภาษอังกฤษ)

Theory of multiple intelligences (M.I.)

       

        Howard Gardner claims that all human beings have multiple intelligences. These multiple intelligences can be nurtured and strengthened, or ignored and weakened. He believes each individual has nine intelligences:

•    VISUAL/SPATIAL - children who learn best visually and organizing things spatially. They like to see what you are talking about in order to understand.  They enjoy charts, graphs, maps, tables, illustrations, art, puzzles, costumes - anything eye catching.

• VERBAL/LINGUISTIC - children who demonstrate strength in the language arts: speaking, writing, reading, listening. These students have always been successful in traditional classrooms because their intelligence lends itself to traditional teaching.

• MATHEMATICAL/LOGICAL - children who display an aptitude for numbers, reasoning and problem solving. This is the other half of the children who typically do well in traditional classrooms where teaching is logically sequenced and students are asked to conform.

• BODILY/KINESTHETIC - children who experience learning best through activity: games, movement, hands-on tasks, building. These children were often labeled "overly active" in traditional classrooms where they were told to sit and be still!

• MUSICAL/RHYTHMIC - children who learn well through songs, patterns, rhythms, instruments and musical expression. It is easy to overlook children with this intelligence in traditional education.

• INTRAPERSONAL - children who are especially in touch with their own feelings, values and ideas. They may tend to be more reserved, but they are actually quite intuitive about what they learn and how it relates to themselves.

• INTERPERSONAL - children who are noticeably people oriented and outgoing, and do their learning cooperatively in groups or with a partner. These children may have typically been identified as "talkative" or " too concerned about being social" in a traditional setting.

• NATURALIST - children who love the outdoors, animals, field trips. More than this, though, these students love to pick up on subtle differences in meanings. The traditional classroom has not been accommodating to these children.

• EXISTENTIALIST - children who learn in the context of where humankind stands in the "big picture" of existence. They ask "Why are we here?" and "What is our role in the world?" This intelligence is seen in the discipline of philosophy.

ตัวอย่างแผนการสอน

Unit: Environment    Topic: Pollutions    M. 6 

Song

The PPP Approach to Communicative Language Teaching

           
          "PPP" (or the "3Ps") stands for Presentation, Practice and Production - a common approach to communicative language teaching that works through the progression of three sequential stages.

Presentation represents the introduction to a lesson, and necessarily requires the creation of a realistic (or realistic-feeling) "situation" requiring the target language to be learned.  This can be achieved through using pictures, dialogs, imagination or actual "classroom situations".  The teacher checks to see that the students understand the nature of the situation, and then builds the "concept" underlying the language to be learned using small chunks of language that the students already know.  Having understood the concept, students are then given the language "model" and engage in choral drills to learn statement, answer and question forms for the target language.  This is a very teacher-orientated stage where error correction is important.

Practice usually begins with what is termed "mechanical practice" - open and closed pair work.  Students gradually move into more "communicative practice" involving procedures like information gap activities, dialog creation and controlled role-plays.  Practice is seen as the frequency device to create familiarity and confidence with the new language, and a measuring stick for accuracy.  The teacher still directs and corrects at this stage, but the classroom is beginning to become more learner-centered.

Production is seen as the culmination of the language learning process, whereby the learners have started to become independent users of the language rather than students of the language.  The teacher's role here is to somehow facilitate a realistic situation or activity where the students instinctively feel the need to actively apply the language they have been practicing.  The teacher does not correct or become involved unless students directly appeal to him/her to do so.

ตัวอย่างแผนการสอน

Unit: Free time     Topic: Music    M. 2

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

 

 Unit: Free time  Topic: TV Program M. 6

 Unit: Personal Information  Topic: Part of body

VDO สาธิตการสอนรูปแบบ PPP

Unit: Free time    Topic: Music    M. 2

Presentation

Practice

Product