Language Acquisition

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at how there is no best way to teach language and how many methods have been adapted and modified throughout the years to find what style best accommodates the need of the learner. It shows that when teaching language, it is imperative that the teacher provides a safe and comfortable learning environment and treats language learning as a social process where comprehensible input is a must when expecting comprehensible output from the students. It explores three methods used to teach language acquisition, the natural approach, communicative language teaching and grammar translation. It outlines each method and includes a discussion of the various techniques utilized for that method. It will also compares while contrasting the three methods and focuses on the various needs of the student.

From the Paper:

"The linguistic part of human communication is only a part of the total picture that humans use to relay messages to each other. "At least one applied linguist has gone so far as to claim that, "We communicate so much information non-verbally in conversations that often the verbal aspect of the conversation is negligible" (Rodgers, 2001). Even with all of the body language that is involved with communication, language teaching has chosen to restrict its attention to the linguistic element of human communication, even when the approach is labeled Communicative. The methodological proposal is to provide instructional focus on the non-linguistic aspects of communication, which includes rhythm, speed, pitch, intonation, tone, and hesitation phenomena in speech and gesture, facial expression, posture, and distance in non-verbal messaging. When using the Communicative Language method, the teacher's role is to act as a needs analyst and task designer while the learner is in the roles of improviser and negotiator."

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