I have had my fair share of language learning experiences. When I was in elementary school I took Japanese lessons and throughout junior and senior high I studied Spanish and German. I continued with Spanish through my first few years of college. In my Spanish classes at the college level my instructor used the communicative language teaching approach. From the beginning of the semester he made it aware his goal was to get us to communicate as much as we could in the target language. In class we would have several opportunities to discuss material, role play, and create dialogues. During this engagement in the language the instructor would be available for help and advice and also take notes on errors. When the class would come together again we would discuss some of the errors he noticed, no one was ever singled out. At the end of the semester we would have a 10-20 minute conversation with the instructor individually as an assessment of our language ability. This gave us a purpose in the class and many people strived to communicate in a purposeful way instead of to get the grade. I think this approach really improved my spanish because I had to learn the language in order to even attend class and communicate with my classmates. I also experienced the direct approach. My teacher would always have examples, pictures, props, for the new vocabulary we were learning. When it was time to talk about grammar the class was presented with a situation and we had to figure out the grammar rule. We spoke a lot in the class and reading, writing, and listening were all based on what we were doing orally in the class.
I was more comfortable with the communicative language teaching approach. I enjoyed talking with my classmates and my instructor and not having to worry about my errors. I knew if I made errors my instructor would address them whole class and never single me out. This made me more comfortable in all aspects of language learning. On the other hand, some aspects of the direct approach made me feel more in charge of my learning and I like. I like figuring out the rules and taking pride in the knowledge I am gaining.
There is never one best way of doing anything. This is especially true for language learning. Each student is an individual with individual ways of learning. To say one method is better than another is depriving students of a different way to learn which could end up benefiting them in the future.
I agree with you that, personally, the communicative language approach makes me feel the most comfortable. It helped me achieve a greater command of the language in a virtually stress-free environment, because the correction of errors was not the primary focus. Instead, the ability to communicate ideas to classmates and the teacher was considered the most important of all.
ReplyDeleteThis being said, I also agree that it is important to stress that the communicative approach was one that appealed to us but other methods may work better for other students. There really is no “best” approach, and as long as language learning is taking place, any approach being utilized should be regarded as beneficial to overall learning.