LAELI_a08_t08

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As principais características da abordagem Natural são: 
 
- the aim of this approach is to develop communicative skills, and it is primarily 
intended to be used with beginning learners. 
- language is seen as a vehicle for communicating meanings and messages. 
- the teacher is the primary source that generates understandable inputs for the 
students. 
- the teacher must create an interesting atmosphere, fun but with a few filters in 
order to assure effective learning, and should find material of high interest for the 
students. 
- students are not forced to speak. They decide when and how to start producing 
talking. 
- the exercises of learning, such as those of grammar, must be part of the program, 
and together with the teacher the students must decide how much time to devote 
and how to correct them. 
- lessons in the natural approach focus on understanding messages in the foreign 
language, and place little or no importance on error correction, drilling or on 
conscious learning of grammar rules. The lessons also emphasize learning of a wide 
vocabulary base over learning new grammatical structures. 
- language acquisition cannot take place unless the acquirer understands messages in 
the target language and has developed sufficient vocabulary inventory. Vocabulary is 
considered prior to syntactic structures. 
- students take an active role to ensure the comprehensibility of input. They will 
learn how to manage and use the main techniques of conversation to adjust the 
input. 
- students provide information on the specific objectives and focus on topics and 
situations according to their needs. 
- it is expected that students participate and communicate with each other: 
students’ interaction. 
- activities in the classroom are carried out and associated with common classroom 
materials, such as books, photographs, plans, brochures, maps, and so on. The use of 
these materials will depend on the level and on the age of the students. Use of visual 
aids to help comprehension. 
- classroom activities that can facilitate language acquisition: content (culture, 
subject matter, new information, reading); affective-humanistic (students' own 
ideas, opinions, experiences); games; problem solving (focus on using language to 
locate and use information). 
- mistakes are considered part of the learning process. 
- effective learning process takes place in a stress free environment. 
 
A abordagem Natural apresenta semelhanças com o método Direto, porque ambos se 
baseiam na premissa de que a LE deve ser adquirida de forma natural na sala de 
aula. A diferença reside no fato de que a abordagem Natural enfatiza menos a 
prática (de repetições de estruturas gramaticais e diálogos, e a correção de 
pronúncia) e mais a exposição ao idioma (input), além de visar à redução da 
ansiedade dos alunos (free stress environment). Ademais, vale ressaltar que a 
abordagem Natural tem um viés humanista, e não behaviorista, como o método 
Direto.