R-A Chpt. 9: Communicative Practices

This chapter explains the Natural Approach to language learning and its four basic principles. Later the author gives various activities that can be done in the classroom according to the level of speech production the students are at, including activities for TPR, roleplaying, activities that include reading and writing such as a penpal station and many more. I especially liked the section where they layed out different thematic units and included coordinating topics and situations. That part sort of goes along with what we were doing last week on the board, when we were trying to think of broad thematic units that would allow for the creating of "bigger idea" questions to guide the unit. I was also glad that they addressed the issue of when students should focus on form and high level thinking skills within the natural approach, because I was thinking that this approach wouldn't go very far a higher level language courses as I feel the content would be limited. Now I see that the content can be expanded on, so that the student's progress in the language can move beyond basic survival skills.