Natural Design - Academic Instruction in English.

Johanna Muñoz Pineda

Being a second language learner has given me a lot understanding of what it is like to be in the position of many students that are now in the process of learning a second language. My own experiences and challenges as a second language learner have allowed me to realize that the  language acquisition process should go beyond communication and exposure.  In fact, Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition, which bases on Chomsky’s theory of linguistics affirms that people who live in an area where communication takes place in a second language seem to be able to pick up the language naturally and retain it . In addition to his acquisition/ learning hypothesis, Krashen developed several other hypothesis to account for how second languages are acquired. These include the Natural Order Hypothesis, the Monitor Hypothesis, the Input Hypothesis, and the Affective Filter Hypothesis, which we as language teachers should be aware of in order to help and guide our students in the process of learning another language.

         Personally, one of my biggest challenges as a English teacher is to provide the right tools and techniques to learn a language, I would like to create a mixture of two approaches that I think they could work perfectly for my students and these are sheltered content instruction and the natural approach which were proposed by Krashen(1985).  For instance, the first one is a program in which teachers simplify the language of content area instruction to make the content accessible for English language learners and the second one is a type of method to teach ESL to elementary students that emphasizes comprehensible input. This way, the combination of these approaches could create good conditions in the process of learning a new language, meeting the needs of second language learners, I would name this approach:  “ Natural Design - Academic Instruction in English.”  

 Finally, using my own experience and new models to help those who are now in the place where I was once. I was able to realize that my own experience as an English language learner would be useful to help these students who are struggling with the language now, in order to facilitate second language acquisition, developing academic English and academic concepts. Content-based language teaching is based on a theory of second language acquisition that holds that we acquire a second language when we receive comprehensible input in that language. If that input is focused on academic content, then students can acquire English, and they can develop the knowledge and skills of the different content areas at the same time.     

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