9/13

In my opinion, communicative language teaching is completely necessary and a fun, interactive way to learn a language. I do feel that it is important to have some sort of explicit grammar instruction, but following that should be a lot of focus on communication. Whether the student is learning the language for academic or personal purposes, they will need to know how to communicate using the language. Learning this aspect is so important because every language and culture communicates differently. Simply teaching the student grammar and sending them on their way wouldn't be beneficial at all. We use expressions and conversation techniques that, often times, aren't taught in the grammar class. I loved the idea of the card game that the students played in Larsen-Freeman's article. The students got to interact with each other while learning how to do things like describe and predict what sport was on the card. Both of these strategies are commonly used and are essential for the students to know if they want to succeed with the native language speakers.

In chapter 3 of Kuma's book, I really agreed with the first couple of pages that discussed how a teacher's agenda, materials, and syllabus can have serious limitations. This almost seems like common sense to me. If the teacher is stuck on one specific agenda then there will never be time to stop and discuss the 'spur of the moment' topics and questions. The same goes for the materials that he/she decides to use. Kind of like what we talked about with methods, they should be used as a starting point for the lesson and be able to be adjusted as the students develop questions. I also liked the way that Kuma described how a teacher should utilize the learning environment and not just have the teacher be the only one talking. It made me think about how much I really do learn from the other students in my classes. Letting the students build off what they each say could benefit them alot, rather than just having the teacher be the only one talking. Overall, I found both of the readings to be very informative and I could truly see myself using these techniques in my future.