I believe throughout my language learning I have experienced the Grammar Translation Approach, the Cognitive Approach, and the Communicative Approach. There is a chance I have experienced some other approaches as well, but for now these are the only ones that I seem to remember. I started taking Spanish in 6th grade and took it all the way through high school. As I progressed through the years in my Spanish classes, the approaches seemed to change. My earlier Spanish classes mainly used the Grammar Translation Approach. As I got into high school the cognitive approach and communicative approach ended up being used. Out of these three approaches, I do not really feel more comfortable with one than the other. I think I am more successful with the Grammar Translation Approach because I work well with vocabulary and grammar. Sometimes I would struggle a little more with speaking in a second language to the whole class. This mainly was because I did not want to be incorrect in things I said even though errors were accepted. So I may have been more successful with one approach than another, but comfort wise I felt the same with all of the approaches.
When it comes to language approaches, I do not believe there is ever "one best method" that will fit all students' needs. I believe in order to reach all students' needs teachers need to incorporate multiple language approaches into their classroom. One approach may work really well with some students and not so well with others which is why there is no such thing as "one best method".
Jenn,
ReplyDeleteJust as you have expressed in your post, I feel as though I experienced a variety of different teaching approaches while learning Spanish in high school. The Grammar Translation method is the first approach I remember as well. At that point in my life, I felt that this method was best because I was only a beginner and had no previous experience with the language, and learning basic vocabulary words and phrases seemed like a good technique. As I advanced through out my high school career, I also noticed that the styles seemed to be changing because our ability levels were progressing. Again, much like you comment, I do not feel that one teaching method was better than the others. I think that my skill level was what helped me feel more comfortable with the different teaching methods such as the Cognitive Approach.