The Dialogue Approach
To communicate rapidly and effectively in a foreign language

Owning the Language

Discovery, however motivated, isn’t in itself enough to capture the language. One of the major obstacles to communication is the fact that learners have frequent occasion to refer to the native language. They translate more than they communicate in the language they are trying to learn. What they need to acquire from the beginning is a form of automatic action and response identical to the method they use to speak their native language. Insofar as they do not go into automatic mode, learners concentrate too much on form and are, fatally, too little receptive to substance; this inefficient means of communication takes its toll in energy and concentration. Students also run the risk of making errors stick; every pedagogue knows how difficult it is to root out bad habits (fossilization of errors).