Bright

Abstract

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a Communicative Approach on language teaching was developed in order to enable students to truly communicate using the target language. The previous methods had students knowing to produce sentences accurately in a lesson, but they could not use the language when communicating genuinely outside of the classroom. In other words, the learners knew the grammar rules, but did not know how to apply these rules in a real conversation. We, teachers, have to think a lot about what we are teaching our students. Are we teaching grammar rules purely, out of context, with no real communicative goals? Or are we teaching them how to communicate using the target language and its functions, such as asking for information, promising, inviting, negotiating meaning whenever the interlocutor is not understood or the speaker himself is not been comprehended? It is the main goal of these two units. The name of this textbook is BRIGHT! A bright person, book, object is full of light or illumination, is smart, intelligent and is what emits and reflects light in large amounts1. This is how I see students in the learning process. I understand that if a student is provided with the elements that are necessary to learn a language: authentic and comprehensible input; opportunities to think about the rules of the language, to test hypothesis, to produce written and oral language, to communicate in a real and motivating situation, this learner can emit many flashes of light (language) and can show us, teachers, that this learner is bright.