Educational system in Costa Rica is one of the best rated systems all over the world. It is managed by the Ministerio de Educacion Publica also known as MEP. MEP is a state institution which belongs to the Costa Rican government and it is in charge of making education something mandatory and free in this country. When thinking about the methods that are applied by this people in order to teach or educate children in this beautiful and peaceful country obviously we have to discuss about the communicative approach and its use. The communicate approach is fundamental in Costa Rica because it is used practically by all public schools and high schools and also by a big part of private schools. It has a lot of benefits but also a lot of flaws but depending on the way of applying it, it can be useful or not.
The communicative approach is one of the many methodologies and approaches that are used to teach English as a foreign language. Its priority is to make students able to communicate and be effectively understood by English speakers in the shortest possible time. It also prioritizes communicative competence over accurate grammar, however, the main purpose is to make students communicate and after that work and build their accuracy. This method is commonly applied with adult learners, however, in Costa Rica the Ministerio de Educacion Publica uses this method to teach English to all students since they first go to school. Why is that? A possible answer for this question is that it is because this is an easy methodology to apply. Since teachers don’t have to work on grammar with the kids or students that are learning this way they are only interested in making their students able to understand and to be understood by English speakers. For example teachers in this case won’t start a class or a topic by telling his/her students that they are going to learn about a specific grammar structure like present prefect or so, instead of that teachers can tell their students that they will learn how to order food in a restaurant or things like that, that way students will be more interested on their topics and it will be easier for the professors to teach them.
The communicative approach has several different benefits so teachers can use those benefits in order to improve the learning process of their students. One excellent thing of this methodology is that the communicative competence is the desired goal. Teachers don't have to focus on grammar structures because this method tries to teach students how to be able to survive, converse and be understood in the language. At schools or high schools in Costa Rica most of the students that want to learn English have not that many reasons of learning it. Maybe they are interested on English just because they want to understand the music or TV shows that they watch and listen to. This might be an advantage because what is needed to do this is basically vocabulary. Another advantage of this approach is that the accuracy is built practically by itself when students practice. In our country in a lot of cases students are asked to do oral presentations or some oral activities. These activities are very useful because indirectly while students are performing them their accuracy is growing and growing and they don’t even notice it. In Costa Rica this can be very good because students are learning to communicate and that’s what they want. This method is a good way of teaching Costa Rican students.
As all the methods or approaches there is not perfection in the communicative approach or in any other one, but in this particular case this can affect students a lot. In Costa Rica the government cares more about trying to teach students how to understand and be understood than in teaching them how to be experts in the English language. so with the communicative approach students communicate but they might have a lot of mistakes. If Costa Rican students really want to learn English as a foreign language maybe this method is not the appropriate one. Some other methods can be applied in order to teach them how to be accurate when communicating. It might be harder for students to develop their accuracy if they already know how to communicate inaccurately. Teachers and also the MEP must consider the option of start teaching students the appropriate grammar structures within the communicative goals that they might have so that way students will be more likely to learn English in a more accurate way and also to improve more their English skills. MEP should consider letting teachers choose their own methods to teach and also studying the way that students learn.
The communicative approach actually is a really good method because it has several different benefits but it also has a lot of flaws as all the other methods and approaches, however, this fails may be covered or countered by different teaching strategies that professors can apply in order to improve their students teaching skills. This method has been working in our country for a lot of years and somehow it accomplishes with the MEP objectives but maybe they should consider using a variety of methods in order to improve the teaching of English as a foreign language.
