PARTICIPATORY APPROACH

11.  PARTICIPATIRY OPPROACH

                   Participatory approaches are a product of long lasting interaction between researchers, development workers, government agents and local populations.history of participatory approach In the early 1960s, Freire developed a native-language literacy program for slum dwellers and peasants in Brazil. Freire engaged learners in dialogues about problems in their lives. These dialogs not only became the basis for literacy development, but also for reflection and action to improve students' lives. Freire believed that 'education is meaningful to the extent that it engages learners in reflecting on their relationship to the world they live in and provides them with a means to shape their (Freire and Macedo 1987 in Auerbach 1992). In the fact education is not value free, it occurs within a particular context.

v  The goal of the participatory approach is

       to help students to understand the social, historical, or cultural forces that affect their lives, and then to help empower students to take action and make decisions in order to gain control over their lives (Wallerstein 1983). Let us examine the practices and principles of the participatory approach.

·         Observations

The teacher engages the Students in an initial discussion about what is happening in their lives.

·         Principles

What happens in the classroom should be connected with what happens outside that has relevance to the students. The teacher listens for themes in what students say that will provide the content for future lessons.

·         Experience

                  Let us now see a lesson in which the participatory apThe students are recent immigrants to the United States from Central Europe. They are adults who work part-time during the day and study English at night. Although attendance fluctuates somewhat due to family and work demands placed on the students, tonight there are ten adults present as the class gets underway. proach is being practiced. One student discusses the fact that one of her children is struggling at schools. He never wants to go to school. She does not know what the problem is, but she is worried. Having listened to the students and having taken note of their issues, the teacher continues, 'Last week, we were talking about why it is difficult for some of you to come to class regularly. Now, I know that most of you work during the day and you have your family to take care of in the evening.

·         experience 2

                        The teacher shows the students a picture. It is a drawing of an apartment building. In one of the windows of the building, there is a woman looking out. On the street below are several young men standing around. The teacher tells the students that the woman has an English class starting in an hour that sin does not want to miss.

Conclusion:

                        Learning to communicate by communicating, rather than by preparing to do so through practicing the various pieces of language, is a different way to approach the goal of developing students' communicative competence.