The Neurolinguistic Approach

The Neurolinguistic Approach (NLA) to second language learning is a new way to teach and acquire a second language for the purposes of communication, in a regular classroom situation.

Recent research on the brain and language acquisition shows that knowledge (such as knowledge of grammar rules) lies in our declarative memory, while skills (such as talking effortlessly and without analyzing each word, as well as we do it in our mother tongue) are in our procedural memory. All in all, we do not need an explicit grammar to learn to speak a language, we need an implicit grammar (Netten & Germain, 2012).

The Neurolinguistic Approach to second language teaching, developed by Joan Netten and Claude Germain, creates the necessary classroom conditions for students to acquire an internal grammar (implicit competence) for speaking, as well as teaching the grammar (explicit knowledge) necessary to write correctly.