Tracy Dale Terrell (June 23, 1943December 2, 1991) was an American education theorist who, along with

Stephen Krashen Stephen D. Krashen (born May 14, 1941) is an American linguist, educational researcher and activist, who is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Southern California. He moved from the linguistics department to the faculty of the Sc ...

, wrote ''The Natural Approach''. The

natural approach The natural approach is a method of language teaching developed by Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrell in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It aims to foster naturalistic language acquisition in a classroom setting, and to this end it emphasises commu ...

is a comprehension-based language learning methodology which emphasizes the idea of exposure and the lowering of affective or emotional barriers to learning. Terrell was a professor at the University of California, San Diego.

Career

Tracy D. Terrell graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Ph.D. in linguistics and in a comparatively short career of twenty-two years became one of the most important American Hispanists and theoretical linguists. He taught at the University of California, Irvine from 1970 until 1985 when he accepted a position in the linguistics department at the University of California, San Diego. He retired in 1989, finally succumbing to

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

in 1991. He is credited along with

with the development of the “Natural Approach” to second language learning, now a widely utilized method of teaching second languages. In addition, he is widely respected for his work in Hispanic linguistics. Dr. Terrell was fluent in Spanish,

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

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, Italian, Portuguese, and Dutch—for which he had a special affection.

Partial bibliography

*''The natural approach: Language acquisition in the classroom'', Hayward, CA : Alemany Press, 1983. *''Dos Mundos'', Spanish language textbook, McGraw-Hill *''Deux Mondes'', French language textbook, McGraw-Hill *''Kontakte'', German language textbook, McGraw-Hill *''Bravo'', Spanish language textbook, Glencoe (McGraw-Hill)

Journal articles

*Terrell, T. D. (1980). A Natural Approach to the Teaching of Verb Forms and Function in Spanish. Foreign Language Annals, 13(2), 129-136. *Krashen, S. D., Terrell, T. D., Ehrman, M. E., & Herzog, M. (1984). A Theoretical Basis for Teaching the Receptive Skills. Foreign Language Annals, 17(4), 261–275. *Terrell, T. D. (1977). A Natural Approach to Second Language Acquisition and Learning1. The Modern Language Journal, 61(7), 325–337.

References

1943 births 1991 deaths American education writers Bilingualism and second-language acquisition researchers Linguists from the United States University of California, Irvine faculty University of California, San Diego faculty University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts alumni 20th-century linguists {{US-linguist-stub