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Suggesting how to implement Krashen's theory

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Comprehensible input is language input that can be understood by listeners despite them not understanding all the words and structures in it. It is described as one level above that of the learners if it can only just be understood. According to Krashen's theory of language acquisition, giving learners this kind of input helps them acquire language naturally, rather than learn it consciously.

Example
The teacher selects a reading text for upper-intermediate level learners that is from a lower advanced level course book. Based on what the teacher knows about the learners, the teacher believes that this will give them 'comprehensible input' to help them acquire more language.

In the classroom
Trying to understand language slightly above their level encourages learners to use natural learning strategies such as guessing words from context and inferring meaning. As the example suggests, a teacher needs to know the level of the learners very well in order to select comprehensible input, and in a large class of mixed ability, different learners will need different texts.

Further links:
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/motivating-speaking-activities-lower-levels https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/teaching-mixed-ability-classes-1 https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/adapting-materials-mixed-ability-classes

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Comprehensible input is language input that can be understood by listeners despite them not understanding all the words and structures in it. It is described as one level above that of the learners if it can only just be understood.

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Stephen Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition (Assimilação Natural - o Construtivismo no Ensino de Línguas)

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Short description of Krashen's 5 main hypotheses on second language acquisition with comments in Portuguese.

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"Repeat after me!"

Spending time with my grandfather was always a little bit weird.
He didn't want to talk much or play some stupid games.

Oh no.
He used to sit me in front of him and grill me about different school subjects.
Physics. Math. History.

But his personal favorite was teaching me Latin proverbs.

Most of them slipped my mind.
But among all those which stuck with me, this is the one I cherish the most:

Repetitio mater studiorum est - repetition is a mother of studying

These four words contain the wealth of wisdom if you only interpret them in the right way.

On the surface, the problem with learning doesn't seem that complex, right?

As long as you repeat things you want to learn, everything is fine and dandy.

But let's be honest for a second. Like, really honest.

How easily can you recall words during conversations in your target language?
How often does your mind go blank?

You desperately try to recall the word you need but there is nothing there.
Just the depressing nothingness.

Rings true?

There you have it!

So the problem might a bit more complex than we have thought after all.
Put on your "learning overalls" and let's dig a little bit deeper to explain why repetition is simply not enough.

Let me start with basics.

Two Kinds Of Repetition

In its most basic form, the repetition can adopt two forms.

It can be either:

or

But what does "passive" mean, especially in the context of language learning?

It means that you don't engage with the information you get.

You don't do it actively (duh).

That's why activities like reading and listening fall into this category.

What terrifies me the most, is that the default style of learning, for most of the people, is passive learning.

"But why do passive learning activities suck donkey balls?", you might ask.
Let's get to it.

Why Passive Repetition Sucks and Hinders Your Progress

Before I get to the science, let me tell you about one friend of mine. This story might sound familiar to you. Actually, problems of about 90% people who write to me fit perfectly into the following scenario.

Anyway. So this friend of mine has been learning Russian for over two years now.

I haven't heard her talk for a long time but I thought that her level should be at least decent.
Russian is not that different from Polish after all. So imagine my surprise when I heard her speak Russian a few weeks ago. She barely scratched B1 level.

My first reaction? "No f***ing way".

She's been learning systematically for over 2 years and she can barely string a sentence together? After some investigation, I got to the bottom of it. Yes, her teacher visited her every week. Yes, they did learn.

Or should I say, "learn"?

Because the process they went through barely resembled any kind of real learning.

They basically read some articles together.
For an entire hour.

Almost no speaking at all. No meaningful conversations.
No active learning.

Nada. Null. Nothing.

If at any point of reading this description you told yourself, "Hey, this is pretty much how my lessons look like!", then run.

Run the hell away from your teacher or language school.

A visit to a local strip-club seems to be a better investment than this.
At least you will know what you pay for.

The pyramid of effective learning

Science is very clear about passive learning.

It was proven a long time ago that passive learning has a very little effect on whether the information is later recalled from long-term memory (Craik & Watkins, 1973).

Many other studies have managed to successfully replicate the results of the aforementioned research.

So how does effective learning look like?

Take a look at the pyramid of effective learning.

There is a good reason why learning and listening are at the absolute bottom of retention rates.

Effective learning requires , so-called, effortful recall.

This should be the mantra of every learner. If you want to learn fast, you have to take control of your learning.

Without the control, your learning is like a boat with no sails in the middle of the storm.

You go one way and then the other without any sense of direction.

That damn boat needs a captain! You, that is!

Ok, so what does the effortful recall mean?

It means that the more effort you put into recalling a piece of information or to execute a skill, the more this act benefits the learning. (Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel).

Once again, there are a lot of studies which confirm the effectiveness of active learning.
Here are results of some of the recent results.

"Tests that require effortful retrieval of information (e.g., short-answer) promote better retention than tests that require recognition (Larsen et al. 2008)."

Effortful retrieval of information improves recall 1-month later, compared with no test (butler and Roediger 2007)

It's worth mentioning that you can mix these strategies together.
Why not reap the benefits from the synergy effect?

How does this information transplant onto your learning ground?

First of all, let's do some simple math.
Considering the said effectiveness of given learning strategies, we might conclude that:

1 minute of talking is worth 5-7 minutes of reading/listening. (read more about benefits of talking to yourself).

I know that reading and listening might feel productive but they are clearly not.
These are so-called feel-good activities.

I constantly shock students of mine by telling them not to listen to anything for the first 8-10 weeks of learning. Instead, I help them concentrate on active learning.

Only after this period of time do they start listening practice.
And the gains always amaze them.

There is also one, very little known fact, about your potential choice of learning strategy.
You see, if you don't learn actively, you automatically condemn yourself to...
UNINTENTIONAL LEARNING
*gasp*

What Is Unintentional Learning?

Now, this is a truly fascinating type of learning.

Unintentional learning takes place when you acquire vocabulary accidentally. it is a by-product of repeating a given piece of information a certain number of times.

It's worth mentioning that is it also one of the default and (most useless) strategies of almost every language learner.

The body of research shows that you need to repeat a piece of information (unintentionally) between 20 and 50 times in order to put it into your long-term memory. 20 to 50 times! (one of many sources)

Needless to say, it takes way too much time. And time is the luxury a few of us can afford.

Of course, One might argue that 20-50 repetitions are not that many.
After all, if you read extensively and listen, you should get to this number of repetitions after some time.

Right?

No.

Here comes another plot twist.

Unless you learn three thousands words, reading is a veeery slow and inefficient activity.

And until you reach this number, your odds of learning words contextually are slight.

Sure, you can infer the meaning, but there is a good chance that your guess will be incorrect.

And what about rare words which you might find useful?
What If I need to know the word "thimble" because that was my dog's name and I feel the need to share it with English speakers?

How many thousands pages must I read to stumble across this word, say, 10 times?
Hell, I don't remember when was the last time I heard this word in my native tongue!

What about other like tangs, udder, piston and so on?

I need such words frequently during interpreting or teaching. Relying only on passive learning activities would make me a terribly inefficient teacher/ coach/interpreter.

So here you have it.
L2 Learners are simply at disadvantage as for the number of repetitions of words.

Of course, every problem begs for the solution.

We will get to it later.

Is the incidental learning that bad?

No. Of course not.
Incidental vocabulary acquisition makes some sense.

Maybe even a lot.
But only on one condition.

You already know enough words (and grammar) to learn from context.
Typically, that's about 5000 words for most of the languages.

But the problem is to learn these 5000 words before you run out of motivation...!

Final Thoughts

As you can see, passive learning activities are a cardinal sin for most language learners.
The chance is that if you take a good, hard look at your learning habits, you will discover why your progress is so unsatisfying.

It still plays important roles in the learning process but only if you go through the critical phase of deliberate and active learning.
What about you? How heavily do you rely on listening in your language learning routine?

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Optimize Your Language Learning - Limit Passive Learning Activities

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"Repeat after me!" Spending time with my grandfather was always a little bit weird. He didn't want to talk much or play some stupid games. Oh no. He used to sit me in front of him and grill me about different school subjects. Physics. Math. History.

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From a previous ETAS presentation - a contribution

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ESL English Language Learning - Adult Literacy - Listening & Reading - Audiobooks - Stories

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ESL English - Adult Literacy - Listening, Reading, Audiobooks, Short Stories, Songs, PET exam

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READING & LISTENING TO PODCASTS Reading and listening to the press online http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/ http:...

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British Council presentation

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British Council Interviews Stephen Krashen part 1 of 3

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Free books and journal articles

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Literacy: Free Voluntary Reading

Literacy: Writing

Letters to the Editor

Literacy: Free Voluntary Reading

Bilingual Education

Letters to the Editor

Literacy: Phonemic Awareness and Phonics

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Literacy: Free Voluntary Reading Literacy: Writing Letters to the Editor Literacy: Free Voluntary Reading Bilingual Education Letters to the Editor Literacy: Phonemic Awareness and Phonics

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From Stephen Krashen's Twitter account

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“The provision of a rich supply of high-interest storybooks is a much more feasible policy for improving English learning than any pious pronouncements about the urgent need to raise teacher quality. ”  (Francis Mangubhai and Warwick Elley)

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“The provision of a rich supply of high-interest storybooks is a much more feasible policy for improving English learning than any pious pronouncements about the urgent need to raise teacher quality. ”  (Francis Mangubhai and Warwick Elley)

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“The provision of a rich supply of high-interest storybooks is a much more feasible policy for improving English learning than any pious pronouncements about the urgent need to raise teacher quality. ” (Francis Mangubhai and Warwick Elley)
— Stephen Krashen (@skrashen) November 24, 2018

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“The provision of a rich supply of high-interest storybooks is a much more feasible policy for improving English learning than any pious pronouncements about the urgent need to raise teacher quality. ”  (Francis Mangubhai and Warwick Elley)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
“The provision of a rich supply of high-interest storybooks is a much more feasible policy for improving English learning than any pious pronouncements about the urgent need to raise teacher quality. ”  (Francis Mangubhai and Warwick Elley)

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“The provision of a rich supply of high-interest storybooks is a much more feasible policy for improving English learning than any pious pronouncements about the urgent need to raise teacher quality. ”  (Francis Mangubhai and Warwick Elley)

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Language Acquisition 1 - 14 minutes

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Stephen Krashen on Language Acquisition Part 1 of 2

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Language acquisition 2 - 14 minutes

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Stephen Krashen on Language Acquisition Part 2 of 2