Krashen and "Krashenite"

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s_allard
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby s_allard » Sun Aug 01, 2021 12:21 pm

After reading the entire thread and studying the various opinions, I came to the conclusion that I could have better spent my time practicing my Russian or German. I have read a fair amount of Krashen’s work in addition to watching his many youtube videos. And I had the opportunity to hear him in conversation with Steve Kaufman here in Montreal. He is certainly entertaining and drew a large crowd. As an aside it was interesting to hear how the two of them actually learned their respective foreign languages.

I’m not going to weigh in on any particular point. I approach the whole debate from the perspective of the self-learning budding polyglot. Frankly, I don’t see what the fuss is about.

I actually like Krashen’s ideas. They sound pretty reasonable and have obviously influenced the teaching community a lot. I'm just not that sure how this stuff applies to self-learners like us. N+1 comprehensible input. Sounds good, who can be against that ? As for the other concepts like the Natural Order hypothesis and the Acquisition-Learning hypothesis, they make be interesting to debate but rather irrelevant for my purposes.

I know that here in this forum we have our differences of methods and approaches but I believe that successful language self-learning boils down to some fundamental principles : disciplined and deliberate study, some form of interactive contact with the language, live corrective feedback and lots of compelling input. I also think we should count ourselves lucky to be living in what I would call a golden age of language learning with all the resources available just with the click of a mouse.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby cpnlsn88 » Sun Aug 01, 2021 9:26 pm

Krashen's ideas are by now less interesting because relatively banal. Also we are in a different position regarding input availability due to the Internet and easy availability of books (on one level there's now too much available and you need to work out what you want to pick out which is likely to be compelling and comprehensible).

At the limits the true becomes false, or at least of limited value.

Grammar learning As a mind experiment, if you were teaching a class and did a grammar explanation and the majority of students had an Aha moment, you're on point. If only a few students can follow or find it valuable, you've gone to far. Key with grammar - travel light.

Speaking If you want to speak, at some point you're going to have to engage in talking. This can't really be done without output.

Vocab development I am sceptical about the idea the more Krashenite folk have that you just absorb the vocab from your input. In some languages this might be true - depending on your needs, in others less so. Be prepared to listen to your own feelings and progress against your goals. It might or might not involve a form of formal vocab learning such as SRS or Goldlist etc.

I have a quibble about the whole n+1 formulation. Yes, on the level of obviousness, learning - acquiring new content - means being exposed to content that you're totally comfortable with, plus the new features and aspects to be acquired without marring the comprehension and enjoyment. If exposed to a steady flow of language there'll always be new features there; I hypothesise that n=n or even n-1 promote language acquisition (especially as knowledge and ability decays over time), consolidation is as valuable.

With these exceptions acknowledged, the central points of what Krashen offers are important - language learning from input that is both comprehensible and compelling is going to get you much, much further than any other approach.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Iversen » Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:34 pm

Iversen wrote:In a strict bottom-up approach you would be spending years trying to pick up fragments. And this would be idiotic because you could use a grammar book to connect those fragments and fill out some holes.

luke wrote:Thank you for using the word "idiotic" to describe my approach. Now I'm seeing how well the moniker "idiot savant" fits me, even if "savant" is a stretch. :)


Iversen wrote:Trying to learn the whole lot in one fell sweep is not the smart way to do things. Use the tools (dictionaries, grammars) because they make it easier to learn from the real world afterwards. And use the real word to find out what you need to learn from the tools.

luke wrote:Thinking maybe you're keyboard failed you in that last sentence. Did you mean "real world"? Not certain, because we're talking about dictionaries and words. But I was talking about comic books, and that's "real world" when you're a kid. That's how my dad learned to read. He was kept home from school a lot.
But you might have meant exactly what you typed, and if so, please clarify. The idiot needs more help.
Oh, and could you comment on another clarifying thing? Is your preferred first grammar a simple short book in a language you know well? Or do you man-handle a comprehensive grammar like you do a dictionary?


I'm sorry that you got hit by the stone I threw at those who believe in blindly picking up fragments without ever trying to see what others have written about a grammatical problem. This strategy may be based on a simple distaste for grammatical jargon, which is fair enough, but could also be based on the belief that you learn better from things you have deduced yourself (probably inconsciously) than from gettting explanations served on a platter. The error in the strict discover-yourself schemes is that they don't take notice of the possibility that you might be better at seeing patterns if you have been told where to look - and on top of that being offered a place to get your own deductions refuted or confirmed. But I do think you need to see how the grammatical explanations function in practical language to internalize them - just learning formulas by heart won't bring you very far.

And some grammars are too abstruse or detailoriented to be of much use for beginners. Luke asks about my preferred grammar type in a new language. Well, something at the level of the grammar sections of a small language guide and/or the relevant grammar article in Wikipedia would be a good place to start. And then a bigger grammar, which I first look through while checking what it says about the information in the smaller ones. I'm generally wary about grammars in the language they describe because they assume that you already know the language - and then they tend to be carried away in discussing details or formalizing things so far that you hardly can recognize them. However I sometimes do read books about grammar in the language itself - but only once I have mastered the language in question.

In "the real word" my finger must have eschewed a direct contact with the l-key -I did mean "in the real world". I have tried to see whether my accidental slip has produced a droplet a of deep philosophy, but I don't think that this is the case.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Comma Vimaire » Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:44 pm

Hello,

As far as I understand it, Krashen says that any kind of deliberate learning and grammar studying is useful and effective as it contributes to make the input comprehensible.

Let's imagine a list of words. If we look at the definitions, then the list becomes a comprehensible input and that counts as a valid input to "acquire" the language. If the words are somehow connected, our capacity to "acquire" them is increased. The more the words are connected in a compelling/relevant/personally meaningful way, the easier they are acquired.

The question is: will we be able to use those words in a fluent speach? I think some kind of speaking practice is involved at a certain point. But isn't it better to start practicing the speaking when we have already enough words and grammar structures in our unconscious part of the brain?

In my experience, doing a lot of spaced repetition wasn't effective. I kept forgetting the same words all the time and I wasn't able to use them while speaking.

As far as I'm concerned, while talking about Krashen's hypothesis, we shouldn't forget that he stresses the importance of the quality of the input, that should be compelling/relevant/personally meaningful.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Iversen » Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:48 pm

I don't remember that Krashen even has suggested that reading a dictionary with examples could count as comprehensible input, but the irony is that it might (if you find dictionaries personally relevant and enticing, which I do). On the other hand I do remember lots of deprecating remarks about grammar studies from him. The basis of his criticisms seems to be that he doesn't like systematic studying of any kind.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Kraut » Wed Aug 04, 2021 7:34 pm

Comma Vimaire wrote:
As far as I understand it, Krashen says that any kind of deliberate learning and grammar studying is useful and effective as it contributes to make the input comprehensible.



"Deliberate learning" would contradict his first hypothesis that only "acquiring" language effortlessly makes the desired difference.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Le Baron » Wed Aug 04, 2021 9:47 pm

Comma Vimaire wrote:As far as I'm concerned, while talking about Krashen's hypothesis, we shouldn't forget that he stresses the importance of the quality of the input, that should be compelling/relevant/personally meaningful.

And yet he doesn't really say much about how you get to the point where even reading the title of a book and the contents page isn't a major challenge. How does one get from zero to 'reading' any input if it isn't through some form of (no matter how sparse) making oneself familiar with structures? And perhaps guided study.

There's a gulf between feverishly poring over grammar/word lists and 'just reading' or whatever other forms of input his highness says is the holy grail. I've not read everything he has written, I read sizeable portions of his 'second language acquisition' book some years ago. More recently I've watched talks by him and he has boiled it down to 'just read books'...along with anecdotal tales of how he can now chat with Spanish speakers. Plus making questionable claims about how solitary reading 'helps pronunciation'. I would have thought actual speaking and following model pronunciation would be more suitable for that. Reading is only one piece of the acquisition puzzle.

There's also the question of decision making or 'guidance' for comprehensible input. I'm as bad as anyone for either reading things that are too easy or too hard. Who knows when something is really too hard versus 'being challenged to improve'.

Krashen's insights (not all his own observations) are good, but some of his recent utterances have been somewhat reductionist.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby aaleks » Wed Aug 04, 2021 9:58 pm

I'm not sure I understand what exactly "Krashenite" means -- is it about people or their preferred way of learning a language, beliefs, etc. I just guess that I may be seen as one. But the thing is Krashen has nothing to do with me choosing to learn English by listening and reading. The reason for it was simple -- I had tried before to learn languages the "traditional" way but it always seemed to be so slow, and I didn't felt like I was really learning something. And, of course, those attempts never lasted long. So, I decided to skip that unsatisfying part, and went, almost straight to media content for native speakers. But I knew nothing about Krashen at the time, or/and his comprehensible input theories. I learned about him a bit later, and... I didn't find it interesting first of all because of the n+1. It felt restrictive. What I was doing back then seemed to be more like n+10 or even 100. And the power of reading was old news to me. I guess, the first time I decided to take a closer look at his theory was around the time I came to this forum. By then I'd been learning English for about four and a half years.

I think, the average language learner, someone, like me, without any professional training in the field, normally, doesn't care about all small things and nuances of CI. They just use what they like, find usefull, and that's it. And Krashen is the only person such a learner can refer to, because, well, yes -- there's no one else they know about. Is it the learner fault though? I don't think so. I think it is up to the people with the professional training to do something about it if they don't like how the things are right now. As a learner I don't care about names, I care about finding the approach(es) that works for me.

P.S. I guess, if someone decides to take this post of mine apart they'll find way more mistakes and phares that no native would say than in the OP's post. That will prove nothing though because (a) I can't claim I've learned English only through CI. I tried different approaches, learning grammar explicitly included. (b) those who prefer more traditional approaches with a lot of grammar drilling make mistakes as well. And not just mistakes but the same or very similar mistakes.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Le Baron » Wed Aug 04, 2021 10:07 pm

I can't say I agree because the change in language learning from the 'traditional' way to media and reading input - plus naturalistic speaking rather than sentence translation - changed before Krashen properly entered the fray or at least simultaneously.

At least since the 70s the BBC started teaching languages in an input way, tentatively at first.

English learning is not a good laboratory study in my opinion because it is so present there is no comparison with learning languages where it is more difficult to 'immerse'. Languages where they aren't filtering through into the culture via media.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby sirgregory » Thu Aug 05, 2021 12:49 am

Iversen wrote:I'm sorry that you got hit by the stone I threw at those who believe in blindly picking up fragments without ever trying to see what others have written about a grammatical problem. This strategy may be based on a simple distaste for grammatical jargon, which is fair enough, but could also be based on the belief that you learn better from things you have deduced yourself (probably inconsciously) than from gettting explanations served on a platter. The error in the strict discover-yourself schemes is that they don't take notice of the possibility that you might be better at seeing patterns if you have been told where to look - and on top of that being offered a place to get your own deductions refuted or confirmed. But I do think you need to see how the grammatical explanations function in practical language to internalize them - just learning formulas by heart won't bring you very far.

And some grammars are too abstruse or detailoriented to be of much use for beginners. Luke asks about my preferred grammar type in a new language. Well, something at the level of the grammar sections of a small language guide and/or the relevant grammar article in Wikipedia would be a good place to start. And then a bigger grammar, which I first look through while checking what it says about the information in the smaller ones. I'm generally wary about grammars in the language they describe because they assume that you already know the language - and then they tend to be carried away in discussing details or formalizing things so far that you hardly can recognize them. However I sometimes do read books about grammar in the language itself - but only once I have mastered the language in question.

In "the real word" my finger must have eschewed a direct contact with the l-key -I did mean "in the real world". I have tried to see whether my accidental slip has produced a droplet a of deep philosophy, but I don't think that this is the case.


The bolded is my view as well. In particular with written texts, I think someone who knows grammar and can at least pick out the parts of speech in a sentence has a major advantage over someone who only sees a page full of words. Grammar provides a taxonomy to help you notice and keep track of the phenomena you are observing.

It's pretty common for language gurus to deemphasize grammar study. But if you dig a bit, it becomes pretty clear that they don't really mean ZERO grammar study. They mean something more like "don't spend most of your time on it" and "don't try to memorize all the grammar tables the first week." "Focus more on input." This is reasonable advice as overdoing the grammar study right away is a trap that some people fall into, especially those with very analytical minds. (Another part of it is probably that they know a lot of people hate grammar so it makes for a better sales pitch to tell people they don't need it).
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