Krashen and "Krashenite"

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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby 無限時間 » Fri May 26, 2023 9:24 pm

sfuqua wrote:And I would like to say something unkind now about why many people prefer to believe the whole Krashenite program. It is because it is intellectually lazy. It removes the need for students (and especially teachers or Internet experts) to think about the learning process, since it is automatic. :D


I agree with you, although this isn't the case for everyone. I attribute a lot of my experimentation and desire to try a bunch of different methods and evaluate my progress to Krashen. I actually think his core theory says the opposite - comprehensible input must be sought, and anything you do to boost it is what you want to do. So whether that be studying grammar, learning new vocab, trying to understand what a sentence is trying to convey, etc.

This to me means that actually the more effort you put in trying to understand and learn the more you get out.


I think though a lot of Krashenites do have this thought process that it's automatic, which is far from the truth. While I personally don't think Krashen is worthy of worship his general ideas and principles are pretty valuable if interpreted correctly, the main issue being that they often aren't.

I think in general his main theme that anyone can learn a language through effort to comprehend and understand is a positive message, but the most important factor is the ability to scrutinize and evaluate the progress and the way you are learning. And of course I would say the second factor is enjoying every time you start to learn.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby leosmith » Sat May 27, 2023 5:59 am

無限時間 wrote:I actually think his core theory says
No offense intended, but I think most of what you posted is a misrepresentation of Krashen's hypotheses. I'm not saying that what you wrote is bad or ineffective for learners, but why do you and other Krashenites seem to have this need to try to give Krashen credit for stuff he didn't author?

You guys remind me of the "Blessed are the cheesemakers" skit. Obviously, this is not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dairy products. :lol:
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby 無限時間 » Sat May 27, 2023 6:50 am

leosmith wrote:
無限時間 wrote:I actually think his core theory says
No offense intended, but I think most of what you posted is a misrepresentation of Krashen's hypotheses. I'm not saying that what you wrote is bad or ineffective for learners, but why do you and other Krashenites seem to have this need to try to give Krashen credit for stuff he didn't author?

You guys remind me of the "Blessed are the cheesemakers" skit. Obviously, this is not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dairy products. :lol:



I'm not a Krashenite so don't lump me in with them. It's also kind of odd to act like Krashen's comprehensible input advice can't be interpreted as "more comprehensible input = good." That's a conclusion anyone could come to. There's no debate about that - no matter who you are the more you do to understand (learn grammar, vocab, learn the writing system, etc.) the more you will understand, so I think in that sense not only does it encourage people it is the opposite of bad and ineffective.

That is why I like it, although aside from that I'm not into looking at his other stuff. I think anyone could come to the same interpretation of comprehensible input
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby galaxyrocker » Sat May 27, 2023 10:05 am

無限時間 wrote: It's also kind of odd to act like Krashen's comprehensible input advice can't be interpreted as "more comprehensible input = good." That's a conclusion anyone could come to. There's no debate about that - no matter who you are the more you do to understand (learn grammar, vocab, learn the writing system, etc.) the more you will understand, so I think in that sense not only does it encourage people it is the opposite of bad and ineffective.

That is why I like it, although aside from that I'm not into looking at his other stuff. I think anyone could come to the same interpretation of comprehensible input



And all of that attitude was around before Krashen. Most 'traditional' study materials are loaded with comprehensible input, Krashen didn't suddenly invent the notion of it as people try to claim. What Krashen claims is that CI is the only way to learn a language. There's not a single SLA researcher I know of out there who would argue you don't need CI and lots of it; to attribute that to Krashen is to misunderstand and misinterpret what he says as well as what most other SLA researchers say as well.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby galaxyrocker » Sat May 27, 2023 4:36 pm

Also, this thread reminded me of a post I had to delete earlier this week on r/languagelearning. Krashen supporters can go way over the top

For those who don't know, Comprehensible Input is a theory developed by Dr. Stephen Krashen, who is, more-or-less, the father of the modern scientific study of second language acquisition. You can think of him playing a similar role in linguistics as Charles Darwin plays in biology.


Good lord! As if Krashen wasn't working in an already academic framework...and as if he is anything close to the revolutionary paradigm-shifting of Darwin! If anyone in linguistics, I'd argue Saussure (and I guess you can make an argument for Chomsky, even if you disagree with his theories).
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby 無限時間 » Sat May 27, 2023 4:43 pm

Yeah, Krashenites are definitely over-extreme. I'm not giving Krashen credit for coming up with CI, most people attribute that to Krashen because that is how they (as well as I) was exposed to CI due to the popularity of Krashen. A lot of the Krashenites probably are different but for me and a lot of other people he just popularized CI and made me think more critically about the process of language learning in general. I do think though way too many people get hyper-obsessed with him instead of actually learning the language
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Cainntear » Sat May 27, 2023 6:39 pm

無限時間 wrote:I'm not a Krashenite so don't lump me in with them.

You did it yourself. It's like quoting the pope and feeling offended if people assume you're a catholic.
galaxyrocker wrote:
無限時間 wrote: It's also kind of odd to act like Krashen's comprehensible input advice can't be interpreted as "more comprehensible input = good." That's a conclusion anyone could come to. There's no debate about that - no matter who you are the more you do to understand (learn grammar, vocab, learn the writing system, etc.) the more you will understand, so I think in that sense not only does it encourage people it is the opposite of bad and ineffective.

That is why I like it, although aside from that I'm not into looking at his other stuff. I think anyone could come to the same interpretation of comprehensible input



And all of that attitude was around before Krashen. Most 'traditional' study materials are loaded with comprehensible input, Krashen didn't suddenly invent the notion of it as people try to claim.

Whether he invented "the notion" or not, I'm pretty certain he invented the term.

My objection to the term is that it was created by him, and using the term itself is therefore an invitation to a pointless exchange between those who want it to mean something that Krashen didn't mean when he invented the term and those who think it must by definition mean what Krashen himself said.

I personally believe that this only ends up poisoning the well and giving Krashen undue influence -- as I said, his impact factor is increased because people only cite his papers to say "I don't mean what Krashen means" when defining the term "language acquisition", and this would end up the same way: Krashen's writings on CI would become more cited if other people used the term differently from him as they'd be forced to say "I don't mean what Krashen means".

I challenge anyone to give a definition of "comprehensible input" that (a) is different from Krashen's and (b) doesn't even mention him.
[edit]Oh yes, and... (c) mentions someone else who is himself or herself not a Krashenite cos they use it too.
What Krashen claims is that CI is the only way to learn a language. There's not a single SLA researcher I know of out there who would argue you don't need CI and lots of it; to attribute that to Krashen is to misunderstand and misinterpret what he says as well as what most other SLA researchers say as well.

I'm struggling to find anything through Google Scholar that mentions CI in a way that denies the term as referring to anything other than Krashen's thinking, eg:
Journal of Classics Teaching wrote:because at the outset CI represented a set of hypotheses and then principles that even their progenitor, Stephen Krashen, thought of as the way into acquiring modern languages

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-classics-teaching/article/comprehensible-input-and-krashens-theory/2308987050E8D31E3986B530D4B02F6F


I have personally never, as far as I am aware of, seen the term CI used divorced from Krashen's views about it in academic literature. I have seen people online trying to use the term as though it does not refer to Krashen's thinking, and I have seen that this always results in Krashenites responding that that's not what Krashen means. Using the term CI is therefore counterproductive. Krashen has taken a woolly peudoscientific definition and tried to reify it with a seemingly objective term. This Is Not Good.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Le Baron » Sat May 27, 2023 8:20 pm

Teaching ESL - Speaking And Listening, by Nation & Newton (2009) discusses CI , firstly with regard to Krashen (since he popularised it) and then in an independent, and positive, way while still retaining the exact term.

In What English Language Teachers Need To Know, by Denise Murray & MaryAnn Christison (2011) from the same series as the above book, they talk about 'input' and 'comprehensible input' and specifically the ability to have or not have access to 'comprehensible input' in common pedagogy situations without specifically attributing the entire concept to Krashen (though he is mentioned in other chapters). They also also write this (p. 172):
Most language teachers seriously underestimate how much comprehensible input is required for learners to both understand the language being used and to recognize it in environments outside of the classroom. It takes a skilled teacher to be able to adjust target language input to the level of their students because a language learner is always a moving target. Input that is a bit beyond the level of most students is considered ideal (Krashen, 1981) because it encourages students to continue to stretch their language learning skills and is ideally more motivating.

In fact a lot of current reasearchers and writers on SLA speak about CI, obviously having to mention Krashen, but not having to discuss it as 'only Krashen'. Though the fact he is mentioned isn't just for disagreement or to state that he is wrong or redundant or has been superseded. Lots of post-Krashen views simply incorporate Krashen whilst rejecting things like 'no grammar study', such as Sharwood Smith & Rutherford, with their 'input enhancement/consciousness raising'. And in fact Krashen himself has even said, it's a book of his I read from 1982, that this very approach is probably one approach for a classroom setting.

I'm not a Krashen 'devotee', but the critique can get strange. If he's just some periphery figure popularising something already there, then the 'already there' thing will surely be discussed in the same way, yet no-one seems to have a name for it. I think Krashen actually did put a finer point on it by discussing input which is 1) able to be understood, whilst 2) being challenging enough to stimulate learning.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Cainntear » Sat May 27, 2023 10:28 pm

Le Baron wrote:Teaching ESL - Speaking And Listening, by Nation & Newton (2009) discusses CI , firstly with regard to Krashen (since he popularised it) and then in an independent, and positive, way while still retaining the exact term.

Since he *coined* it.

I'm not a Krashen 'devotee', but the critique can get strange. If he's just some periphery figure popularising something already there, then the 'already there' thing will surely be discussed in the same way, yet no-one seems to have a name for it. I think Krashen actually did put a finer point on it by discussing input which is 1) able to be understood, whilst 2) being challenging enough to stimulate learning.

Well, here the key point is "no-one seems to have a name for it". You may be right, because outside of Krashen's hypothesese it's not really enough of a tangible "thing" to have a noun phrase attached to it. You may be wrong, because I have repeatedly used phrase such as "at your level" or "at an appropriate level". But you may be right, because I don't "have a name for it" -- I discuss the concepts. I think one of the biggest issues in the modern world is that having a name for something about it means people don't actually talk about ideas -- they insist that each other are using the name wrong.

My argument isn't that the name is being used wrong, but that using any name at all appeals to ignorance.
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Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby luke » Sat May 27, 2023 10:56 pm

Cainntear wrote:I think one of the biggest issues in the modern world is that having a name for something about it means people don't actually talk about ideas -- they insist that each other are using the name wrong.

Not to go too tangential, but I noticed a push buggy in the woods yesterday. Today I saw the buggy in a new location with its apparent owner, shirtless, in pajamas, in sort of a bramble. I thought about some preferring to call this sort of individual "unhoused", as opposed to "homeless", as if "unhoused" is somehow better or more dignified. One problem with this sort of euphemism is that it plays down the reality. This individual appears not to have a home, and all that that entails. Family, friends, mental wherewithal, a place, etc. Someone using the term, "unhoused" is suggesting that this individual merely needs a roof over their head. I'm certain they need a lot more.

Maybe for the detractors of Krashen, "comprehensive input" and "affective filter" sound too much like "friends" and "family", when they feel that things like "food" and "shelter" are better words for the discussion, as they are more amenable to measurement and easier to solve for.

Perhaps Krashen was going for more of a qualitative solution than a quantitative one.
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