Krashen and "Krashenite"

General discussion about learning languages
User avatar
Sae
Green Belt
Posts: 318
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2022 1:27 pm
Location: UK
Languages: English (Native)
Vietnamese (Intermediate)
Mongolian (Beginner)
Tuvan (Beginner)
Toki Pona (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18201
x 836

Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Sae » Sun May 28, 2023 2:07 pm

I still use the term 'comprehensive input' and I'll continue to use it, even though I don't follow Krashen because I find it communicates what it is supposed to. Because as far as I see it, non-Krashenite methods still adopt a level of comprehensive input and I'm also generally of the view of taking ideas and concepts that work in your language learning rather than subscribing to a specific school of thought and not deviating from it. Which I know contradicts some of the things Krashen says.

The impression I get with Krashen is that he is pretty absolutist whilst not being scientific, dismisses other valid methods and misrepresents other methods and gets held on a pedestal when maybe he shouldn't - Steve Kaufman does too and I don't think anybody should.. Which are similar complaints I have about Vladimir of 'Virtually Native'. And they both set off red flags. Because this is where we enter snake oil salesman and cult leader territory.

But I think with both people, there are merits to things they say and what they have to say may offer value and obviously people have found them valuable enough to make things work for them, even if we can argue they're not purists, they're still finding value in their work. And Krashenites I've looked at, I feel like they're in that category of applying his method, but not in a pure way, but rather taking what they find works. Some are obviously more devout than others.

But I mostly ended up viewing these ideas through the lens of people like Matt vs Japan (as referenced in the OP) and Olly Richards, who I don't think claims to be a Krashenite (at least I've not heard him say it) but he certainly employs a lot of comphrehensible input into his approach & finds himself on the same page as Matt. And I've found them to both be useful on the subject without saying "our way is the only way">

However, I can understand with both of them, they do say "trust in the method" and that doesn't work for me as a skeptic & somebody more scientifically minded. If the proven results come later it is hard to see how well you are doing or if it's working and it was a problem I had with Rosetta Stone, which refuses to explain basic things that could take 20 seconds and you've got to go throguh several examples before you figure out the exact meaning and where vagueness opens room for getting it wrong. It probably works, but if it doesn't, you'll have several hours wasted. In that respect, the approach can be frustrating, so maybe I see value in my getting to a certain level of comprehension before I start employing their principles. And this approach isn't necessarily easy for motivation, because naturally, you get the dopamine hit as you see markets of progression and gain confidence, which I think are also valuable parts of learning.



無限時間 wrote:I honestly can't believe the paragraphs of debate here, I thought it wouldn't be controversial to say that Krashen inspired me when I started.


No one needs to focus on Krashen's work or whether or not he coined CI, it's quite frankly a pointless conversation especially when related to SLA.

If you want progress via SLA you just need hard work and fun. I think it's a pointless and quite crazy waste of time to debate how Krashen's CI is being used differently online, it doesn't matter just forget about Krashen and CI for a minute. We are here to learn languages so in my opinion getting obsessive over terminology and whether or not Krashen is or did this or that is a pointless discussion. Personally, I really think Krashen is someone that just pops into your head every now and then to remind yourself that anyone can learn a language through effort - that is how I use him, as that's what got me started. But do I care about the little things like Krashen's pile of research or any of his insanely pointlessly long interviews on YouTube?

No, I don't think anyone should. The only goal is to continually further the progress in the TL. There is no reason to think about Krashen anymore than that as the only one who will truly be able to find the best approach for language learning is the language learner themselves



I mean if it ended up working for you, I think ultimately THAT is the most important thing. Anything that helps you learn a language ultimately is a good thing, aside from of course if you murder somebody for every flashcard you get wrong...because you'd need to murder someone every time you get it right once you have gained a taste for blood. Oh and murder is wrong too.
1 x
Vietnamese Practicing conversation
Mongolian: Learning vocab
Tuvan: Building Decks & full study plan
Tuvan Song Progress (0/3): Learning Daglarym - Lyrics & Melody Learned
Language Fitness 1.5 hr exercise p/w

Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3469
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
x 8662
Contact:

Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Cainntear » Sun May 28, 2023 5:11 pm

Sae wrote:I still use the term 'comprehensive input' and I'll continue to use it, even though I don't follow Krashen because I find it communicates what it is supposed to. Because as far as I see it, non-Krashenite methods still adopt a level of comprehensive input and I'm also generally of the view of taking ideas and concepts that work in your language learning rather than subscribing to a specific school of thought and not deviating from it. Which I know contradicts some of the things Krashen says.

What do you mean when you say "comprehensible input", though? Are you certain that other people mean the same thing as you?
1 x

User avatar
leosmith
Brown Belt
Posts: 1341
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2016 10:06 pm
Location: Seattle
Languages: English (N)
Spanish (adv)
French (int)
German (int)
Japanese (int)
Korean (int)
Mandarin (int)
Portuguese (int)
Russian (int)
Swahili (int)
Tagalog (int)
Thai (int)
x 3104
Contact:

Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby leosmith » Sun May 28, 2023 5:46 pm

Cainntear wrote:
Sae wrote:I still use the term 'comprehensive input'

What do you mean when you say "comprehensible input"
He said "comprehensive input", which I assume means something like "all encompassing input" - like input that covers all topics.
1 x
https://languagecrush.com/reading - try our free multi-language reading tool

User avatar
Sae
Green Belt
Posts: 318
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2022 1:27 pm
Location: UK
Languages: English (Native)
Vietnamese (Intermediate)
Mongolian (Beginner)
Tuvan (Beginner)
Toki Pona (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18201
x 836

Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Sae » Sun May 28, 2023 6:15 pm

Cainntear wrote:
Sae wrote:I still use the term 'comprehensive input' and I'll continue to use it, even though I don't follow Krashen because I find it communicates what it is supposed to. Because as far as I see it, non-Krashenite methods still adopt a level of comprehensive input and I'm also generally of the view of taking ideas and concepts that work in your language learning rather than subscribing to a specific school of thought and not deviating from it. Which I know contradicts some of the things Krashen says.

What do you mean when you say "comprehensible input", though? Are you certain that other people mean the same thing as you?


I understand it to be input that is comprehensible. So something you can comprehend or understand and then it is implicit that you don't understand everything, because you're using it in the context of language learning, if you understood everything then you're not learning.

And I figure people would mean the same. Because we're already touching the walls of Krashen's input hypothesis, because his input hypothesis pretty much says learners improve a language when the input is slightly more advanced than what they know. And is pretty much what is implied by the term.

And it's from there and where we start getting into specifics that there's variation. Based on my understanding at least, but if you've come across those who might understand it differently, then I'll concede on that point.

I realise that makes it sound more like that I follow Krashen, but I know what his ideas are, just, I take ideas/concepts that I think work or aid my language learning, and to me comprehensible input is useful, just alongside other things. And I probably do things Krashen wouldn't agree.

leosmith wrote:
Cainntear wrote:
Sae wrote:I still use the term 'comprehensive input'

What do you mean when you say "comprehensible input"
He said "comprehensive input", which I assume means something like "all encompassing input" - like input that covers all topics.


I did mean "comprehensible input". I'm still recovering from being ill all week, maybe brain isn't going to work well, at least, that's the excuse I'm going to stick with. ;) I got use it whilst I still can, else it's back to accepting responsibility for what I type.

But, I would not object to comprehensive input either, as it'd broaded the topics you can talk about too, if you have interest in learning them, as I probably won't need input on nuclear physics in Vietnamese, but then I don't understand the topic in English. ;)
1 x
Vietnamese Practicing conversation
Mongolian: Learning vocab
Tuvan: Building Decks & full study plan
Tuvan Song Progress (0/3): Learning Daglarym - Lyrics & Melody Learned
Language Fitness 1.5 hr exercise p/w

Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3469
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
x 8662
Contact:

Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Cainntear » Sun May 28, 2023 10:00 pm

Sae wrote:
Cainntear wrote:What do you mean when you say "comprehensible input", though? Are you certain that other people mean the same thing as you?


I understand it to be input that is comprehensible. So something you can comprehend or understand and then it is implicit that you don't understand everything, because you're using it in the context of language learning, if you understood everything then you're not learning.

You defined it as meaning something. Full stop. Then you've clarified that you don't actually mean that, and you've alluded to Krashen's own definition.

And I figure people would mean the same.

Which results in blaming the learner for the failure.

Because we're already touching the walls of Krashen's input hypothesis, because his input hypothesis pretty much says learners improve a language when the input is slightly more advanced than what they know. And is pretty much what is implied by the term.[/quote]
It ignores the fact that people have different tolerance to uncertainty. Krashen's input hypothesis goes hard on the idea that if you understand enough, you*will* as a consequence intuit the meaning of words that you don't understand. But that ignores that people pick up words wrong all the time -- that's how languages change, after all. At some point in history, Iberians incorrectly picked up tenere as indicating possession. In Papua New Guinea, they misinterpreted "you two fellas" and mutated it into a pronoun "yutufala". Notably, this in both cases was likely due to a structural difference between the local native language and the incomer language.

Even if the input hypothesis is right, it's a practical impossibility to identify what texts including unknown language *will* result in the meaning of the unknown content being rendered transparent to the learner.

So think about this: if a teacher cannot reliably identify what counts as "comprehensible input", then a learner certainly can't. First up, how do you know it contains enough unknown language to be useful if you haven't actually read it yet? Secondly, once you have read it, how do you know that you haven't assumed an incorrect meaning for the unknown words? Not only can't you tell if it's CI before you read it, but you can't even be sure after you've read it without actually looking everything up in a dictionary or a grammar book.

Krashen's meaning of the term CI is essentially useless in practical terms, and you have essentially presented the term as meaning what he intended it to mean.
I realise that makes it sound more like that I follow Krashen, but I know what his ideas are, just, I take ideas/concepts that I think work or aid my language learning, and to me comprehensible input is useful, just alongside other things. And I probably do things Krashen wouldn't agree.

In what way is comprehensible input useful to you?
1 x

User avatar
leosmith
Brown Belt
Posts: 1341
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2016 10:06 pm
Location: Seattle
Languages: English (N)
Spanish (adv)
French (int)
German (int)
Japanese (int)
Korean (int)
Mandarin (int)
Portuguese (int)
Russian (int)
Swahili (int)
Tagalog (int)
Thai (int)
x 3104
Contact:

Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby leosmith » Sun May 28, 2023 10:28 pm

Sae wrote:I would not object to comprehensive input either, as it'd broaded the topics you can talk about too, if you have interest in learning them, as I probably won't need input on nuclear physics in Vietnamese, but then I don't understand the topic in English. ;)
I actually shoot for (somewhat) comprehensive comprehensible input when I design my sets of "100 conversations", so that's my excuse for the assumption :lol:
2 x
https://languagecrush.com/reading - try our free multi-language reading tool

Online
User avatar
tastyonions
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1576
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:39 pm
Location: Dallas, TX
Languages: EN (N), FR, ES, DE, IT, PT, NL, EL
x 3867

Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby tastyonions » Sun May 28, 2023 11:02 pm

Does Krashen exclude texts with glosses for unknown words from being “comprehensible input?” One way of making an “N+1” text (however defined) into “N” is just to give translations or definitions for anything the learner hasn’t already learned. Or does that not count because it’s no longer just “intuition” being used for comprehension?
0 x

User avatar
Sae
Green Belt
Posts: 318
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2022 1:27 pm
Location: UK
Languages: English (Native)
Vietnamese (Intermediate)
Mongolian (Beginner)
Tuvan (Beginner)
Toki Pona (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18201
x 836

Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Sae » Mon May 29, 2023 1:12 am

Cainntear wrote:
Sae wrote:
Cainntear wrote:What do you mean when you say "comprehensible input", though? Are you certain that other people mean the same thing as you?


I understand it to be input that is comprehensible. So something you can comprehend or understand and then it is implicit that you don't understand everything, because you're using it in the context of language learning, if you understood everything then you're not learning.

You defined it as meaning something. Full stop. Then you've clarified that you don't actually mean that, and you've alluded to Krashen's own definition.



I do actually mean it.

Breaking it down:

Comprehensible = To be understood, intelligble.
Input = what is taken in

I defined it as "input that is comprehensive" (though obviously meaning, comprehensible)
And something that you "comprehend".

That's pretty definite for meaning IMO.

Perhaps what's throwing this is the fact I include what is implied and later mention it touching the walls Krashen's hypothesis, but I think the point of it touching his hypothesis is because he was careful in his choice of words.

One the note of the implied meaning: me reading a book in English is also comprehensible. But I already know English, so I'm not learning anything. Likewise when I am reading Vietnamese I 100% understand word for word, I'm not learning anything. So if I am using the 2 words in the context of language learning, I figure it'd be implied that it is comprehensible input for the sake of learning. Which means, there's parts you don't know.


And I figure people would mean the same.

Which results in blaming the learner for the failure.


I don't follow. I'm only saying that I think people understand the same meaning. If somebody doesn't understand the same way, no blame here.

Maybe you mean Krashen's approaches results in blaming the learner for the failure?

Because we're already touching the walls of Krashen's input hypothesis, because his input hypothesis pretty much says learners improve a language when the input is slightly more advanced than what they know. And is pretty much what is implied by the term.



It ignores the fact that people have different tolerance to uncertainty. Krashen's input hypothesis goes hard on the idea that if you understand enough, you*will* as a consequence intuit the meaning of words that you don't understand. But that ignores that people pick up words wrong all the time -- that's how languages change, after all. At some point in history, Iberians incorrectly picked up tenere as indicating possession. In Papua New Guinea, they misinterpreted "you two fellas" and mutated it into a pronoun "yutufala". Notably, this in both cases was likely due to a structural difference between the local native language and the incomer language.

Even if the input hypothesis is right, it's a practical impossibility to identify what texts including unknown language *will* result in the meaning of the unknown content being rendered transparent to the learner.

So think about this: if a teacher cannot reliably identify what counts as "comprehensible input", then a learner certainly can't. First up, how do you know it contains enough unknown language to be useful if you haven't actually read it yet? Secondly, once you have read it, how do you know that you haven't assumed an incorrect meaning for the unknown words? Not only can't you tell if it's CI before you read it, but you can't even be sure after you've read it without actually looking everything up in a dictionary or a grammar book.

Krashen's meaning of the term CI is essentially useless in practical terms, and you have essentially presented the term as meaning what he intended it to mean.


This is more to do with Krashen's approach. I talk about comprehensive input being useful when it is complementary to something else. As I understood, the "comprehensive input hypothesis" part to Krashen's views on language acquisition was just that learners progress their knowledge when comprehensible input that is slightly more advanced than their own.

It is possible to apply that hypothesis differently. Hence my saying 'touching the walls' because my own approach doesn't follow Krashen beyond that and looking at some popular Krashenites, it is the same too.

For example, if you look at what Matt vs Japan helped put together with Refold. They suggest the idea of "priming", which is spending time getting familiar with words from a deck and some of the basic grammar. Not to memorise through spaced repetition but to be familiar enough that you might start to recognise it in something you're watching or listening to. And they also encourage 2 types of 'input', one is active ands the other is passive and it's in the active approach where you end up looking up words. As for example, you might be on YouTube and using something like Language Reactor or Migaku to mine from the subtitles and go through a video at your own pace. Whereas passive, is well, you don't do anything but have it playing.

Yes, this maybe does run in conflict to some of what Krashen has said, but it is also somebody who puts emphasis on comprehensive input and is a Krashenite. He seems to use some of the things he has said in a different way, and it would potentially help with the problem you're describing. And this doesn't change what is meant by "comprehensible input" either, unless your meaning is "inclusive of everything Krashen said". I know there is emphasis to try deter you away from word lookup or learning grammar, but even hearing both Matt and Olly talk on it, it sounds more to deter dependencies on it, but not to exclude it from their approaches.

I realise that makes it sound more like that I follow Krashen, but I know what his ideas are, just, I take ideas/concepts that I think work or aid my language learning, and to me comprehensible input is useful, just alongside other things. And I probably do things Krashen wouldn't agree.

In what way is comprehensible input useful to you?


I am not great at memorising vocabulary. The main thing is, I have to be engaged with whatever method I am using. I will still do my best to use things like spaced repetition, but I doesn't often stick and I find I do better with methods that are more engaging. This is one of the things that can end up engaging for me.

So in what way is it useful?
I have content I am engaging with that I am able to mostly or partially follow. And thus it is something my brain can engage with.
It is also relevant to one of the skills and I trying to build on with my Vietnamese and that's thinking more in a Vietnamese way. Because I end up experiencing how words are used, in what context and also find new ones along the way. And I'd still be able to look up words, it's maybe not pure to Krashen mind you. Conversation can offer this too, but this way can also mean you're focused when you're not having to think about your output. And it's easier to stop and think, to slow down etc.

I can get a clearer idea of the meaning of words I already know and how they are used, because sometimes the English translation of a word is our best approximation and not the exact meaning of the word. And the same with how sentences are formed, which was one of the challenges with the song I translated from Vietnamese into English, because I needed to understand the meaning not the translation, a direct translation is nonsense in English.

But 3 examples:
I learned "but" as "nhưng". One story used "nhưng mà" and I didn't know it was another way of saying it. Also found out "mà" is acceptable.
I learned "because" as "vì" but saw "Bởi vì", which means the same thing. And now I also know "bởi" is a way of saying 'by', and "by because" is just weird in English)
I learned "hẹn hò" (to date) from a paragraph I mostly understood. The sentence was "Họ muốn hẹn hò với anh ầy". And I understood, "They want [blank] with him". The surrounding context was an attractive guy who many women texted. Of course, here we have ambiguity and maybe if I was strict with Krashen's method, I'd have to see "hẹn hò" again in another scenario in a different context for it to be clearer (which correlates with my aforementioned complaint with Rosetta Stone). But it's already clear they're attracted to him, so what they want is going to be related to that, but obviously we don't know if it's sex or dating or whatever. However, I'm already thinking about the meaning and trying to figure it out that once I decide to look it up, now it sticks with me. Maybe not permanently, but obviously, I might hear the word again in a different context and go "Aha I know that word".

With the first two examples, they're variations of what I know that could throw me off in regular speech, because I might try to interpret the unfamiliar word and miss something else I need to pay attention to. I have heard "nhưng mà" since. And the second is how it can help with new words.
0 x
Vietnamese Practicing conversation
Mongolian: Learning vocab
Tuvan: Building Decks & full study plan
Tuvan Song Progress (0/3): Learning Daglarym - Lyrics & Melody Learned
Language Fitness 1.5 hr exercise p/w

Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3469
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
x 8662
Contact:

Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby Cainntear » Mon May 29, 2023 10:10 am

Sae wrote:
Cainntear wrote:
Sae wrote:
Cainntear wrote:What do you mean when you say "comprehensible input", though? Are you certain that other people mean the same thing as you?


I understand it to be input that is comprehensible. So something you can comprehend or understand and then it is implicit that you don't understand everything, because you're using it in the context of language learning, if you understood everything then you're not learning.

You defined it as meaning something. Full stop. Then you've clarified that you don't actually mean that, and you've alluded to Krashen's own definition.



I do actually mean it.

Breaking it down:

Comprehensible = To be understood, intelligble.
Input = what is taken in

I defined it as "input that is comprehensive" (though obviously meaning, comprehensible)
And something that you "comprehend".

That's pretty definite for meaning IMO.

Perhaps what's throwing this is the fact I include what is implied and later mention it touching the walls Krashen's hypothesis, but I think the point of it touching his hypothesis is because he was careful in his choice of words.

No, it is because your interpretation is highly literal and doesn't include any implications at all that you later go on to list as being implied by the definition.

One the note of the implied meaning: me reading a book in English is also comprehensible. But I already know English, so I'm not learning anything. Likewise when I am reading Vietnamese I 100% understand word for word, I'm not learning anything. So if I am using the 2 words in the context of language learning, I figure it'd be implied that it is comprehensible input for the sake of learning. Which means, there's parts you don't know.

But it's not implied. The term comprehensible input denotes a reified concept -- a "thing". It's a thing, so it's not dependant on context in most people's minds. When you say that material that acts as input and is understood is not "comprehensible input", that like using the term "person" and expecting people to realise you mean a person of a particular ethnicity and religion because it's "implied" by some feature of the context. "Comprehensible input" doesn't make any reference to the context, so you cannot presume that everyone is aware of the intended context. I


And I figure people would mean the same.

Which results in blaming the learner for the failure.


I don't follow. I'm only saying that I think people understand the same meaning. If somebody doesn't understand the same way, no blame here.

I wasn't saying that you were blaming, but that it results in blaming. What I should have said, though, was that it results in learners feeling blamed -- that's what I really meant. If you talk in a way that presumes you are understood, there are three groups of listeners: those that understand; those that misunderstand (i.e. think they've understood but haven't); and those the don't understand (and know they don't). The third group may well feel threatened by your implication that they should understand and experience a sense of "blame". The second group may well start to realise that they're in the third group when discussion focuses on what you actually mean, and then you've got the worse problem of "ego-defence" when they refuse to accept the actual meaning and start to defend their misunderstanding. I believe I've seen exactly this happening on this very forum, and I'm absolutely certain I've seen it on various places across the internet.

Maybe you mean Krashen's approaches results in blaming the learner for the failure?

Well it does quite explicitly ("they didn't learn because their affective filters were raised", "they didn't learn because then looked up dictionaries which they shouldn't have done") but again, I want to stress that your post would be taken as a blame by a learner who did not make the same assumptions and implications that you did and that you are implying that any right-minded person would. [Note my deliberate use of the word "imply" to underline the subjectivity of implications and how people's perceptions differ. You might well have taken it as accusation and blame. That was the goal of my demonstration.]

Because we're already touching the walls of Krashen's input hypothesis, because his input hypothesis pretty much says learners improve a language when the input is slightly more advanced than what they know. And is pretty much what is implied by the term.

So you're using the term in a way that purely aligns with Krashen's input hypothesis, and "even though [you] don't follow Krashen[/quote]. The notion of comprehensible input that Krashen puts forth is that we *only* learn by understanding stuff that we don't understand. What's missing from Krashen's stuff is the idea of automisation. We can strengthen and speed up our reactions if we work at it explicitly.

One of the biggest problems I have with Krashen's input hypothesis is that it says that if I can understand all of the language, it's not "n+1 comprehensible input", and it ignores the length of time it takes me to process it. If I can read something slowly and understand 100% of the language in it, the fact that I have to read it slowly means that reading it does indeed result in learning, as is evidenced when I'm able to read the next thing quicker.

[snip]
it's a practical impossibility to identify what texts including unknown language *will* result in the meaning of the unknown content being rendered transparent to the learner.

So think about this: if a teacher cannot reliably identify what counts as "comprehensible input", then a learner certainly can't. First up, how do you know it contains enough unknown language to be useful if you haven't actually read it yet? Secondly, once you have read it, how do you know that you haven't assumed an incorrect meaning for the unknown words? Not only can't you tell if it's CI before you read it, but you can't even be sure after you've read it without actually looking everything up in a dictionary or a grammar book.

Krashen's meaning of the term CI is essentially useless in practical terms, and you have essentially presented the term as meaning what he intended it to mean.


This is more to do with Krashen's approach.

No, it's about Krashen's term CI, which agrees with your usage.
I talk about comprehensive input being useful when it is complementary to something else. As I understood, the "comprehensive input hypothesis" part to Krashen's views on language acquisition was just that learners progress their knowledge when comprehensible input that is slightly more advanced than their own.

Yes. He says you can understand 100% of the meaning without understanding 100% of the language. Comprehensible input is anything where you don't understand 100% of the language but do understand 100% of the meaning. I am arguing that this is an unmeasurable concept. I cannot reliably identify whether any given student of mine will understand 100% of the meaning of a given text -- I simply cannot. And I definitely cannot identify if a foreign book is "comprehensible" to me without first attempting to read the whole thing to see if I do, in fact, comprehend it. So even if "comprehensible input" is effective, it cannot be part of a strategy.

It is possible to apply that hypothesis differently. Hence my saying 'touching the walls' because my own approach doesn't follow Krashen beyond that and looking at some popular Krashenites, it is the same too.

...which brings me back to the fact that the term CI was invented by Krashen to assert ownership over something which teachers were already doing: giving out reading material "at the students' level" or "appropriate to the students' level". When I've said this before I've had people insisting that it's actually "slighty above the students' level" because the level is "n" and the CI is "n+1", so Krashen has been very successful in placing the idea that what everybody did before him was wrong and too simple, when in reality good teachers would do the right thing and make it just the right level of difficulty.

For example, if you look at what Matt vs Japan helped put together with Refold. They suggest the idea of "priming", which is spending time getting familiar with words from a deck and some of the basic grammar. Not to memorise through spaced repetition but to be familiar enough that you might start to recognise it in something you're watching or listening to. And they also encourage 2 types of 'input', one is active ands the other is passive and it's in the active approach where you end up looking up words. As for example, you might be on YouTube and using something like Language Reactor or Migaku to mine from the subtitles and go through a video at your own pace. Whereas passive, is well, you don't do anything but have it playing.

Yes, this maybe does run in conflict to some of what Krashen has said, but it is also somebody who puts emphasis on comprehensive input and is a Krashenite.

It's someone who calls himself a Krashenite. I find it really helps identify pseudoscience when people who have a fundamental disagreement with the core philosophy still name themselves as following it.

How is "refold" different from the much-maligned grammar translation method?

Kids learning Latin and Greek in schools for centuries would be drilled in the words and grammar that they would need in order to understand the end-of-unit passage from a classical text. Is that not priming? If the difference is only that the learner doesn't deliver a translation of the passage at the end of the lesson, that's not a real difference, IMO. In grammar translation, the actual translation gives the teacher a way to verify student understanding. Badly done, it becomes mechanical, but well done, it leads to good acquisition. My father learned French by grammar-translation, and he can hold fairly good conversations in French, because he didn't do it mechanically. He believes that his French is proof that the old ways were better. IMO, this is a case of "well it worked for me" and a failure to recognise "it worked because I didn't do what I was asked" -- and as far as I can see, everything that works typically works because the learner doesn't strictly follow the instructions given (maybe to a lesser extent with Michel Thomas, but it's still true of MT).

He seems to use some of the things he has said in a different way, and it would potentially help with the problem you're describing. And this doesn't change what is meant by "comprehensible input" either, unless your meaning is "inclusive of everything Krashen said".

As above, Krashen defined CI as anything inherently 100% understanding of meaning despite <100% understanding of language. If you have to study grammar to get it, that's not CI by Krashen's definition. So what definition is it CI under? Does it differ from how teaching has occurred for millennia? If not, why does the chang of terminology follow Krashen?
I know there is emphasis to try deter you away from word lookup or learning grammar, but even hearing both Matt and Olly talk on it, it sounds more to deter dependencies on it, but not to exclude it from their approaches.

The key defining factor of "comprehensible input" is that the input should be *inherently* comprehensible.

I am not great at memorising vocabulary. The main thing is, I have to be engaged with whatever method I am using. I will still do my best to use things like spaced repetition, but I doesn't often stick and I find I do better with methods that are more engaging. This is one of the things that can end up engaging for me.

So in what way is it useful?
I have content I am engaging with that I am able to mostly or partially follow. And thus it is something my brain can engage with.

Then I argue that you're focusing on the wrong thing. What you are describing is quite simply that language divorced from meaning is meaningless and pointless. I would agree. Memorising vocabulary is pretty pointless because isolating words divorces them from meaning. Those who do well with memorisation do, I believe, mentally pull up other things -- examples, commone collocations/phrases, related terms -- in order to add to the meaning as they do the memorisation. I certainly did, and I drastically reduced the amount of memorisation I did because I released how little point there was to it.

Learning lists means memorising words you don't really have anything to associate with -- looking up words when you need them means you have a good degree of associations to a very concrete context, and that helps.

But I ask: how long has it taken us to get to the heart of the matter -- the notion that language can't be learned divorced from thinking about meaning?

Because as I see it, it was the lack of discussion of this deep point that leads to the "Krashen vs mainstream" opposition. It's at the heart of Krashen's thinking, but he leapt to the conclusion that meaningless learning was inherent to traditional teaching and he declared that "his way" was the only cure. If he had made a distinction between the problem and the proposed solution, he could have moved the whole sphere further forward. Or actually no, he probably couldn't, because it wouldn't have been an attention-grabbing, "sexy" claim. Because... guess what...? Lots of people talk about it but don't get attention, which means that it isn't even talked about by most teachers.
Last edited by Cainntear on Mon May 29, 2023 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
0 x

User avatar
luke
Brown Belt
Posts: 1243
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:09 pm
Languages: English (N). Spanish (intermediate), Esperanto (B1), French (intermediate but rusting)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16948
x 3631

Re: Krashen and "Krashenite"

Postby luke » Mon May 29, 2023 10:24 am

I was watching a video about Gen Z lingo. One of the "words" was iykyk. (if you know you know).

It made me wonder if hwotb exists. Perhaps it would be phonetically complex to pronounce.
Image
3 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: CarlyD, tastyonions and 2 guests