An alternative take on Krashen

[Cainntear]

But that's not how the brain works, and we increasingly know it. The "critical period hypothesis" was controversial because it basically said that you couldn't master a language after a certain point in your life, and there were plenty of people who stood as counter-evidence, but people took it, evolved and built on it, and morphed itinto something more useful -- the critical period isn't about language acquisition in general, but about native language acquisition.

What is the current status of the "critical period" hypothesis? I last looked at it 10 years ago, and back then, my understanding was that:

1. There was extremely clear evidence of critical period for accents, which started closing around 6 and was closed for virtually everyone by 12.
2. There were small but convincing differences between native and near-native performance with certain kinds of grammar rules. For example, even very strong non-native speakers of French with decades of practice tended to make a tiny number of gender agreement errors that didn't appear in native speech. This only seemed to apply to certain types of grammar rules, as far as I could tell.
3. For most other aspects of language, there was no clear evidence of a critical period.

Have there been any new developments in critical period research in the last 10 years?

I last looked at it nearly as long ago, and at the time it was being presented kind of as a historical progression, going from an "everything" hypothesis to a more nuanced thing, and the sorts of things you mention are basically where critical period thought ended.

I seem to remember it being presented to us as general expectation of limits without specific intervention, and the thinking was that it had been incorrectly held as describing had limits with the notion that there was no point in trying to do better, cos you couldn't. I think it was being thought of as almost "control conditions" -- that research into teaching should be overcoming these limits, because otherwise you weren't proving your teaching technique was better than everything else.

Personally, I know a number of non-native speakers who moved to the US as post-docs in their mid-20s. In the case I know the best, they had maybe B2 conversational skills when they moved here, with frequent errors and odd word choice. Today, after decades of using English professionally, they have near-native English with vanishingly rare errors. And I know that they didn't do any English study during that time period—this improvement was organic. Near-native speakers often seem to be created by a process that looks a lot like childhood language acquisition. And it works best for voracious readers.

I hightlighted the post-docs bit, because they are clearly exceptional outliers whose brains are always active. Can we prove anything as generally true by looking at outliers? I would say something I heard in general school teaching: many teachers justifying themselves by looking at the success of the top of the class, but the top of the class are going to succeed whatever the teacher does and the bottom of the class are going to struggle whatever the teacher does; the only really valid measure is the average pupils -- the 33% that are neither top third or bottom third -- because they're the ones whose success depends on the teacher.

I imagine most post-docs are people who never truly needed a teacher, so the fact that they achieve great things without a teacher doesn't say much about the average learner.

Also—and this is clearly subjective—I do a bunch of things in colloquial French that I never learned "declaratively" and that I've never really tried to explain. I know how it should sound, and saying it differently sounds a bit weird. My judgement isn't nearly as good as a native speaker's, of course. (They have the advantage of a few hundred million words more input, plus most of them spent 13-20 years in school, and that actually counts for a lot!) But I do have procedural knowledge of French that I can't necessarily explain declaratively.

But that goes back to my point that there is always a mixture of things we learned declaratively and things we just picked up, because I was trying to say that the existence of things we were never told doesn't necessarily say that the act of telling us declarative rules is pointless.

Personally, I know I've had things that I never learned declaratively, and I guessed at them... but I very often guessed right.

To me, that implied that there was some kind of fundamental structure to languages that was tantalisingly just out of reach. Like, if it does X and Y with structure A, it will almost certainly do Z with A too.

This whole structure is next-to-impossible to describe, but it seems to me that what I'd built already implied the rest of it.

If I had make a guess, I'd say that second language learning from B2 through near-native levels is actually very similar to first language learning. It's not identical—even C1 students can benefit from explicit nudges about grammar—but I think the large majority of knowledge at those levels is often acquired as procedural knowledge

Language is said to be closely tied in to mirror neurons, so we would appear to understand language by a system of reconstructing the utterance and trying to experience what mental impulses would have caused us to say it.

Kids understand adults despite not having the same model as them, and they develop the model as they go, through understanding (Krashen's starting point).

Adults, however, understand each other despite not having the same model, but understanding does very little to change their model -- a Scotswoman who moves to Australia might start changing accent and phraseology around th edges, but will always talk in a noticeably Scottish way.

I.e. infants while speaking their native language are learning, but adults aren't.

To me, it seems likely that a "partially acquired" language model could fall into the trap of being effectively the speakers "own dialect", and then they can learn to understand "other dialects" without modifying their own.

I also think that it's possible to rely heavily on input even at lower levels, if someone is sufficiently determined to do so, and if they have some way to make input artificially comprehensible. But this may vary a lot between individuals. Some people have a good eye and ear for patterns. Even if they never try to explain those patterns in detail, they at least notice something interesting is happening. (The "noticing" hypothesis.)

Agreed. Possible, but not easy, and not optimal.

[Granrey]

Something I have noticed as of recent is that Krashen theories are not use at full extend.

For instance, as personal experience I have noticed that I'm way more likely to identify the words being used in the target language if I already know before hand the message they're trying to convey but if I don't know this message before hand, the words sounds like "noise" that I cannot comprehend/identify.

It seems to me like those rare occasions in which someone tells you something that you did not expect and you asked them to repeat as you did not understand it (as you did not expect it).


Saying that, I've been listening to some podcast and they tend to translate of explain things after the fact. I think this is wrong and they should explain things in your language before they are said in the target language to make sure they are "comprehensible". if you do it after the fact, you are not using compressible imput.

Obviously, it would be great if you could comprehend things as they are said. That's why I think hearing things in your language and close captioning in target language is the best at the beginning as it does not require too much brain power.

[orlandohill]

I also find it easier to learn from L2 sentences if I hear or read the translation in L1 beforehand, rather than afterwards. I don't mind hearing a lesson's dialogue in L2 at the beginning of the lesson, but that's more like a preview. It also serves as a motivation tool, because it shows you how little you understand before the lesson, and by the end of the lesson you can see your improvement when you listen to the dialogue again.

The concept of understanding the meaning as you hear the message is central to the core technique of L-R.

Obviously, it would be great if you could comprehend things as they are said. That's why I think hearing things in your language and close captioning in target language is the best at the beginning as it does not require too much brain power.

If you haven't already, try reading in your native language while listening to the same text in your target language. It might take more brain power, but you'll get to hear the text spoken by a native speaker, instead of reinforcing your own subvocalised mistakes.

[Iversen]

If I had make a guess, I'd say that second language learning from B2 through near-native levels is actually very similar to first language learning. It's not identical—even C1 students can benefit from explicit nudges about grammar—but I think the large majority of knowledge at those levels is often acquired as procedural knowledge
I also think that it's possible to rely heavily on input even at lower levels, if someone is sufficiently determined to do so, and if they have some way to make input artificially comprehensible. But this may vary a lot between individuals. Some people have a good eye and ear for patterns. Even if they never try to explain those patterns in detail, they at least notice something interesting is happening. (The "noticing" hypothesis.)

Once you have reached the lower end of the advanced level in your active use of a language you should also have internalized the grammatical skeleton of that language, and then it is natural that the things you still have to learn will be more fragmented and heterogeneous - and then it's likely that your will learn those things from other sources than classical grammars. Even though EMK's leviathan of a grammar may contain just about everything you might want to know about the English language it must be hard to find anything specific in it, and it must be cumbersome even to lift and read such a behemoth. And smaller grammars are bound to be more schematic and leave out a lot of things.

So other learning mechanisms may be relevant for advanced learners than for beginners and even mediocre learners. One possible source that still might be relevant for advanced learners could be short essays about special constructions - like for instance the two "Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod" books which I have got for German: they point out things I must have met lots of times, but didn't see as patterns. Or you could read one chapter in a comprehensive grammar just for fun. But advanced learners are probably less likely to read grammars than those who still feel the earth burning under their feet. The solace comes from the fact that an advanced learner ought to be better suited to notice patterns from ordinary input than a beginner who hasn't got the same background knowledge.

At the other end of the scale things look less promising: the chances that a beginner can pick up a whole language just from comprehensible input are slim (and picking it up from incomprehensible input even more so). So if babies seem to pull off the trick you can be sure that they have surroundings where they only meet very simple utterances in situations that effectively make those utterances conprehensible (Like "shut up" said by an angry parent). And for adults it must take a gigantic sheer tsunami of comprehensible input plus the right kind of curious mindset to let the mind pick out the patterns which they could have learn in a short time if they just had got the solutions served on a silver platter. But it's not impossible, given suitable surroundings (read immersion without other expats around to disturb you) plus a burning need.

I used the word "active" above for a reason: you can become an advanced passive learner much faster and with less help than you can become an active one (beyond the "bonjour" level). I can read things like Frisian and Galego and Faroese because I know some related languages, and because I have tried to do so repeatedly. But I simply dont know those languages well enough to form a mental image of their inner workings in my head. Actually I can't even keep the Danish dialects separate in my head, even though I can think in travesties of them. In other words: assessing your level solely from passive skills will effectively be the same thing as seriously overestimating it.

[emk]

Even though EMK's leviathan of a grammar may contain just about everything you might want to know about the English language it must be hard to find anything specific in it, and it must be cumbersome even to lift and read such a behemoth.

My copy of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is best appreciated when laid flat on a table. The binding is well done, and the book will lay open to virtually any page without protest. There are multiple indices, for both concepts and lexical items, and the chapters are well organized.

I still do find myself wanting to digest entire chapters as a chunk, because some of their classifications are non-standard. For example, consider these two phrases:

1. "I only ask that you be on time."
2. "If I were president, I'm sure that I would be busy."

As I understand it, many ESL teachers refer to (1) as the "present subjunctive" and (2) as the "past subjunctive." The CGEL, if I recall correctly, treats (1) as a true subjunctive, and a direct analog of the Romance subjunctive forms. It classifies (2) separately, as an irrealis form. (Or so I remember.) And there's a logic here: the two forms are structurally different, and they're definitely not the present and past tense of a single construction.

So if I'm curious about specific word, I can start with the lexical index. And the chapters are well organized, each with its own table of contents. But the chapter organization is occasionally surprising, especially when things are classified in a slightly unusual way.

The book is most useful as a collection of linguistic oddities, all neatly organized. And English grammar contains all sorts of fascinating details, if you dig in deep enough. And one of the nicer aspects of the book is that everything in it is accessible to someone who understands basic grammar and who takes the time to follow the arguments.

The price, however, was quite steep. It was a significant gift from someone who knew me too well.

But on a practical level, most everyone here on the forum already knows most of what's in this book. But they know most of it as "procedural" knowledge. Which is Krashen's basic point: native speakers and advanced students posses a wealth of knowledge that nobody ever officially taught them. This is most true of languages that people have used heavily for decades in their life and their work.

At lower levels of mastery, sheer exposure still helps enormously. I know many people who have struggled with French grammar, complaining that "even the exceptions have exceptions!" But I usually found the same rules easy and obvious, because I'd heard them in action so many times that they simply sounded natural. "Of course you say things that way! That's the way people always say it. Anything else would sound odd."

When the rhythm and the structure of the language have been pounded into my head like an annoying pop song, then grammar becomes much easier.

[orlandohill]

By the looks of it, the authors have written an abbreviated version of the same book. It's a more manageable 418 pages, compared to the original's 1860 pages.

Here's the blurb from A Student's Introduction to English Grammar, Second Edition.

A new edition of a successful undergraduate textbook on contemporary international Standard English grammar, based on Huddleston and Pullum's earlier award-winning work, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2002). The analyses defended there are outlined here more briefly, in an engagingly accessible and informal style. Errors of the older tradition of English grammar are noted and corrected, and the excesses of prescriptive usage manuals are firmly rebutted in specially highlighted notes that explain what older authorities have called 'incorrect' and show why those authorities are mistaken. Intended for students in colleges or universities who have little or no background in grammar or linguistics, this teaching resource contains numerous exercises and online resources suitable for any course on the structure of English in either linguistics or English departments. A thoroughly modern undergraduate textbook, rewritten in an easy-to-read conversational style with a minimum of technical and theoretical terminology.

[Iversen]

The dictum "That's the way people always say it" presupposes "a gigantic sheer tsunami of comprehensible input" as I called it - at least if you need to learn by repetition alone. But of course it can be done. It is just hard to do so, and it takes time and effort (and the total absence of contact with compatriots).

I must congratulate EMK with his behemoth grammar if it is so practical as he states. I own one English grammar, Otto Jespersen's Essentials from the days of yore when therapsids and the predecessors of dinosaurs roamed the streets, and besides I have a couple of books with idioms and things like that plus one book about prepositional constructions. But I hardly ever use them - I know enough to be able to learn from my input, and I use the English language often enough to know when I'm on thin ice and have to look something up. I do however use my dictionaries. And I read books and articles about grammar.

Not so even with my next best languages like French and German. Here I can still benefit from a peek in a standard grammar. The thickest one I have got is an old edition of Grevisse's Bon Usage (in French) from my study years. I know that it's schewed towards literary usage, and if I used it as an inspiration I would up writing like a bad copy of Gide ou Maurras - but unfortunately I don't have a similarly compehensive grammar for spoken French. This is less of a problem with German, but even here I learn a lot from watching TV. And I have to speak those languages inside my head to be receptive to things in my input that might deserve to be picked up.

The further down we go on my personal skill list the more essential my grammars become. Ok, I don't own a grammar for Afrikaans (just a blue TY), but that language has even less morphology than English (or Danish). But just thinking about learning for instance a Slavic language without the neat morphological tables in a grammar would be an absurd thought for me. I would have to be submerged in a suitable environment with lots of comprehensible input (including bilingual stuff) to even contemplate that situation - and then I would still ask for a dictionary and a grammar to help me out.

[Cainntear]

I still do find myself wanting to digest entire chapters as a chunk, because some of their classifications are non-standard. For example, consider these two phrases:

1. "I only ask that you be on time."
2. "If I were president, I'm sure that I would be busy."

As I understand it, many ESL teachers refer to (1) as the "present subjunctive" and (2) as the "past subjunctive." The CGEL, if I recall correctly, treats (1) as a true subjunctive, and a direct analog of the Romance subjunctive forms. It classifies (2) separately, as an irrealis form. (Or so I remember.) And there's a logic here: the two forms are structurally different, and they're definitely not the present and past tense of a single construction.

Yep, all good.

I'll note there's another term that's more common in other settings: "hypothetical past", but I don't know if it's commonly applyied to this sort of thing. We tend to use that in so-called conditional sentences and note that here we're not talking about the conditional mood. If I had been there I would have seen him. Irrealis traditionally, but described more now as "hypothetical past". There's also the past as hypothetical or impossible present: if I were from Essex, I would have a non-rhotic accent. Note here that I'm deliberately using the irrealis "I were", because I would probably say that if I was from Essex, but in my own English, I don't use subjunctive/irrealis.

The reason for the blend of terms is that English has been losing its subjunctive for generations, and the forms in question are survivals of the subjunctive in earlier forms of English, but because they're not used in most of the situations where a language like Latin would use a subjunctive, calling them that isn't particularly useful -- the subjunctive is a term describing the structural grammar -- the subjunctive is used in subordinate clauses; in other words it's used after a subordinating conjunction. That is a technically incorrect description, because we often use standard declaratives after subordinating conjunctions -- we only use the former "subjunctive" in situations with very specific purposes.

The book is most useful as a collection of linguistic oddities, all neatly organized. And English grammar contains all sorts of fascinating details, if you dig in deep enough. And one of the nicer aspects of the book is that everything in it is accessible to someone who understands basic grammar and who takes the time to follow the arguments.

The price, however, was quite steep. It was a significant gift from someone who knew me too well.

But on a practical level, most everyone here on the forum already knows most of what's in this book. But they know most of it as "procedural" knowledge. Which is Krashen's basic point: native speakers and advanced students posses a wealth of knowledge that nobody ever officially taught them. This is most true of languages that people have used heavily for decades in their life and their work.

At lower levels of mastery, sheer exposure still helps enormously. I know many people who have struggled with French grammar, complaining that "even the exceptions have exceptions!" But I usually found the same rules easy and obvious, because I'd heard them in action so many times that they simply sounded natural. "Of course you say things that way! That's the way people always say it. Anything else would sound odd."

Yes. I know people don't need to know as much about grammar as I do, and I don't recommend anyone goes into as much detail for the sole purpose of learning a language. I think Krashen takes that too far, though, and I get that you aren't agreeing with him here.

I also want to make it clear that I am not saying that Krashen's notions don't work for anybody, just that they don't work for everybody, and instead only work for a minority. When Krashen says his way is the only way, he's basically saying that peope who can't learn his way can't learn at all.

Anyway, let's look atother types of education that train physical behaviours, like learning musical instruments, or even dancing. Teachers give explicit instruction that is not logically complete, and the student is left to fill in the gaps. Sometimes the instructions are actually technically wrong but still lead to the intended outcome; eg. in karate, kata is often taught as true form, but it's an exaggerated form which no-one actually does in a full fight. In the karate classes my brother took, the role of kata was stated explicitly as training your muscles to do what was an idealised, exaggerated form of the motion, so that it would naturally do a reduced form of the move in real use.

I'd actually turned up once or twice to them, and I think that made a very deep impression on me. I have always worked early on to create "idealised" forms of a phoneme, and looking at my early pronunciation as similar kata: I always overpronounce when I'm acting slowly and deliberately, and I trust my body and brain to just make less and less of an effort and just doing whatever naturally makes it easier.

That's one of the things that makes me most fundamentally opposed to Krashen's CI: if you hear a Spanish person say "cansado", you may well not identify that's a /d/ phoneme, because the speaker uses an allophone that sounds more like the English /ð/ phoneme that its /d/ phoneme. I started by saying the pan-Spanish [d] everywhere, then let it relax into [ð] over time. Learning with Krashen's principles means not forming a good phoneme map early, and relies on you making the changes later. And if people could change phoneme maps from input only, we'd all find ourselves switching accent within a year of moving into a different dialect area.

When the rhythm and the structure of the language have been pounded into my head like an annoying pop song, then grammar becomes much easier.

I think that what you're talking about is looking at poorly optimised grammatical explanations. Grammar targeted at learners should always be fairly easy to understand.

[Cainntear]

The dictum "That's the way people always say it" presupposes "a gigantic sheer tsunami of comprehensible input" as I called it - at least if you need to learn by repetition alone. But of course it can be done. It is just hard to do so, and it takes time and effort (and the total absence of contact with compatriots).

Yup. Krashen's theories might work for some, but not many. The amount of stuff you have to let into your head can be overwhelming. People who are not overwhelmed by it are a minority. Comprehending language also means adapting it to fit your expected patterns. As such comprehensible input may be received in accurate grammatical form but perceived erroneously.
It takes a very special kind of brain not to do this -- basically you need an edetic memory so precise that it remembers things that make no sense to it.

[Granrey]

I also find it easier to learn from L2 sentences if I hear or read the translation in L1 beforehand, rather than afterwards. I don't mind hearing a lesson's dialogue in L2 at the beginning of the lesson, but that's more like a preview. It also serves as a motivation tool, because it shows you how little you understand before the lesson, and by the end of the lesson you can see your improvement when you listen to the dialogue again.

The concept of understanding the meaning as you hear the message is central to the core technique of L-R.

Obviously, it would be great if you could comprehend things as they are said. That's why I think hearing things in your language and close captioning in target language is the best at the beginning as it does not require too much brain power.

If you haven't already, try reading in your native language while listening to the same text in your target language. It might take more brain power, but you'll get to hear the text spoken by a native speaker, instead of reinforcing your own subvocalised mistakes.

Yes Im doing that with dubbed materials (native french speakers are still too challenging for me). The challenge with that its that you might not recognize the real word used or the spelling of a new one.

Im also using lingopie with double captioning.