emk wrote:zenmonkey wrote:I don't think that with Krashen it is a question of hardness. If you understand and it is above your current knowledge base - if it is somehow contextualized then it is i+1.if a learner is at a stage 'i', then acquisition takes place when he/she is exposed to 'Comprehensible Input' that belongs to level 'i + 1'. We can then define 'Comprehensible Input' as the target language that the learner would not be able to produce but can still understand. It goes beyond the choice of words and involves presentation of context, explanation, rewording of unclear parts, the use of visual cues and meaning negotiation. The meaning successfully conveyed constitutes the learning experience.
Yes. The key insight that I tried to convey in "Cheating and Consolidating" was that this Krashen quote, as far as I can tell, describes a language-learning loophole big enough to drive a truck through. If the meaning is conveyed, and if you understand what you hear, it's good enough.
Agree - it reads quite as a n obvious statement or as the French say, he spends time to enfoncer des portes ouvertes.
If you add a little material and you learn it, then you learn it. duh. It's descriptive at a very basic level but accurate. Yet essentially useless.
Once you can decipher the meaning, all you need to do is add sheer volume. That volume can come from lots of places: repeating Assimil lessons, doing more lessons, watching another episode, reviewing SRS sentence&audio cards, or picking up another book.
- Do you only understand the movie because you turned in into earworms one line at time using sub2srs and bilingual subs? No problem.
- Do you only understand the book because you've read it twenty times in English? It's going to work anyway.
- Do you only understand the graphic novel because it has pictures? That's still totally legit.
- Do you only understand the lecture because it's about one of your favorite subjects? Again, no problem.
Or to put it another way, at B1, don't worry about using the "right" materials in the "right" way. Optimize for understanding (even if it's mostly artificial) and fun (so that you keep doing it and get consolidation). Then mix in bits of whatever else seems helpful: a grammar book, or some vocab study, or whatever. And if you want to produce output, then put yourself in situations where you need to communicate, and hang in there until some of that passive understanding activates.
I'd say that it is useful to optimize for (1) understanding, (2) fun and (3) volume of newness. It isn't sufficient that it's fun and easy to understand - ideally you want to do it a way that brings a maximum of new content. It becomes a challenge of balancing that out - often volume isn't that much fun for someone. I am able to do systematic frequency lists (I find advancing through them 'fun') but often verbs and adjectives are poorly contextualized in this manner. Fun, lots of volume but not enough contextualizing.