Confusion about Comprehensible Input

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samfrances
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Confusion about Comprehensible Input

Postby samfrances » Sat Oct 03, 2020 6:00 am

Hi

I was recently listening to this interview with Stephen Krashen:



In the passage from around 17:24 onwards, he seems to suggest that looking up words in a dictionary when reading is contrary to the principle of Comprehensible Input. I always assumed that looking up words was just a way of making the input comprehensible - once you understand the words (assuming the grammar isn't also out of reach) then its comprehensible to you. But this suggests I was wrong. Is anybody able to clarify?
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Re: Confusion about Comprehensible Input

Postby DaveAgain » Sat Oct 03, 2020 6:25 am

samfrances wrote:Hi

I was recently listening to this interview with Stephen Krashen:

In the passage from around 17:24 onwards, he seems to suggest that looking up words in a dictionary when reading is contrary to the principle of Comprehensible Input. I always assumed that looking up words was just a way of making the input comprehensible - once you understand the words (assuming the grammar isn't also out of reach) then its comprehensible to you. But this suggests I was wrong. Is anybody able to clarify?
I think what he's saying there is that if you need to look up every single word then the input you're using is too difficult, you need something simpler. You need input you can become involved in, so that you are focusing on the message, the whole, rather than a constant stop-start focus on fragments.

But he also mentions being at a polyglot conference in Montreal (langfest?) and listening to the different strategies used by different people. He's not Moses.

EDIT
earlier in the video (5-6 minutes) he advocates a story telling method that includes translation and explanation, so looking up words is not verboten in Mr Krashen's eyes.
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Re: Confusion about Comprehensible Input

Postby samfrances » Sat Oct 03, 2020 12:44 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
samfrances wrote:Hi

I was recently listening to this interview with Stephen Krashen:

In the passage from around 17:24 onwards, he seems to suggest that looking up words in a dictionary when reading is contrary to the principle of Comprehensible Input. I always assumed that looking up words was just a way of making the input comprehensible - once you understand the words (assuming the grammar isn't also out of reach) then its comprehensible to you. But this suggests I was wrong. Is anybody able to clarify?
I think what he's saying there is that if you need to look up every single word then the input you're using is too difficult, you need something simpler. You need input you can become involved in, so that you are focusing on the message, the whole, rather than a constant stop-start focus on fragments.

But he also mentions being at a polyglot conference in Montreal (langfest?) and listening to the different strategies used by different people. He's not Moses.

EDIT
earlier in the video (5-6 minutes) he advocates a story telling method that includes translation and explanation, so looking up words is not verboten in Mr Krashen's eyes.


Thanks DaveAgain. Sure, I'm not treating Krashen as an absolute authority, but I do at least like to know what a particular theory does or does not entail.
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Re: Confusion about Comprehensible Input

Postby Cainntear » Sun Oct 04, 2020 1:22 pm

DaveAgain wrote:I think what he's saying there is that if you need to look up every single word then the input you're using is too difficult, you need something simpler.

I don't think he is at all. A core point of his CI hypothesis (dogma?) is that you "acquire" words by understanding them, which comes from context. He has been constant and consistent in his claim that reference books do not help you "acquire" language.
EDIT
earlier in the video (5-6 minutes) he advocates a story telling method that includes translation and explanation, so looking up words is not verboten in Mr Krashen's eyes.

In which case his message is completely garbled, and it's no wonder everyone's confused what he's saying.
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Re: Confusion about Comprehensible Input

Postby Kraut » Sun Oct 04, 2020 2:52 pm

Krashen has had decades to explain his method in detail, instead he is cracking jokes most of the time in his lectures. And exposing oneself to a lot of good input to consolidate is banal.
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Re: Confusion about Comprehensible Input

Postby Iversen » Mon Oct 05, 2020 10:03 am

Krashen's claim that you only can learn languages by acquiring them, ie. from exposure to comprehensible texts, is just silly and in spite of scattered references to his own experiences there is not a shred of a proof for it. So this already makes it less important whether he accepts dictionary lookups or not. Nevertheless I do find the notion of comprehensible texts (at level i+1) extremely important, and I have wholeheartedly adopted Krashen's term for it as an important part of pedagogical nomenclature.

For me the simple solution is to define a comprehensible i+1 text (in the broad sense) as something you almost can understand and then stop quibbling about which methods you use to solve the +1 part. To elucidate the method problem it may be worth reminding people about the distinction between intensive and extensive activities.

Intensive activities are those where you try to squeeze every last drop of information out of an item even if that means that you have to consult a bilingual dictionary or a grammar in your own language. Plus those where you simply harvest information from such sources. When you do intensive activities you can take all the time you need and use whatever source of information you fancy, so it's OK to work with i+2 or even i+3 texts ... but doing i+27 is probably contraproductive because it makes you loose heart.

Extensive activities are those where you use your stock of knowledge to get you through texts and films and conversations and god knows what with as little use of other languages than the target one as possible - and that means dealing with comprehensible input (or even easier stuff). Here the goal is to train your ability as a comprehension/production bulldozer without actually expecting you to learn more words or expressions - but fine if you do pick up something relevant along the way.

And here is the formula: if your lookups in dictionaries or translations during extensive activities are so few that they don't block your attempts to behave like a bulldozer then they are harmless - Krashen or no Krashen. If you do intensive activities then Krashen is irrelevant.
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Re: Confusion about Comprehensible Input

Postby Kamlari » Fri Oct 09, 2020 11:04 am

Can a long text in an unknown language be fully +1?
And the +1 fully comprehensible. Of course it can.

Examples:
014 Latin Interlinear Texts - a forgotten route to language learning.avi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnEKnezLXJg

Examples of authentic texts for zero beginners. English, French, German for speakers of Polish.
https://i.postimg.cc/CxZnSFVb/Le-Petit-Prince.jpg
Image
https://i.postimg.cc/fLYgFnLN/Alice-In-Wonderland.jpg
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https://i.postimg.cc/P5Ly9s3R/Rotk-ppchen.jpg
Imagepic upload
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Re: Confusion about Comprehensible Input

Postby samfrances » Sat Oct 10, 2020 6:03 am

That interlinear text idea is an interesting one. Half of me thinks "what a great idea" and the other half thinks "would that end up like watching an L2 film with L1 subtitles - i.e. you just end up reading the L1 subtitles".
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Re: Confusion about Comprehensible Input

Postby Iversen » Sat Oct 10, 2020 3:48 pm

I have used the interlinear format, but dropped it because it takes a lot of manual work to split a text into line-long chops and then present them on alternate rows. It was much easier to make side-by-side study texts.
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Re: Confusion about Comprehensible Input

Postby Kraut » Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:25 pm

Here is our friend Vladimir, not to be taken quite seriously since Krashen also wants compelling input.

Comprehensible Input or Compelling Content

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odCcpR0_GJg&t=384s
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