Development: Lessons from Stephen Krashen and the Natural Acquisition Theory

Commentary commentary 

An exercise I found today amongst some papers:

EXERCISE

meaningful input |  low anxiety situations |  natural communication |  communicative |

comprehensible input |  forcing and correcting production |  grammatical rules |  tedious drills

Language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious _________ ____, and does not require ______ _______.

Acquisition requires ________ _________ in the target language, ______ ____________ in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding. 

The best methods are therefore those that supply 'comprehensible input' in ___ ______ ______, containing messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early production in the second language, but allow Students to produce when they are 'ready', recognising that improvement comes from supplying ____________ and _______ _______, and not from _______________________. 

ANSWER KEY

Language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammar rules, and does not require tedious drills.

Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language, natural communication in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding. 

The best methods are therefore those that supply 'comprehensible input' in low anxiety situations, containing messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early production in the second language, but allow Students to produce when they are 'ready', recognising that improvement comes from supplying communicative and comprehensive input, and not from forcing and correcting production. 

Stephen Krashen (influential linguist, b 1941) 

 

What about the studial learner with respect to the experiential and quick progression through the course — do schools' approaches to language acquisition appeal to our 'learn through experience' tendency as learners and bias away from our tendency to study a language?

Four proposed learner types in ELT

Both 'these methods do not force early production' and ‘when they are ready' resonate with me after having worked with this approach for several years at language centres around Buenos Aires (for Wall Street Institute, now Wall Street English).

Some history: the 'natural approach' is summarised by the above exercise by Stephen Krashen, linguistics professor emeritus at the University of Southern California. Krashen is the creator of important language acquisition hypotheses on which schools have based teaching methods, to which I can give testimony here. 

Audio-lingual methods fell from
popularity in the 1950s

The natural method aims to teach a second language in large part through an immersion in it – it brings the immersion approach to the classroom setting. It builds its arguments from natural acquisition we experienced post birth, it is based on the same principles. Conditions are set up that will imitate a mother-tongue acquisition setting with all materials in, and all staff speaking, the target language (TL). Learners are made aware that they can only speak the TL when inside the school. 

The natural method came to fruition early 20th century as an answer to a growing dissatisfaction with older grammar-translation methods. 

Such a method had been proposed in the 18th and 19th centuries, proposing languages should be taught in the language being learned. It then found reinforcement in the 1970s in a language teaching revolution of sorts, since which time a variety of new communicative-based methods have emerged, one of which was what I worked with at Wall Street Institute.

In my EFL lessons (lessons in non-English speaking countries) it is only in exceptional cases I use the learners' first language (L1). I develop other clarifying techniques, e.g., gesture, mime, use of sound, drawings, synonyms, opposites, collocation, clines, examples, explanation, dictionaries, picture-matching cards, partial modelling, realia (real objects). The learner can benefit from learning these skills, likewise. There are psycholinguistic and biopsychological findings that support increased retention in relation to taking the longer more difficult path to signalling meaning, i.e., by adopting these skills over translation methods (giving away the answer in Spanish). The language faculties are given their full workout ergo greater likelihood of retention.

All of which corresponds with the communicative-based approach of immersive schools, which are based on Krashen’s hypotheses for language acquisition. 

At Wall Street Institute centres, staff are encouraged to use target language (TL) with learners. This means the structures, vocabulary, functional language, pragmatics, phrases and expressions of English surround learners and sets up those 'natural' conditions already mentioned. Exposure is also had on-line at home through interactive multimedia, in ‘Speaking Centres’, through native speaker teachers and of course other learners (particularly in ‘Social Classes’).

Despite this, for most learners, exposure is mainly had via computers. Additionally, many learners’ attendance rate to the centres is not ideal, which means eliciting language from the learner, or sometimes groups of learners, is the lion’s share of the teacher's work in the ‘Encounter’ (the Encounter is the monthly level-checking meeting of 55 minutes, pass or fail). At any rate, I enjoy developing CELTA techniques with respect to eliciting whilst maximising STT (student talk time) and minimising TTT (teacher talk time).

A Multimedia Lab or Speaking Centre

In an ideal Encounter the learner can produce most of the required language naturally, little aware they have done so. In such an Encounter, there is time left over for clarifying doubts and heightening language awareness, for chatting and improving general fluency (also an Encounter criterion).

It is great to witness a click for some learners; where for others it was gradual. There are moments in which oral fluency opens up for learners and the language to which they have been being exposed for long durations is there and available for them to use. At times they have had to fail and repeat their course unit; this repetition and that which is inherent to the course itself help this click occur. Sometimes in magic moments of this type, passive understandings of things become active and able to be discussed.

It is at these times I enjoy seeing the methodology in action, its promise delivered.

My Encounters always include praise and tailored feedback; the fewer the learners in an Encounter there are, the more tailored the feedback can be in the allotted 5 minutes.

Returning to the aforementioned studial versus experiential tendency we have to varying degrees,    it is the learners of both low exposure and low tendency to study who generally progress through  slowly. 

While understanding the real-world constraints that exist here in Buenos Aires, I wish learners would attend more of the immersive activities, those on which the method hinges, because the reality inside the classroom, as I sense it, is that the method leaves behind learners who are not able to attend the classes that simulate the immersive condition and then do not have enough studial materials either available to compensate.

Under controlled, less controlled, and then freer conditions, learners are exposed to each language point to acquire. This is a very careful joinery to acquisition, relative to the retention available through studial methods. Learners can organise speaking practice with the centres' personal tutors (Argentinian nationals), or by taking 'Complementary Classes' or 'Social Classes' (with L1 speakers) or simply by speaking to staff and peers around the centre; Complementary are focussed on practice of language, i.e. useful functional language, vocabulary, and grammar, in varied contexts, and for Social Classes learners can put their their skills to use, i.e. speaking, listening, reading and writing.

The Encounter, therefore, involved clarifying and reteaching of the language points. 

Checking in with leaners regarding their course objectives, a mere improvement in general fluency (listening or oral) by interacting with English-speaking expats is not everyone's aim.  

I know that without the exposure to L2 here in Argentina I wouldn't have developed some invaluable aspects of fluency; equally, pen-and-paper self-study of Spanish grammar, was also, I know now, invaluable. 

Ultimately, I think studying language as an adult is important and not just strictly absorbing it experientially. I think natural production of the language is facilitated with immersion. However, this strict picking-up of the language, implicit in the approach, seemed to also leave deficits and delays in production. It seems that applying the critical period of acquisition we have had in younger years to adulthood has its flaws despite Krashen's hypotheses. 

Find here a teacher-learner guide I put together whilst working at the school 'Understanding the Learner, which I've referred back to many a time.

From 2022 ‘Adults are better language learners than children’ (in studial settings)

In Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2nd. Ed.). Richards J. & Rodgers T. (2003). Cambridge University Press.

"The Direct Method was quite successful in private language schools, such as those of the Berlitz chain, where paying clients had high motivation and the use of native-speaking teachers was the norm. But despite pressure from proponents of the method, it was difficult to implement in public secondary school education. It overemphasised and distorted the similarities between naturalistic first language learning and classroom foreign language learning and failed to consider the practical realities of the classroom. In addition, it lacked a rigorous basis in applied linguistic theory, and for this reason it was often criticised by the more academically based proponents of the Reform Movement. The Direct Method represented the product of enlightened amateurism. It was perceived to have several drawbacks. It required teachers who were native speakers or who had nativelike fluency in the foreign language. It was largely dependent on the teacher's skill, rather than on a textbook, and not all teachers were proficient enough in the foreign language to adhere to the principles of the method. Critics pointed out that strict adherence to Direct Method principles was often counterproductive, since teachers were required to go to great lengths to avoid using the native language, when sometimes a simple, brief explanation in the student's native language would have been a more efficient route to comprehension.

The Harvard psychologist Roger Brown has documented similar problems with strict Direct Method techniques. He described his frustration in observing a teacher performing verbal gymnastics in an attempt to convey the meaning of Japanese words, when translation would have been a much more efficient technique (Brown 1973: 5)." (p.12-13)

Do we need theory? (OUP Webinar, 2013)

Commentary commentary 

I have found ELT theory useful. I can understand why I am doing something in a particular stage of a lesson in a particular way and I try to understanding what transpired or why.

I think, in turn, it also helps in giving feedback. 

Historically, owing to a cultural move away from formal approaches to ELT, with the success in the 70s of discovering a variety of somewhat effective communicative approaches, since then attention towards and enthusiasm for 'theory' has fallen to make way for such aELT 'revolution'. However, it is still important. 

On the other side of the coin, I understand the effects of too much focus on theory, losing a little common sense when the thinking about why I do something may momentarily preclude my observation of it (and recognition of potentially key evidence). A general feeling for things may be lost when focussed on what I should be doing at a certain time in class. 

A lesson's spontaneity may be stifled by over-planning. This versus the shortcomings of not having planned anything is known as the 'planing paradox'.

Something I gained from Oxford University Press webinars — which I take almost every month —  regarding theory was to think of a classroom as a constellation of individuals with very specific individual needs; it was explained too much focus is on general guidelines and theories and principles, gleaned from textbooks or taught in teacher training, that capture general truths in ELT (and pedagogy). This, to me, sheds some light  on a disconnect between theory and practice I work with — it’s not possible for a reading activity to run perfectly if the TL clarification of key vocabulary stage is interrupted (by so many everyday occurrences, e.g., lateness, classroom overexcited settling down, classroom too tired, persistent questions difficult to control, and more).

It is often better to consider each class unique, the learners, the settings, any variables, and it might be better in the reading activity example to quickly cut down the task. 

Routine reflection by the teacher based on specific goings-on in a unique classroom, COMBINED with the teacher's own theories as to why something happens, should inform practices. Links  should be made between these reflections and the evidence in the classroom. Any theory that rests solely on a priori, i.e. theory that comes from reasoning, intuition, or revelation, from textbooks or the like, should be shelved and referenced. 

Textbooks and literature help get one cogitating and fire up the imagination, but once read through, the classroom itself is then the best textbook. 

The webinar disambiguated 'theory' for me in three ways: firstly, theory in its very powerful 'Einstein' shape and form, which is very general, abstract, and difficult to explain – string-theory, for example. Secondly, a principle-based 'Bach' theory, which again aims at capturing very general truths, but aims more at telling us what should be constructed and what should happen as a result (music composition as in the case of Bach). This is the reason for which we don't do things at random — it is this last type, it stated, that the ELT world focussed on too heavily. And finally, there is the theory that we use to account for a situation or justify a course of action, which is much more specific, particular, and connected to the everyday-world, which it described as an 'Agatha Christie' (or Sherlock Holmes) type theory (e.g., ‘the explanation is that the thief got in through the open window, and that's why you were burgled').

‘Who needs theory? — We all do!’ (OUP Webinar, 2013)

It is an important function of theory formation to advance from 'naïve' and unreflecting 'realism' to a more conscious understanding of the principles and concepts underlying one's actions.

– Stern, 1983 

 

Without theory, experience has no meaning. 

Without theory, one has no questions to ask. 

Hence without theory, there is no learning.

– William Edwards Deming

‘Classroom management’ ranked no. 1 issue again (OUP webinar, 2012)

Commentary commentary 

In my EFL experience using the communicative-based childlike immersion method, a share of the work went into compensating for this incline away from non-studial methods (previously mentioned)  that additional studial support, for example, through more extensive coursebook material could hold. The notion that this 'comprehensible input' cannot also come from a coursebook seemed to me at first strange at the language institute — don’t children during the critical acquisition period study to some degree?

However, as I understood the institute better, commercially, perhaps a less studial course is more appealing, perhaps, to a greater number of learners, wider ‘net’ can be captured.

production in learners is comparatively delayed, but the eventual production is stated to be more natural.

However, given the method so largely hinges on principles and theories about the way we acquire information as children — this one-to-one input-output theory read here about the 'black box' theory — there is some disparity with the truth of things: learners are adults who have passed the critical acquisition period.

Methods may be based on general theory too much, or global context, where local context could be taken into account.

In Buenos Aires, for example, are sometimes trying living conditions resulting from disorganised government, high unemployment, suffering economy and infrastructure.  Before going to an English lesson a learner may have already travelled several hours between home, work, and university, crowded in on public transport, may have dealt with difficult daily interruptions to the effect that in class they might be (late) distracted or tired perhaps. What was planned for the lesson and expected of the methodology could fall flat under the real-world test: the need for class engagement and interest was felt sometimes in a method whose conditions must be ‘immersive’.

What actually goes on in the classroom

 is the commonest concern for teachers (OUP Webinar, 2012)

in another point, there is something about the way in which institutes ascribe learner levels according to international frameworks (such as the Common European Framework). This global scale we use has advantages in communicating a system and designing courses, etc., but it is not great in the individual context, or organisational or cultural context, where recognition of achievement is commensurate to such context.

We emphasise, cling to and overuse these broad progress markers. Marking out of needs and aims, tailored to the individual, with praise at milestones, can provide a good sense of achievement.

Nevertheless, a great attempt at imitating this 'immersion' was made at the institutes, imitating a trip to an English-speaking country.

This quadrant is one way of looking at our preferred styles as learners. The method I worked with, based on Stephen Krashen's theory above, was one that preferred the experiential learner style over the studial; a method that tended towards that individual style.

It was important to keep learners active about their course and a good chance to foster autonomy. That is, in booking lessons, completing preparatory work, or attending lessons.

Chasing up 'inactive', or lapsed, learners over the telephone was charged to a team of staff who were notified by an automated system when learners lapsed in progress. As mentioned, a certain amount of initiative was required of the learner to arrange their own lessons, since there were no fixed timetables (another attractive attribute): learners booking a level-checking lesson at a particular hour would be grouped with others wanting the same (of the same level). A minimum of two encounters were required of them per month in order to be checked and moved to the next unit. 

 

The principle that helping learners be more autonomous by training them to better understand the why, what, and how of learning, their resources and even the self (see 'Guide to Understanding the Learner' below), produces more successful learners. Integrating this CELTA training into the stages of a lesson we might occasionally take a minute as to as why, what, or how to go about strategies for learning or why, what and how.

  From the CELTA trainee book. A studial and active learner, with, perhaps, a stronger logical/mathematical intelligence who wishes to improve vocabulary, may benefit from strategising a word list such as this.

I gained a lot of experience developing strategies for the learners in class in order to compensate for, and close this disparity between learner expectations, what they wanted to do, and what really needed to be met with to progress in the course. Read here about some important lessons regarding developing these strategies from an Oxford University Press webinar on teaching theory. Many people in Buenos Aires are exposed to English through television and cinema, and I was able to recommend some while-watching (listening) tasks to learners to aid fluency outside class.

I  suppose, the guarantee of this method may be that when it works it really does work, that learners find their footing in a more natural fluency, in a more natural way, minds uncluttered with the analytical and grammatical side of it.

A kind of openness, sociableness, and communication was nurtured at the institute; being experiential implies interacting with others. However, being active this way doesn’t mean you’ll benefit if you are studial over experiential.

At the institute I saw many a great class filled with talkative, engaged, interactive people, the envy of many teachers perhaps, as sometimes half of the work is in getting the class to speak. 

I would certainly recommend working for Wall Street Institute to develop clarification skills, concept checking, tailoring learner feedback and developing learner autonomy.

Second Language Teaching & Learning, forum commentary (for MQuni; unit grade – Distinction)

Linguistics degree - commentary

WEEK ONE NATIVE SPEAKERISM

WEEK TWO UNDERSTANDING LEARNER IDENTITIES

ASSIGNMENT ONE 78%

"For the first critique, please use this blog post."

WEEK THREE TEACHING VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

WEEK FOUR UNDERSTANDING CULTURAL CONTEXT

"Read about the Korean phenomenon called gireogi appa. This has been widely written about here and here. Discuss how this phenomenon is a product of the interplay between culture and language."

QUIZ ONE 

WEEK FIVE TEACHER LANGUAGE AWARENESS

"From the analyst perspective:-

(1) The Sound System

Related to the chapter we have just discussed this week, list 5 words in English that you distinctly pronounce differently. If none, then list 5 words you have difficulty in pronouncing. Feel free to use the phonetic symbols (page 99) to represent these words. 

(2) The System of Words

On page 120, you are asked to write an essay describing the content of your vocabulary. Don't do that! :) What I want you to do instead is to simply list genres of vocabulary in your repertoire e.g., music, gardening, cooking, ophthalmology  - because perhaps you have been working as a receptionist for an eye specialist. And give specific examples of words in each genre.

 The on-campus students might want to think about Q#2, and we can discuss this in class next Tuesday."

WEEK SIX TEACHER LANGUAGE AWARENESS, SENTENCES & DISCOURSE

This week we have looked at some aspects of spoken and written discourse that are relevant for second language learners.

I would like you to consider the aspects of spoken and written language we have looked at so far that would be the most relevant for these different learner groups and contexts:

1. recently arrived migrant children
2. migrant adults
3. international students
4. school students in the ‘expanding circle'

Moreover, what are the key differences between the knowledge and skills learners already have and how might this affect the learning needs of these different groups?

WEEK SEVEN THEORIES OF LEARING

(1) What are the two main distinctions that underpin theories of learning?

(2) What are the key principles for language learning?

(3) How does our own learning map onto these principles?

Read the vignette on page 179, and reflect on your own second language learning. How would you know if you are learning well? What indicators do you usually use to measure such an achievement?

Watch this video clip about Genie and as you do, reflect on the two theories that Murray and Christison offer in Chapter 10. Be prepared to argue your point in class. 

WEEK EIGHT Introduction to SLA

QUIZ TWO 

WEEK NINE SLA RESEARCH

In this session we will explore the following questions:

1. How do SLA researchers investigate language learning in classroom settings? 

2. What is the role of input and interaction in second language learning in the classroom?

3. What are the implications of these for pedagogy?

Before coming to class, look at the following video of a teaching method called Total Physical Response. What ideas about SLA do you think this teaching method draws on? What kinds of input and interaction are happening in this class? 

ASSIGNMENT TWO 73%

WEEK TEN SLA THEORIES AND PEDAGOGY

"This week, we are looking at specific theories and pedagogical approaches in the teaching of a second language in a classroom. 

We will address the following questions:

1. What is your teaching and learning philosophy?

2. What individual learner differences impact language learning?

3. What are the implications of these for classroom language teaching?"

ASSIGNMENT THREE 88%