Steve Kaufmann & Stephen Krashen in Conversation

He has a very pithy, elegant and, um, economic, in terms of use

of words, to the point way of explaining how we learn languages.

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here and today, I want to announce my

livestream conversation with Dr.

Stevphen Krashen.

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I'm really excited.

I've known Dr.

Krashen for quite a few years.

Uh, I met him for the first time in Taiwan.

And, uh, so this...

i, I can't remember how many years ago it was, uh, maybe 15, 20 years ago.

I didn't know who he was.

I attended a language conference in Taiwan.

He gave a talk there and, uh, I was just so struck by how elegant, how simple

and how accurate his description was of the process of language acquisition.

And prior to that, of course, I had learned languages.

I had been interested enough in languages to start up LingQ.

I'd done a lot of research.

So I had not only my own experience of learning languages, but you know, I'm

gonna show you, you know, here all the different books that I bought on the

subject, because I like buying books.

And there's so much complicated theory within this whole idea of language

instruction and language learning and all of a sudden Krashen, Dr.

Krashen he presented, uh...

you know, and I bought this book in Taiwan.

It's a very thin book, but it has it all there.

The stages of language acquisition.

And it was, it was clear.

It was like the Gordian knot.

It was like Occam's razor.

It was a simple explanation of how we learn languages.

It cut through all the other stuff.

Uh, I don't want to get too much into.

Uh, Dr.

Krashen's explanation of the theory of language acquisition, because

we're gonna have a livestream.

You can see a link in the description box where you can reserve your spot

and participate and ask questions.

Uh, Dr.

Krashen is very transparent.

You can go to his website uh, I think it's sdkrashen.com and there's a lot

of free material available there.

But as you know, he, he stresses the fact that we learn through input.

We learn through compelling, comprehensible input.

We learn through meaningful messages and some people may claim that that's not the

whole story that we also have to speak and that some people, uh, can read and,

and can, can, uh, you know, have high comprehension, but are afraid to speak.

BUt if people are afraid to speak, they're gonna be even more

afraid if they don't understand.

So I just feel that everything he said about language acquisition

matched my experience in learning the languages that I learned throughout

my first, my professional career.

And then when I got more interested in languages and when I got very interested

in learning languages, You know, as a, sort of my third career to start to

focus in on that, I did study online and of course in bookstores, when

I, you know, 20 years ago, it wasn't that common to find stuff online.

So I just wanna show you, you know, so I bought a book, a

short history of linguistics.

Well, that's not quite language learning, uh, English as a second

language in the mainstream.

Teaching learning and identity.

Like people just wanna learn languages.

Phrases and idioms.

You know, I've talked about this, don't try to master phrases and idioms.

Uh, but let's see.

Then I even bought a Swedish book here ... uh, how languages are

learned and on, you know, and, uh, the practice of English language teaching.

And there was a lot of stuff there that was quite complicated, got into, you

know, different types of learners, kinetic learners, oral learners, visual learners,

all of which is not true of course.

Um, I understood very early on that, the key sort of again, call it the Gordian

knot for measuring where we are in a language is how many words we know.

Words are key.

with words, you get the rest of it, you get the grammar, everything

flows from having words and yet...

and so there are many books on learning vocabulary in another

language, and yet it all boils down...

here again, vocabulary, description, acquisition, and pedagogy.

It goes...

vocabulary in language teaching.

I read through all these.

And yet it really boils down to what Krashen says, read and

listen, get the language in you.

Get the brain used to the language, acquire words.

Naturally, if you do all of these things, at some point, you're gonna wanna speak.

It doesn't matter when that point is.

Of course you can't be intimidated, but the better your level of comprehension,

the more words you have at your disposal the greater likelihood

that you won't be so intimidated.

So, and I, I, I not only is Stephen Krashen astute in his analysis and

research, this is based on research into how we acquire languages, but he has a

very pithy, elegant and, um, economic, in terms of use of words, to the point

way of explaining how we learn languages.

So people are gonna pick holes in some of the things that he says, people are

gonna have different points of view, and we welcome different points of view.

And so please join us for this livestream, whether it is to support what Dr.

Krashen has to say, whether it be to attack me, which is fine.

I don't mind it.

I love it.

Or whether, uh, to agree with what we have to say or share your experience

of language learning with us, you're more than welcome to participate.

We're gonna have a conversation where we're gonna talk about our

experience of language learning and, and, uh, talking to people who

are involved in language learning.

I think it's gonna be really interesting.

I'm very much looking forward to it.

Please reserve your spot.

It's gonna be on YouTube as well as live streamed.

So thank you.

And I look forward to seeing you.

Bye for now.