5th Annual Extensive Reading Seminar in Nagoya, Japan. Dr. Krashen
Oh today we're going to speak to dr. stephen krashen who needs no introduction I'm sure we're here at the the extensive reading seminar it's Steve Young Women's University in Nagoya Japan we'll talk about there's a reading of course very soon but if I could ask you a few questions about your very productive career to date and I read that you started out you started out in Ethiopia with a Peace Corps we set your first teaching position they started out in Chicago in 1941 and Loretta Hospital but my first did in Chicago the Northside then my first teaching position g-guess I guess so I guess that was my first full-time job that was you know in 1964 1966 mm-hmm
I was a midnight now wife there we married 45 years laughs which makes us the third longest married couple in California sister a second okay she joined because she was full of the ability desire to serve and help she still is I was trying to move draft which of the time the Vietnam War was very hot and I got a deferment going
into the Peace Corps and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life teaching English of course the old fashioned terrible way cuz I didn't know any better and work very hard I'm trying to acquire the language of the country we here which is very tough because everybody wouldn't speak English to sit in the capital they had some progress and that was my early 20s where three years on a Forex been abroad hmm the other hear your music and so that stimulated my interest in languages that's for sure and then that's what makes you come back and study languages folk that are you right I went back we married and I decided I wanted to travel see the world and become an ESL teacher which may have been a good option for me looking back so I enrolled in an ESL program you see you later and they liked it that I was seduced by the dark side of the force I was seduced by chunks Ian Bremmer hmm which I still think it's absolutely wonderful and it took me years to get over this and see that my true destiny was in language acquisition so I don't regret those years of there's a lot was well when you when you started out when you were first doing your PhD I guess you could say that applied linguistics or or maybe second language acquisition was a fairly new field there was room there was a lot of room to move around and lot of things that to learn yes those are interesting terms yes applied linguistics as a term I don't think exists I think we pretty well destroyed not trying to be nasty turned out that way because in those days when you were a student at an ESL program or doing scratch networking what you did is you worked on a grammar and looked at grammatical structures you would do your dissertation on you know the passive ways or something how it's done in various languages then you translate this into pedagogical materials and it was assumed that the better description you had the better you could teach so it's clear to me that you know all the ESL teachers should study Chomsky and grammar because that was the best description it turns out that's not how language is acquired and right now looking directly in the camera we are making the same mistake in the field of English for academic purposes that we're doing very good academic work in the description the construction of academic text how that put together is your analysis all these things more and more sophisticated more subtle but there that's not how we learned that's they're not teaching materials it's really was good sir and it all comes through well not that I'm glad you mention it because when you came out with a five five hypothesis in the seventies and when you first presented that was the acquisition and learning and natural order and maintenance elbow did you realize that did you think what you were doing would have such an impact yes you did the moment they did the moment I realized that there were two systems going on hmm that there was aluminum in the acquired system and the learning system was very constrained and then most of our compliments of came from acquisition that it was done through comprehensible
ability and the affective factors outside academia which acquisition device mm-hmm they kept the hood up the moment that hit there was a felt sense that I knew it was right and it's very hard to shake me from it as it felt so good and I remember talking to my best friend at the time still my buddy Larry Levan who's Terry mystics department he was seeing the grad students together my salary I think I felt the answer this is it this is like finding the structure of DNA this is sick that it's two meanings now this is the answer we've made the breakthrough but actually I mean I've been looking back through some of your work this week obviously before we met and I was looking at the natural approach one of the old books and you were quite clear that that these were hypotheses missed or that they still are but I believe they're good chapters and those books were written by Tracy Terra we should have been the first author we decided to go alphabetically swum out but well then between the two of you it was very clear that although they were I thought this would say that however we don't have any counter examples to prove them otherwise don't and that's so they absolutely stand up to Uranus scrutiny the way science works there's two things going on here the way science works according to the traditional way Karl Popper you have a hypothesis let's say I have a hypothesis all languages in the world of promotes you look at 5000 languages the other pronouncement did you say I proved it because someone might find the dozens of your hole and then what happens your head publicist is gone it's destroyed of course then you start looking for a deeper hypothesis a better one that takes things into account so you can never improve anything you can only disprove and sometimes even when you have tons of supporting evidence it's not enough because some people have both strong developed since the other way there's a famous quote from Mary Schweitzer paleontologist who discovered that Tyrannosaurus bones that you looked at had some organic matter in them hmm which is clear amazing because they're supposed to be leveled and the reigning paleontologist thought it was horrible couldn't be true articles rejected she was talking to one big child who checked all the papers and she said look I've got evidence he says I don't care well what kind of evidence would convince you and he said so I think what I've come across are a lot of people who do matter what evidence you have they say well it's just not right I think the other felt sense that it is right but I hope I'm holdin to cover evidence if there is true cover evidence I will look for it pollicis and it's to my benefit to be the first person to notice that it's wrong to point out that that's wrong but so far so good so this is one way to assign souvenir improvements there's another way which I've learned from Chomsky in his book syntactic structures 1957 he is a beautiful analysis of how the negative works in English and how the auxilary has to be set up many systems limiter interrogatives nervously the same mechanism we saw for negatives philosophy and interrogatives that isn't proof that we've got a good description but that should meet something hmm so my point is we started this off with adult second language it fit for some very limited experimental divisions then it fit for working the shoes then an explained effect that it explained myself that's work then I noticed it works for child language acquisition in fact it looks rather works for acquisition in general expression then the 1980s they discovered the work of Frank Smith which is I feel like I saved five years despite reading his stuff and I said there's the same hypothesis understand what's on the page and their research completely different angles smooth and live different data and if you read Smith's work you see the explains of what survey the by different could be beautiful so that felt good then I started looking at expensive reading researching personally G sustained silent reading stuff the early stuff oh my gosh networks then I got embroiled in bilingual education controversies in the United States of the nineties and the best way of explaining why bilingual at worse when it does his comprehensive little community background knowledge to make it a little more comprehensible in the last few years I've been continuing to look at all these areas at once it's all on the field but I've been looking lately in animal studies hmm it is the comprehension hypothesis a contender for how chimpanzees acquire sign I'm going to present this afternoon at the case of the character Cosmo lady giving the Athens Georgia tiger professor retired ten years oh gosh it's very good how animals develop their own communication systems vervet monkeys acquire their distress calls manager you know coded for different kinds of attacks and you know comprehensible input it's not an airtight case but that's pretty good there are some cases where it looks like they're getting correction and all that that means we gotta look a little deeper so the cases you know saw the solidus we have our human language but it's helping me understand what research no question it means something yeah this is the idea it should count for something the next area research I so yes it's pretty complete CP as far as you know up today nothing is disproved no and I looked at every single the current contenders opponents are comprehensive awareness means idea and I've argued there just isn't enough good also correction and grammar is still up there and people are it's you know desperately seeking the walls or grammar it's there it's not very strong and all the studies they seem to write their concluding its before they analyze the data you see the screws remember works and they'll find one out of five effects works order like and I think the data of all shows when it does work it's under very constraining conditions from the conditions for the conscious mind or mental Truscott are the same thing same thing with courage so this is really supported in so the good thing is all these hypotheses that may help me make sense of all this research and oh yeah and probably grammar translation is probably still the president the authority was like I'd see so actually well that I guess that takes you back to mentioned this book me getting a natural approach I don't know if it's fair to say this is a methodology I mean approaches in the title absolutely um and I guess this came around the same time that things like task-based learning and communicative language learning were becoming popular but it's been said that now we're in a post methods ero but we're not okay so when you talk about that no I think method is perfectly fine it's just a way of teaching that's consistent with the theoretical approach so Dave I think that there are more than one they reasonable in one method that you could use absolutely that there are single methods in my way a biased opinion that are all consistent with comprehensible just one TBR's unbelievably interesting and then the answer I came out with it great and it's certainly consistent the gaseous years ahead since then TP RS homework assignment for anyone watching this video isn't too good at Google and with the TP RS to zulan high school foreign language teachers in the United States a true grassroots movement very interesting where they find this networks originated by a Spanish teacher at a California plane great very interestin it's all based on storytelling and developing stories with your kids very consistent with the word he developed that we you know start each other later sing with Tracy Tracy had the idea before he heard me what this is he what it's the acronym said it used to be TV our story other as well as that was teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling okay and small groups of teachers have organized themselves into like companies who small time entrepreneurs and they put together conferences 200 materials it's a great example of ethical capitalism where people are charging reasonable the mountain inexpensive materials sharing it they're working different areas of the country so there's no competition they'll get along then you go to these seminars and it's teachers there's no publishers they have their own stuff there's no university professors it's immediately and you can take short courses you can take I took intensive Mandarin twice an hour course whenever I go to these things I take intermediate Spanish as I like teachers there they're just wonderful so you have a great time and those are those are all methods then we have sheltered subject matter teaching which is a method content-based actually for intermediates we have extensive reading which is a method or even common technique and combine it with shelter new popular literature all these things are methods but they're simply different manifestations of comprehensible properties so I mean you didn't mention really as a potentially very good source of comprehensive we put very early on in your career but it seems to become more and more important than the thing is it fair to say that you become more convinced that extensive reading is probably one of the best ways or the best way that's wonderful yeah you would have to be doing it yourself all the time and then you see yeah but you have to be reading in other languages and you can just feel yourself I so read that I read in one of your articles that you can read in Star Trek novels even friends anymore men's with me well it's collection of short stories there you go trying to find new authors science fiction French or any comments got to come way cool that's reppin in a lot of my stuff it's a book swap thing it's where you can clean out of your office in your home put stuff up and someone who orders it from you you send it we've made the most engine you get points you can get other stuff so I've been using that for French and Spanish that's nice one thing about extensive reading so sometimes feel that people say they're doing it but they're not well they they misunderstand what it actually is so what what do you think we need to know about extensive reading what exactly is it it's a big question books first of all that are interesting and comprehensible more than interesting the goal is to find things to read that are so interesting you forget that it's in another line where you don't even notice the words that you don't quite understand as the story so interesting can't wait to get to the next page hmm very little perhaps zero accountability is the ideal books are available in the classroom the person doesn't have to finish every book they start mm-hmm you can read comic books you can read magazines you read whatever you want to if possible or just really good books some time set aside to do it so um for example I hear about some teachers perhaps to set comprehension tests at the end egregious or the class takes the grade agreed you know everyone reads the same books no no that's not a recovery but in reading the same book is okay if you're doing literature book difference yeah the core of language arts and I think a lot of esl/efl with good reason is literature I'm all for it you know and this is philosophy ethics and metaphysics embedded in the fiction there's a wonderful way to do it the big fan of this this is one of the reasons we go to school who introduced to great literature free to reading a summer so what people can do is have a literature class but they're all looking at one well Henry hunger games and which others and talk about its implications for society okay what does it mean and on that fine but also the 10-15 minutes a set aside to reach some brilliant people have combined these and I recommend to books Evelyn Miller called the book was written for native speaker build school kids it's wonderful they can see that well the reading so Canada through middle school native speakers where the kids are doing a lot of self selected reading but they're sharing their literature circles they talk about their books they went in reading an enormous amount and the specimens that are very merits and it's all relevant hmm our goal some name is to get everyone reading the classics the way to get it is the first massive amounts of interesting contemporary stuff I suppose some teachers might be worried that where's their role in this because if they could really can if your students really can learn English through reading alone and reading the right things interesting things a lot why do we need to teach I think the teachers role allows a lot easier more interesting pleasant and probably more important for the vandalism the goal of the teacher is to do two things bring you up to the intermediate level so you can talk outside class and see who can understand what people tell you and do some reading outside of class and improve on your own and and to do that you have to organize things they have to make the books
available they have to do the literature part discuss people to discuss with students help them find better reading this is why a conference and they help me become a reader and also they tell you how language is acquired I hope that the comprehension hypothesis will be considered a legal way of acquiring
language rather than an outlaw I'm not saying that we should make it required that all students believe you know the comprehension hypothesis but I think they should know about I think they should have the option they should totally finish that some people think that there's research that if you want appreciate vocabulary don't people kept very proud a lot of books you want to get better at TOEFL entire thing can be seen with the TOEFL but read a lot of books you want to get your grammar better grammar here there might help with you chance to monitor the most of it comes to reading not to worry about error correction I think to be on top of the staff to know how to get better so two things help kids get to the intermediate level giving them Koreans a little bit of class and tell them how to get better that's at the beginning level you've gotta have classes you've got to have a teachers because the adults will not have a comprehensive look at the outside world because it's too hard so if you're doing he has senior dfl that you can target English speakers trying to talk to and what they do find a few who can understand with a second and if I come here to Japan and I want to pick up Japanese I can spend twenty years here and never a good comprehensive window if you go to a language class the first ten minutes you can let me give you my experiences because it's identical to everybody's experience is watching this day not because it's different I probably spend three months of my life in since 2000 I was going there every year for various conferences the time Mandarin all around me after three months the very minute the only thing I could say or understand the manner it was was she what makes you think I like out some ice cream which is about it I then took tbrs Mandarin I know our class like wonderful teacher the delicious the first five and that's the first three minutes I got more comprehensible it within that class and they did all the time in Taiwan that's the value of classes beginners who belong in language classes because the language classes will give you the comprehensive look at the outside not the intermediate is to get you involved in reading literature that's or you could do that so those classes should be all email to know everyone is fine to give that chronology but do you know something toughest cup a little explanation you're in there man Blake great has this great technical pop-up grammar now this is where you can cover language with the students we're he'll interrupt the class for maybe five seconds to explain something in English about the grammar for example to to tell us in my Mandarin class my teacher interrupted the class and said in English by the way Mandarin doesn't have an infinitive the disturb the verbs together they can take it or leave it hmm those of us who are junior linguists in you know amateur means that both the most interesting thinking people with more recently life you know I've just kept going and ignored the answer this is only was in the Spanish class Jason Prince my wonderful Spanish teacher interrupted and said oh by the way this will load into the at its best as now people some people want to use that some people could monitor other people used to understand what's going on most people were mmm so the occasional thing like that fine where the kids have no idea say love this word its blah blah or some background reading in the first language so when we use the first language to give but make it a little more comprehensible it's okay when we use it instead like for translation okay thank you now I'll put it five-year-old son welcome it's like Johanna three of seven and my five throats very interesting books loves books Congress have to get what should I be doing to teach them to read no funny things I thank you and follow me my finger calls interrupting should we observe three months hmm there's now a trend in the United States which the newspapers are jumping on these researchers is people they just can't help it it's just a form before important they're having people read love the kids are very so uh experimental group the reader will stop and clean out aspects of a principle like this word means danger or do you know how this is pronounced here's a all those B it's above did you say about you know stuff like that and they looked at whether this helped the kids have more print awareness phonemic awareness all this if there was a little bit of an effect okay so they said we should be doing this and I think is a danger of destroying the story first of all and they admit that's possible and then I looked at the comparison groups which they didn't do they just looked at the experiment the comparisons got better too nearly as much money half as much yes the other so they're just reading stories that's gonna give you that so they want your child to get better I've been follow along with a finger unless he says to do I wouldn't point out the print unless he asked you to enjoy the story living in your house your kids have no choice to become highly literate it's only a question this schools they're very excited on speed and people varying rates of acquisition so I wouldn't worry about lots of good stories so at what point will I be able to put the book in front with him and you'll be able to stop reading it could happen anywhere between now and age seven and it's inevitable you kids get excited about writing about learning anyway we can't stop it to something in neighborhood and you know they didn't study two years ago they found every kid they looked at when they saw the golden arches tunnels you know starting a theater cell then it's pretty much inevitable and the amount of phonics that you need to become a reader actually you probably don't need any but a little bit is a little hopeful because alphabetic basic phonics it's um basically additional consonants a few of the vowel sounds and when you do that they would never deny the stuff to kids what they ask never and I certainly would teach the element but beyond that it's diminishing returns the studies they say now that our robotics that cell phonics works here's what they found they do intensive models with the kids do their every phonics rule known to civilization and they teach you to all kids in the strict order and the fence the government united states have said that the kids read better and the UK said the same thing the pronouncements about phonics programs expelling stopping and when you look at the data the kids who have intensify makes do better on tests where you read lists of words and isolation you perhaps not they do not do better really mm-hmm and that's what cats and kids learn to read by reading the hearing stories get all that stuff matching in most of our knowledge of phonics is the result of reading another cause big confusion thank you well I'll bear that in mind yeah just make sure he does removals I think that's a nice positive final message don't go to law school okay if you must be go we have to pay for yourself the current state of education thank you very much thank you thank you
