Dr. Stephen Krashen, a Conversation About Language Acquisition (2)

We just wait, we just listen.

And then it comes.

By the way in that culture, you are forbidden from correcting

anybody for doing anything.

Okay.

Other studies have found the same thing.

We go to another country and we just stay there, be with the people

until we can hear the language, which means understand it.

They say for them consistent results, it takes a year or

two before you're comfortable.

We can actually, I think that's true in the real environment where

you don't have extra support.

We can do better.

We have language classes.

We can give people comprehensible input right away in a good language class,

which is what we're supposed to do.

So that backs up the point, the reluctance with early speaking,

it could give you a bad accent.

I don't know, let's find out, but it's the fear, the, uh, discomfort of

having to produce before you're ready.

Uh, and, and I would add in my experience, I am more say intimidated, say I

have an online lesson with a tutor.

It bothers me more when I don't understand what the other person is saying.

Uh, the fact that I stumble, especially if it's with a tutor, so you're in a

protected environment, that's normal.

It's, it's, it's mildly annoying.

That words that I have been reading and listening to, and I'm sure I know

the meaning of, and I've gone over it many times and I get in front of my

tutor and I cannot find those words.

Those words are just not available to me.

But if I understand what the teacher tutor is saying, I'm happy.

If on the other hand, I don't understand that's a very uncomfortable.

Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm a firm believer in that, but again, so, so, so then to

me, the question is like, how do you evaluate someone in the language in a

way we shouldn't be evaluating others.

We shouldn't even be evaluating ourselves.

We should just enjoy the process, but people do wanna know, well, am I B1 or B2?

You know, am I gonna take, take the HSK or whatever TOEFL test?

Uh, so do you measure it entirely on how well a person speaks or how well

they pronounce or, or, uh, how well they understand and how do you even

measure their level of comprehension?

This it's, it's a big issue.

Like how do you evaluate people?

I have never been able to stay awake during a discussion of testing and

how we should do it, cuz just for the reasons you mentioned, it's an

external, uh, task imposed on us and that's not what we're about.

Right?

Uh, just the tests pretty well agree with each other.

So that's not a problem.

So it's, it's a question I really would love to ignore.

Can we go onto the next one?

All right.

No, I agree with you.

I agree with that.

I'll give you, I'll give you some results from testing, but

I don't the best way of testing.

Maybe self evaluation.

I also agree with you about, uh, correction and you

often hear the argument,

well, you know, mothers correct their kids when they start speaking,

otherwise they'd never speak correctly.

That's an...

what's your reaction to that comment?

Actually, they don't.

Of course they don't.

Yeah, of course.

They couldn't possibly correct every little mistake.

And I've noticed this myself when I do give lessons in English, if

I correct the other person, they continue making the same mistake

right there in the very same lesson.

So there's no impact.

And, uh, I find it mildly annoying if I am corrected without

having asked for corrections.

So to me, the whole correction issue is I agree that's one of

your themes is that it just creates more, more tension, more Prozac.

Also it is aimed at conscious learning.

Make a mistake.

The child says I comes to school every day and you say, no, no.

It's I come to school every day.

The child is supposed to think, oh yeah, that S goes on the third person

singular, not the first person...

that you look at the studies.

It does...

it is a big disappointment.

As a matter of fact, testing doesn't really work that well.

So what, uh, what has changed?

I mean, I mentioned in my video that I first met you in 2003, by the way, I

didn't know when it was that I first met you, but then I managed to find the Taiwan

lectures book that I bought in Taipei, and it said they're published in 2003.

And it just so happened that my book about my own experiences of language

learning was also published in 2003.

And I went to Taipei.

I was at this language conference, the first one I'd ever attended.

And everybody was thronging into this lecture room to listen to Dr.

Krashen and I didn't know who Dr Krashen was, but I remember that I

was so impressed with the sort of element of simplicity that you brought

to the process of language learning that I quickly had to buy your book.

What has changed in language learning since 2003?

Not much.

And let me tell you why.

Good question.

Good question means when I'm prepared to answer, and this is one of them

that I enjoy answer, uh, here and there yes, there have been changes.

There's more comprehensible input than before, but by and large language

teaching is the same as it was in 1945.

Okay.

There's been very little change and there are good reasons.

Why, how do you find out about it?

Well, you can buy books.

They're, uh, written in, except for mine they're generally written

what we call tortured prose.

Uh, you don't understand what the person's talking about.

I can't get through them.

Most of the time professional journals, the same way.

They're also expensive.

Um, my books, little commercial message, my books are all for free.

I've put, if you follow me on, uh, Twitter, you find where to find them.

I, you can download them for free cuz otherwise nobody's gonna read them.

I can't afford them.

Nobody else can afford them.

The solution to all this is what is called open access, getting our stuff

out so real people can read it and do it.

Otherwise, nothing is going to happen cuz nobody can afford this.

That's why we came very little change.

Oh, some positive change came for me a couple of years ago when the

pandemic started and I offered to give free webinars free seminars over

the next year, I did like 70 of them.

That helped no question.

I can't do that anymore.

Cause I can't afford it.

Now I charge a little bit, not a lot.

Okay.

That was a commercial message.

Um, but it's hearing about it under...

once they hear it and understand it, it works.

Getting the word out has been slow.

And I don't know any magic way, cuz people are still writing incomprehensible papers.

But you know, obviously the way we learn languages, the way our brains

learn languages, hasn't changed.

That has to be the same, whether you're in the Amazon or wherever you

are, uh, in so far as the awareness of comprehensible input, uh, in the language

class, in the schools, my impression is that there's increasing awareness.

The few times that I've attended the.

What is it?

ACE, American association of teachers, of whatever it is, AFT something.

Yeah.

You and other proponents of comprehensible input are extremely

popular amongst the teachers.

Amongst some teachers, the ones who've kept up with the research, and it's hard

for teachers to keep up, cuz they're overwhelmed with work and the stuff

is incomprehensible and expensive.

Right.

There have been some conversions and that'schelped.

The big one of course is Steve Kaufmann.

Okay.

People have begun to understand the research.

Bill van Patton has been extremely supportive.

Earl Stevick in the old days, that's helped a lot, but it still is not

part of common, common knowledge.

But, but I think another thing that has changed.

So if I go back say 50 years or whatever, 55 years ago, when I was learning Mandarin

Chinese, we had an open reel tape.

And there was not very much audio material available.

And, um, there were books that were this thick that you could buy with,

with, uh, things that you could read with, with vocabulary list.

And I remember even 20, 30 years ago, I was approached

by a local community college.

Would I, you know, contribute towards a language lab and the budget for

the language lab is like $50,000.

And today I carry on my iPhone a quantity of audio and text material, obviously,

with, with LingQ, of course, with access to online dictionaries, with a

tremendous range of functions and the ability to access individuals who are

offering, you know, content comprehensible input in French, in, in Chinese.

And all of that stuff now is available on my iPhone far more valuable than anything

that was in that $50,000 language lab.

So surely a lot has changed.

Yeah.

We'll see.

I haven't seen it yet, but we'll see.

We'll hope that this gets around.

Absolutely.

So you're saying teachers are not taking advantage of this?

Now it's the knowledge is not yet there.

We're getting better.

Now that you mention ACTFL let me introduce a little bit of gossip.

You and I were, and I will embarrass you.

You and I were in an actual meeting once.

And I was there and I met my former, uh, Chinese teacher, uh, ... and we,

and, uh, she invited you to come to lunch with all the Chinese teachers.

I'll give you the word, they thought you were fantastic.

Oh, they thought your ... was just excellent.

And they loved what you said.

So live with that.

Okay.

Okay.

I'll try to live with it.

Thank you.

But, uh, so, so the world, I think the, the, uh, One of the things that

I find annoying say here in say in British Columbia, which is not New

York or Chicago, schools will not offer certain languages because they say we

don't have a qualified teacher or a certified teacher for that language.

However, I've always felt if you had a person who was knowledgeable

about how to use the resources on the internet, the teacher doesn't have

to be the one providing the language, doesn't have to be the one that we

learn from explaining the language.

You just need a, a guide, a coach, someone who can help so that if student A wants

to learn Spanish and student B wants to learn Chinese or Tagalog or whatever,

there are enough resources out there.

Why is it that schools are hung up on having a certified certified

teacher before they will offer that language at the school?

You have just recruited me to your team, that's a wonderful thing.

I haven't thought about it because I'm not an iPhone person other than just

basic needs and not into all this stuff.

And it's all around me and I have pretty much ignored it.

I, you just convinced me, this is a wonderful way of

solving the problem I think.

Yeah, there are so many resources out there now.

And, and again, if I look at Canada where, you know, you must learn French.

So here we are in British Columbia.

We're far away from French speakers god bless them on

the other side of the country.

So you're expecting kids to learn French out of some kind of civic duty

because it's an official language.

That's not very motivating.

What if the kid, children, boys, girls wanna learn Spanish or Swahili.

Why wouldn't you give them a victory in learning the language

that they're motivated to learn?

Once they've got one language under their belt,they will be in a better