breakthrough distinction: acquisition and study

A 19th century language educator, M. Gouin, was obsessed with the language of German. His effort to learn German was herculean, people said: He knew everybody’s ‘Method’ of language study, and he learned the whole dictionary through and through. But shockingly, Gouin found at the end that he did not know one word of German ‘as his nephew spoke.’

So here’s the background story: after a ten months’ of studying German at an academy at Hamburg (Germany), Gouin returned to France and met his little nephew—whom, when he left, was about two and a half years old, and not yet able to talk. What Gouin found was that his little nephew had now made a tremendous language development, which is what he had failed to do just in such short of time.

“What!” M. Gouin said, “this child and I have been working for the same time, each at a language (he, in French, and I, in German). What he does is just playing round his mother, running after flowers, butterflies and birds, without learning, without apparent effort, without even being conscious of his work. But now he is able to say all he thinks, express all he sees, understand all he hears! … But I, with all my knowledge of the grammar, … armed with a powerful will, gifted with a powerful memorizing thousands of vocabularies . . . . have arrived at nothing, or at practically nothing!'”

(Home Education, 305, Charlotte Mason).

---

Language acquisition is basically what M. Gouin’s nephew and all children in the world naturally do everyday: playing and being fully immersed in day-to-day encounters with others and things in the world. Children abundantly acquire the language embedded in their daily activities in subconscious way.

So, when they are acquiring the language, they are usually unaware they are doing it, because its process activates their subconscious capacity.

On the other hand, language study is similar to what Gouin did two centuries ago (and what many children do in school today!). They heavily focus to the study of grammatical rules and vocabulary memorizations.

While acquisition appreciates and empowers human subconscious and intuitive capacity, language study is emphasizing conscious and analytic process in language development.

Therefore, when we are studying about a language, we are aware that we are studying about a language. In language study, we are responsible to understand how language works in analytical way and memorizing vocabulary, and so on. Only then we are trained to apply those rules and vocabulary into sentences in deductive (conscious) method.

Source:
Krashen, Stephen D. (2003). Explorations in Language Acquisition and Use. Portsmouth: Heinemann

Advertisement

how we acquire language: comprehensible input

In language acquisition, one of most important questions is then, how do we acquire language? The research reveals a simple common-sense answer: We acquire language when we understand what we hear or read.

In other words, we acquire language when we receive language input that is comprehensible for us. Language input that is mostly incomprehensible will not turn into meaningful intake that we can acquire.

For example, if you are a new Chinese learner, listening to a native-level Chinese speech, might not be helpful for acquiring Chinese. You may get lots and lots of input—a continuous stream of perfectly pronounced Mandarin, but if the Chinese input that are comprehensible for you were too little, you might not know more Chinese than before. Therefore, an immersion program might not be automatically enough for developing language competence. It has to be both abundant in target language exposure and comprehensible for the students.

On the other hand, if foreign language input is made comprehensible, then it can actually turn into intake that we can process and work with. In this process, students will subconsciously acquire and store it into their long-term memory.

Source:
Krashen, Stephen D. (2003). Explorations in Language Acquisition and Use. Portsmouth: Heinemann

how we acquire language: compelling (not just interesting) input

We know that the study of grammatical rules and vocabulary memorization can be so boring. That’s why many teachers are trying to make their teaching more fun by adding some game activities in their lesson, and/or use fresh graphics in their presentation slides that explain language rules.

This (gamification and fresh graphics) approach is exactly what many language learning apps are trying to do as well (e.g. Duolingo and Babbel). They want to make language learning less boring by using some gamified learning processes and interesting graphics in their applications.

Indeed, gamification can add some fun, and good graphics can be refreshing. But the problem of this approach is basically a sugar-coating approach. It is still a language learning (and all its boring content, like out-of-context grammatical rules and vocabulary memorization) coated with the some games and graphics.

Instead of focusing on making the language content intrinsically interesting in itself, this approach depends on the extrinsic aspects to make the content less boring.

A intrinsically new approach to language education: acquisition

Instead of using some extrinsic tricks, coating, and rewards for motivation, we want to help students completely engaged and stay motivated by using the intrinsic power of the language itself, that is by using great stories, meaningful conversations and cases, and language-rich activities around it.

So, the story, or cases, or conversation and activities we choose for our students have to be interesting, or better: it has to be compelling.

Compelling story/conversation/cases/activity is one that is so meaningful and so powerful, that it can engage us completely into it.

Have you ever been in a moment when you were lost in a story that is so compelling? It’s when our sense of self and sense of time was diminished: Only the story existed. The language faded into the background, and we temporarily forgot that the story was told in another language!

Compelling story/conversation/activity can help establish a flow state. It is when students mental states are fully immersed as they are flowing in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process.

This flow state is the optimal state for our brain to acquire language and knowledge and character. The deeper a flow state we are in, the greater input we can subconsciously acquire.

Vice versa: if our students are not engaged, or not compelled whatsoever, their brain won’t acquire the language. They feel bored, disengaged and thus wander to find another thing that can hook their attention. And if such disengagement happens perpetually, they might filter out and eventually dislike the language entirely (and perhaps they also get labeled as inattentive, unmotivated, talkative, etc.).

Source:
The Compelling (not just interesting) Input Hypothesis, Stephen Krashen

how language acquisition occurs: tolerate ambiguity

Comprehensible input doesn’t mean that the input must be comprehensible in every of its detail. An optimal input is one that is still comprehensible even if there is a little noise or some incomprehensible pieces in it.

Therefore, we don’t need to understand 100% of the story. We don’t need to understand the complete meaning of each unfamiliar vocabulary or grammar, because every time we encounter a new word or a new structure in a comprehensible context, we will still be able to “feel” and acquire some sense of its meaning and use.

If we are exposed to enough meaningful stories (conversations and language-rich activities), and the stories are reasonably comprehensible, our brain will construct the meaning and usage of the words and the structure, and gradually substantial vocabulary and grammatical growth must take place.

And if the input is actually compelling, we might not even notice that there is noise. The noise fades into the background as we delegate the processing of that noise to our background intuition.

Several studies have compared the impact of hearing unfamiliar vocabulary and grammar in the context of a compelling story, helped by “comprehension-aiding supplementation,” with the traditional direct teaching of grammar and vocabulary. The consistent conclusion is that the former is more efficient: hearing unfamiliar words in the context of compelling stories results in more acquisition per minute.

So the time is better spent for more great stories, meaningful conversations and language-rich activities around it, in order to substantially grow language competence.

how we acquire language: language-rich input

It is true that we can experience flow state (being “lost” in the process) not only when hearing or reading a story, but also in many other everyday activities, like when we play game, or just walking, staring at the sunset, listening to music, chatting with friends, etc.

But notice that not all activities are equally language-rich. For example, we may be lost for hours and hours in a nonverbal game or a game that’s not language-rich, but it doesn’t give us language-rich input needed for language acquisition and literacy development.

So no matter how comprehensible or compelling an activity is, if it’s not language-rich, then it alone is not efficient and strategic for the purpose of language acquisition and developing literacy.

how we acquire language: abundant input

Here’s the idea: If we provide students with enough comprehensible input, the vocabulary and structures they are ready to acquire must be present in the input. This means that we might not have to make sure that they are there: we don’t have to deliberately focus on certain points of grammar given enough comprehensible input.

Just give students lots and lots of comprehensible input and they will acquire and grow substantial grammar and vocabulary and their overall language competence.

So one of the primary goals in acquisition-based teaching is to first focuses on providing students with abundant comprehensible input for building a solid intuitive (mental) capacity of the language which enables them to produce the language fluently and accurately, rather than immediately embarking on language production (speaking and writing).

the best forms of “optimal” input

“Optimal input” is input that is comprehensible, compelling, language-rich and abundant, and research found that the best forms of optimal input that satisfy all those four conditions so far is listening to stories.

Listening to stories is also a very powerful and pleasant way to familiarize and lead students to the second best form of optimal input, which is reading texts.

Library of abundant quality resources is thus one of the core components we need provide for students and teachers alike to practice reading aloud: books that are compelling, comprehensible and serve the development of the good life.

building the “intuition” of language for speaking

If foreign input is made comprehensible, students will be able to turn it as real intake they can (subconsciously) process and work with. Overtime, this type of exposure provides the fundamental data required for building intuition (mental representation) of the language.

Once students begin to build the intuition of the language and feel “click” with the language, they can gradually tap for self-expression and naturally produce output. Another way to state this is that learner production of language is allowed to emerge on its own, as they are compelled to speak their mind.

Naturally, when we have received enough comprehensible input, and build the intuition of the target language, our brain will be able to run in reverse. Our target language will start spilling out of us.

Once we reach this point, we’re ready for output. We’ve spent all this time building a pool of latent ability through input. The next step is to convert that latent ability into output ability.

So exposing yourself to these situations that cause your brain to search through your pool of acquired language and make those words and phrases available to you for output is the way to develop output ability.

Sometimes, our brain won’t be able to find the right thing to say or write. These moments show you where you haven’t yet acquired the necessary language. Armed with this knowledge, you can target your immersion and fill in the gaps. This output/input loop allows you to quickly achieve basic fluency.

Therefore, we need to spend more time on student comprehension (through listening and reading) in order to build their intuition of the language, rather than immediately embark on the drilling of the language production (speaking and writing) itself.

is correcting error helpful for building accuracy?

Imagine yourself being a student sitting in a language class. The teacher has just finished explaining a certain rule of grammar, and now is asking you an assessment question. Answering the question: one part of your mind starts putting the sentence together while making sure its grammar accuracy, then activating your vocal chords … but at the same time, another part of your mind is monitoring what you are doing, inspecting your own speech accuracy and pronunciation, keeping an eye of things, and quite in a sudden this (monitoring) part of your mind catches a wrong ending on the verb you are pronouncing, and right at the very second you manage to correct it just before it gets out of your mouth (with a slight hesitation).

---

While monitoring error may make a small contribution to accuracy through conscious reason, the research indicates that it is the acquisition that makes the major contribution to the development of natural accuracy. Besides, it is very difficult to keep every grammar rule consciously in your head while trying to have a conversation.

After studying some grammar rules and vocabulary, our students may immediately be able to produce some output and to translate a sentence or two, word-for-word, phrase-for-phrase, from Indonesian to English, but the result won’t probably sound as natural. It’s because each language has its own unique sensibility that cannot be fully captured to the other language through mere grammatical translation method taught in learning method.

One of the main functions of student output is thus to let the teacher know where students are in terms of their acquisition. If the teacher notices students having difficulty with something in particular, then the first thing the teacher might want to consider is to provide more examples of it in the input.

Watch the video below to explore this topic further.

is error correction helpful for developing fluency?

“The major, who had been the great fencer, did not believe in bravery, and spent much time while we sat in the machines correcting my grammar. He had complimented me on how I spoke Italian, and we talked together very easily. One day I had said that Italian seemed like such an easy language to me that I could not take a great interest in it; everything was so easy to say. “Ah yes,” the major said, “Why then, do you not take up the use of grammar?” So we took up the use of grammar, and soon Italian was such a difficult language that I was afraid to talk to him until I had the grammar straight in my mind.”

(E. Hemmingway, In Another Country)

---

Some research shows that when we focus on rules when speaking, we produce less information, and we slow down. This can seriously disrupt conversation. Some people “over-monitor” and are so concerned with grammar and accuracy that speech is slow and even painful to produce as well as to listen to.

So if we want to speak fluently, then over-actively checking everything for grammar before it gets out of our mouth is going to be a hindrance rather than a help. It makes us anxious and it slows down our language production.

One of the primary functions of student output is to let the teacher know where students are in terms of their acquisition. If the teacher notices students having difficulty in speaking with fluency, then the first thing to consider might be to provide them more input so they may acquire and develop greater intuition of the language. Once they begin to feel click with language, they will be able to tap for fluent self-expression.