My Elevator Speech on Language Acquisition

If I were to give an elevator speech about language learning (especially to administrators!), I would pare it down to these five concepts (and by no means am I trying to oversimply the language acquisition process nor to reduce it to a series of general platitudes) - this is what I have learned about the language acquisition process over these many years from reading/listening to Stephen Krashen, Bill Van Patten, Karen Lichtman, Florencia Henshaw, and so many others whom I deeply respect:

1. Language learning is unlike any other subject area, because it is not linear in nature.
2. Because of this, learners do not acquire language on a prescribed timeline or at the same pace.
3. The language acquisition process is implicit and subconscious in nature. No extended amount of explicit grammar instruction can alter that process.
4. When encountering L2, the brain on its own is constantly creating, making connections to, and revising its mental representation of that language.
1. That language which the brain understands, it keeps and then creates, adds to, and refines those existing mental connections.
2. That language which the brain does not understand, it throws out.
5. As a result, learners need to interact with/have constant exposure to understandable, meaningful, purposeful messages in L2 so that the brain can create/revise its mental representation of that language.

For me, this elevator speech can then serve as a springboard to discuss other topics such as proficiency vs. performance, the need for compelling messages, the role of the affective filter in learning, the monitor hypothesis, etc.

Pop-Up Theory

At IFLT this past summer, during the Q&A session with Stephen Krashen and Bill Van Patten, Krashen said that he felt that the CI movement had progressed enough in classrooms that one could now introduce "pop-up theory." Much like how CI teachers can give brief, 30-second "pop-up grammar" explanations during a lesson, Krashen expressed that one could now do the same with Comprehensible Input theory in a class and explain to students how language was acquired. I found Krashen's comment to be very interesting, because although I do try to establish a classroom environment (safety net) and student behaviors (being an active listener, teaching to the eyes, interaction with the target language) needed for acquiring a language, I had never really explained to students why all of this was necessary. 

Today in my Latin 1 class, I introduced students to their first reading. For the past two weeks, our Latin 1 instructional team (Bob Patrick, John Foulk, Rachel Ash and I) has been focusing on Circling with Balls and TPR, so Rachel wrote up a very short story using the vocabulary which had been introduced. I was a bit hesitant to show this reading to my students, because although the reading utilized limited vocabulary with lots of repetitions, in doing Circling with Balls and TPR, I had not been focusing specifically on these exact words per se. Instead, I had been doing more of an untargeted vocabulary approach and running with whatever words came up in class or were needed to keep the dialogue compelling and moving along. Imagine my surprise when as soon as I projected the reading, many students immediately began to translate it aloud without my prompting! We ended up doing a choral reading and a round of Stultus with it, and afterwards, I asked students to show me on their hands what they thought of it: 1 being very difficult to understand, and 5 being very easy to read. All students rated it a 4 or 5!

As a follow-up, I asked students, "So why was this so easy to read? This was your first time ever reading a Latin story. I never once gave you a list of Latin words to learn. I never once told you to make flashcards. Why do you know these words?" I got a bunch of blank stares, as students tried to process my question. A student then replied, "Well, you have been saying these words all the time these past few weeks." My response: "Exactly. All I have ever asked of you these past two weeks is to simply listen to me, to understand what I am saying to you in Latin, and to signal me when I am not understandable. You acquired these words SUBCONSCIOUSLY through listening to me and interacting with the language. These words are now inside you. That is how one acquires a language. When you say that this class is easy, it should be. Acquiring a language should not be difficult and should feel effortless if I am doing my job correctly." I could have gone on for awhile telling students about Comprehensible Input theory and the three C's of CI (heck, I gave a 5-minute lunchtime talk about this at IFLT, so I could have talked their ears off), but like Krashen said, "pop up theory" is all which students need. 

So I encourage you to introduce "pop-up theory" to your students. If students can start understanding their own language acquisition process through occasional short, 30-second explanations, they will more likely buy into what you are doing.