The Research Supporting the Comprehensible Input Hypothesis
tprsquestionsandanswers.wordpress.com
tprsquestionsandanswers.wordpress.com
I haven't read through this in its entirety yet (I'm cooking dinner). I'll go ahead a post this to keep the thread warm.
At first glance it seems to be very comprehensive. In my experience having relied on many of these approaches and observations has been the primary fulcrum of successful acquisition. although some specific conclusions i must reject outright, for now; that SLA is slowed by speaking the target language rings of absolute blasphemy.
In a school setting however, there is a strong urge by both the students and the teachers and the external system to provide some sort of “proof” that a standardized level of comprehension has been achieved. Students want to get As, teachers want reproducible methods, and administrators want standardization.
My intuition is that language acquisition, more than almost any other subject, has to be done naturally, idiosyncratically, and non-linearly. This is horrible from the perspective of needing to provide a test at the end of the class.
I haven't read through this in its entirety yet (I'm cooking dinner). I'll go ahead a post this to keep the thread warm.
At first glance it seems to be very comprehensive. In my experience having relied on many of these approaches and observations has been the primary fulcrum of successful acquisition. Of particular importance are the early stages of the process, as it is when many so called 'affective filters' are staked out. I prefer the term 'autonomous emotional responses' upon spontaneous exposure and SLA activity engagement. I would branch out to argue other formative phenomenon are formed and entrenched in the early stages, such as the learner's wide-view expectations of scope and acquisition-velocity. the last but arguably most important early-stage developmental phenomenon is the primordial formation of the neuro-circuitry' used when engaged in second-language use and acquisition.
That last one can be paraphrased as "habits like on the fly translation from mother-tongue vs direct and spontaneous production." Essentially refers tp mental habits (neuronal tracks) in the computational aspects of pre-cognition (see neuroanatomy broca area) that can reactivate the language-activation instinct, or, if mal-formed, harness acquisition and effective production, requiring it to pass through 3x more executive function filters.
It is of my professional opinion that mal-formed pre-cognitive mental habits can restrict reactivation of the language-acquisition instinct many times over. The textual and rule-based learning approaches further hinder learner success due to the increased cognitive-load of translating and juggling a bajillion rules.
Learners with this profile fail to organize their ideas effectively when speaking; reading comprehension is compromised; accent, tone, mannerisms, and 'modes of expression' remain quintessentially foreign to native speakers; and (most importantly) overall acquisition-velocity remains largely stagnant despite constant and long term study.
You can find in the article the following criteria. It is an excellent set of axioms for the early phases of learner's SLA journey.
The article stipulates the following:
Note: For reading to help L2 acquisition, it must
be 98% comprehended
restrict vocabulary load to learners’ levels
be interesting in and of itself
recycle vocabulary
All of these are inextricable elements of early phases. My requirements also include the need to be 60% verbal, with 30% anchoring vocabulary through textual artifacts.
I'll keep reading and adding notes for those interested in the subject. Meanwhile I'll post something a few days ago on a (more lovable) internet forum:
That being said my first tip for y'all is to not get too hung up on writing. Languages are called languages because we use our tongues to speak them (the root of the word means tongue). Most of us take it for granted that languages are the basis of speech and are the basis for organizing our thoughts, while writing is derivative, a mere simulacra of that. There's a lot of science to back that up, but i won't get into that here. I invite you to go out into the interwebs and seek out an entrance to that rabbit hole if languages and language learning interest you.
So my advice is to focus on nailing down the verbal aspects of speech production early on, and don't let up--- ever. You should drill the muscle memory of not only atomic words, but phonemes, and, most importantly, phrasings. Beyond the gross aspects of just producing the sound correctly in an academic sense, seek to sound right to the average person. That means tone, breathing, pitch, melody, rhyhtm, resting tongue position and tongue position while producing vowells, etc.
This should all be drilled within the context of spontaneous speech production. If proper speech is the hardest part, being able to build sentences and organize ideas on the fly while still sounding proper and being able to keep the native speakers engaged is harder than the hardest part.
Connected to our fixation on writing is the belief that languages and human communication are mostly about ideas- if you actually take the time observe universal human behavior you will find that this is false. Otherwise small talk wouldn't be such a commonality worldwide. This fits into the category of what i call primordial language. It is three things: it is gestural, emotive, and verbal (though sometimes just gestural). This also applies to other species from crickets, birds, dolphins, dogs. Our second-order languages are abstract, symbolic, and logical. So don't confuse the map with the territory. If you want to learn a language, seek to understand and be understood. Do that by prioritizing the primordial aspects of language learning.
That being said, don't neglect the mental tech our schooling and literacy has ingrained in us. Be systematic. Build spreadsheets of words and phrases and practice them. Carry around a small notepad or a folded piece of paper and a pen. I personally have to write down words and phrases when I'm just starting a language to anchor that stuff in my memory. Only after thousands of hours do the sounds become reliable anchors for my knowledge (i'm a visual learner).
My third tip is to engage in at least 5-15 minutes of conversation daily with someone with a skill level ranging from near-your-level all the way to way above your level. There are a lot of reasons this is important that i won't get into now. You can (and should) start off talking to yourself all the time in your target language, and finding and mirroring videos of speech, but eventually YOU MUST seek out some way to actually use the language-- minimum 5 hours a week. If you neglect this last step you will never become fluent, no matter how much you study alone.
That's all i got to say about that (for now)"