Musings on my encounter with Stephen Krashen
This is the third
year that I have travelled to Paris for the annual TESOL Colloquium to present
TPRS. The other two years I was a speaker and had a small room where I could
explain the method to anyone who wanted to come in. The first year there were
about 20 people and lots of empty chairs. But two of the people there came to
the first Agen Workshop I organized in 2013. Last year I had a bigger room and
a better time slot and they had to bring in more chairs and I ran out of
handouts. My title was: How to fit Krashen into the classroom.
This year I was
not speaking, but Stephen Krashen was the plenary speaker. As a matter of fact
he was giving three plenary conferences during the three days of the
Colloquium. To be sure that TPRS was represented, I rented a stand to answer
questions. I didn’t have much to put on a stand besides flyers for the 2015
workshop, so I brought along some books by Ben Slavik, some collections of
story scripts, The Arrival by Shaun Tan, and photocopies of the Verb Flower to
hand out. Since the only tea you can get at these things is the horrible stuff
from dispenser machines, I brought my teapot, my Earl Grey and some cups too.
Carole and Tamara decided to come with me. Cheryl and Lillian came from
Strasbourg to help me keep the stand.
Friday evening I
was sitting at our stand, when two men walked in and I heard one say, “Where’s
the show?” I recognized Stephen and told him, “You’re the show,” and introduced
myself. He was glad to see me, since Karen Rowan had told him I’d be there. I hadn’t found any Starbucks coffee, but he
graciously accepted a cup of tea.
Stephen’s talk
that evening was charming and witty, but it was also a strong defense of
acquisition through compelling, comprehensible input, using examples from his
own life. To my delight he mentioned TPRS several times as the most effective
method for acquiring a language that he knew of, and asked me to stand up so
that people would know who to ask about it. He was so generous with his praise
that later some people wanted to know if we had sponsored him. He also named
the enemy, skill based learning, which
explained some of the long faces we could see in the audience.
Back at the stand,
we had lots of inquiries and sometimes there were three or four of us busy
answering questions. Several people said they wanted to come to the workshop
this summer. The next day I was only able to get away for one presentation
about inner motivation. I was disappointed to see that the speaker was reading
both from several pages of notes and from his power point slides. I never use
power points myself, simply because I know the gremlins will take over and it
won’t work and I’ll be fussing with cables and flash drives and switches all
the time. Also because I remain attached to the idea that it is simple courtesy
to look at the people who have come to hear you. The speaker made several
references to Krashen and I had the impression that after hearing him he had
rewritten his entire presentation. Or,
knowing Krashen was the plenary speaker, he may have intended all along to
acknowledge his ideas. At first he seemed using Krashen as support, but he
eventually came to a parting of the ways. My impression (which may be wrong, I
wasn’t taking notes) is that he was saying that inner motivation will lead the
learner to practice and build his skills. I caught a whiff of Protestant
ethics. No pain, no gain. And I think this is where so many teachers find it
difficult to accept Krashen. Rightfully proud of their own linguistic
abilities, which they worked hard to develop, they instinctively reject the
idea of painless acquisition through compelling comprehensible input.
Saturday evening
Dr. Krashen discussed case histories of animals that have acquired language,
demonstrating that comprehensible input was more efficient than direct
instruction in every known case. Sunday he touched on some of the controversies
and explained his position. I particularly enjoyed his defense of students who
seem to be looking for answers on the ceiling.
If you ever have a
chance of hearing him, don’t miss it. He is a very effective speaker and
several people on our team remarked that there were fewer long faces and more
smiles on Sunday. Jane Ryder, vice-president of TESOL France, concluded by
thanking him and saying that she felt that she had been present at a historic
moment of change in language teaching in France.
Why is Stephen
Krashen controversial? It’s often the first reaction to any mention of his
name. “He’s very controversial.” Yet if you simply describe his hypotheses
without names or sources, people tend to consider them simple common sense.
I note that the
man has strong political beliefs and opinions that he openly defends. His
position on bilingual education programs, his defense of public librairies and
more recently his condemnation of high stakes testing have made him unpopular
with powerful and influential people. Many of the more vicious attacks on
Krashen were sponsored by those who did not like his stand on bilingual
education in California. I've even come across the rather preposterous claim
that his theories have been proven false by the fact that the bilingual program
was voted out. I can conceive that many people didn't want to pay tax money for
a program that enabled immigrant children to be successful in school. How does
that invalidate the program they didn’t want to finance?
Looking for an
objective, neutral discussion of Krashen, I found "How Languages are
Learned" by Lightbrown and Spada, Oxford University Press, Krashen's
theories are more or less accurately described, then dismissed with "they
haven't been proven". The authors failed to mention that they haven't been
disproven either. Then they went on to discuss other theories that have not
been proven, but which they seemed to find more congenial. Looking further, I
find that Nina Spada is an advocate of form focused instruction, whereas Dr.
Krashen holds that form is acquired when we focus on content.
My own personal
position is that all of his hypotheses accurately
describe and
explain what I encounter in the classroom every day. We
have all met that
affective filter and seen students be transformed
when it goes down.
We all know the difference between what students
have learned for a
test and what they have acquired and can produce
spontaneously. We
all have heard that monitor in our head, correcting
our grammar
(usually just after we said it wrong). We all know that
some of the
structures which we introduce on Day One, Lesson One, will
not be acquired
until our students have become fluent speakers. And we
have, I hope, all
had quiet students who spoke very little but listened
intently and one
day started speaking with ease.
The truth is that
Krashen's work is monumental and it's hard to ignore
him, but it's also
hard to adapt standard language teaching practice,
whether it be
traditional, audio-lingual, communicative, form-focused or problem/project
based, to his hypothesis. James Asher was the first to apply Comprehensible
Input to teaching and came up with TPR. Blaine Ray took it further with TPR
Storytelling. People on the moretprs list-serve tried it in their classrooms
and have been sharing feedback, refining and adding to it ever since. Teachers
who are not desperate enough, or honest enough or brave enough to question what
they have been doing in their classrooms for many years find it easier to
dismiss Comprehensible Input, saying "His theories haven't been
proven," If you reply, “nor have
they been disproven and they've been around for a long time”, they change the
subject. Well, I believe that my students validate Krashen's theories every
hour I spend with them. Teachers who have used comprehensible input strategies
in the classroom are a bit like the sailors who went around the world with
Magellan. They may not be able to explain why or how or use the right
vocabulary to talk about their experience, but they know the world is round.
Judith
Logsdon-Dubois
