students! This is where comprehensible in-
put comes in. Check out these words from
Dr. Stephen Krashen, renowned linguist
and educational researcher:
“Real language acquisition develops
slowly, and speaking skills emerge
significantly later than listening skills,
even when conditions are perfect. The
best methods are therefore those that
supply “comprehensible input” in low
anxiety situations, containing mes-
sages that students really want to hear.
These methods do not force early pro-
duction in the second language, but
allow students to produce when they
are ready…” (This and more at http://
www.sdkrashen.com/content/books/
principles_and_practice.pdf).
The ideas of both Dr. Asher and Dr.
Krashen seem to suggest that traditional
foreign language teaching methods are
putting the cart before the horse. They are
simply backwards!
Consider your own experience in learn-
ing your first language. As an infant, you
were surrounded by stimuli: people, pla-
ces, activity, and plenty of real language,
You were not pressured to reproduce the
words and phrases that you heard for many
months. And you never received a single
grammar lesson until you were quite fluent.
Instead, you were encouraged—and inter-
nally motivated—to respond non-verbally
for a period of time. Once you began to de-
velop a sense for the patterns and flow of
your native language, speaking came very
naturally to you. This is what worked for
you then, and it is what will work for your
students now!
The most practical means to achieve our
goals of fluency and proficiency, then, is to
provide our students with an environment
of rich, contextualized, and comprehensi-
ble language. Here are some practical ways
to access compelling comprehensible input:
1. If your students are studying Span-
ish, they may enjoy the “Vida loca”
and “Destinos” series available online.
Links to these and other great Spanish
resources are available here: http://ex
celeratespanish.com/faqs/links/. If your
students are studying other languages,
try a Google search using the words
“comprehensible input” and the target
language. For example, the terms “com-
prehensible input Italian” produced
this excellent resource: http://speakital
ianmagically.com/would-you-like-to-
download-several-italian-audio-cour
ses-for-free/.
2. Look for TPRS materials. Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS), is the brainchild of Blaine
Ray, a high school Spanish teacher in
California. Blaine Ray ingeniously combines TPR (Total Physical Response,
or gestures and dramatization) with
Storytelling, and the results have been
incredible! You may find TPRS novels
here: https://tprsbooks.com/books/ and
elsewhere.
FREE
catalog
available
®
Teach Me Some Greek!
...the easy way to learn!
“If you want to begin the study of Greek with your family, I recommend Hey,
Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek! You will soon find your children, young and
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New Testament on their own.”
- Diane Wheeler, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine
P.O. Box 882
Moline, IL 61266-0882
www.greeknstuff.com
Once you began to
develop a sense for the
patterns and flow of
your native language,
speaking came very
naturally to you.
