Ian Burke sent this question:
What do you suggest to people who have already gone down the road of learning a language through left brain approach, classes etc. and have failed or who have reached an unsatisfactory intermediate level like so many have done. Is it possible to fix?
They have mixed jumbled output from learning the wrong way and speaking too soon and have cemented bad habits. Is it possible fix this by getting plenty of CI and maybe not speaking or by following the right brain approaches?
Some say it’s not possible to undue bad habits learned which would means that the brain can’t re-organize. What do you think? Have you had any experience with this?
I would certainly love to fix my French. It went in fast and rushed and I spoke from the start so now I’m left with a mixed output although I can communicate easily.
I sent Ian’s question to a few experts and they responded:
Dr. Krashen:
I am in this position with Amharic. What I would like to do is acquire real Amharic as a second language/dialect, in addition to the pidgen like variety I speak. I have never had input that I could understand easily (always from native speakers in the real world), and my version is fake, using grammar rules, whole phrases I have learned ,etc. What would happen to your French if you had tons (really a lot) of totally comprehensible and fascinating input?
(BTW I did my dissertation on the right-left brain difference. I have no idea if learning is left brain and acquisition is right brain.)
Carol Gaab:
I am NOT an expert on SLA, and this is probably good question for the REAL expert, Krashen. Nevertheless, I’ll share what I THINK based on the research I’ve done on SLA and brain plasticity.
WHAT EXPERTS SAY:
The brain cannot re-organize. FALSE!! The brain is very adaptable and can be completely re-trained. Brain plasticity is a new field, and scientists are making discoveries very day with regard to the brain’s ability to reorganize and to train different areas of the brain that are generally not used for that specific function.
Linguistic patterns/mistakes fossilize and are not correctable. FALSE!
Krashen says if you want to correct an error, focus on that ONE single error and tell the learner to consciously fix that one error. Follow up that error correction with loads of comprehensible and compelling reps, and soon the error will fade away as compelling CI overwrites it.
For overall ‘poor’ speech, you need a conscious desire to fix or improve. I have many ball players in this category. Their speaking ability is quite poor, but they don’t care; they think it’s good enough. Thus, they never improve beyond the min. threshold to graduate from English class.
With that said, IF someone has the DESIRE to consciously improve, then s/he will need TONS of CCCI (compelling, contextualized, comprehensible input) to first DISTRACT him/her from consciously trying to correct / improve their production and secondly, to overwrite the habitually poor speech patterns that persist. A TPRS / TCI classroom would be a great place to start- obviously. Also, if that student has reached a minimum threshold of acquisition, making independent acquisition possible, I strongly recommend reading the novels, and re-reading / re-listening to the audio books.