Robert’s email discussing Scope and Sequence with his district World Languages representative continues:
9. Acquiring a language is different from learning in nearly all other areas (Van Patten) because it is, especially in the early stages, essentially an unconscious process (Chomsky, Krashen). While one learns history by reading about history in the native language or learns mathematics by working mathematics problems in the native language, this approach does not work for learning a language. Instead, one attends to other things (content) in the language, and the brain unconsciously (or subconsciously) maps the language. We see this in young children: they do not learn the rules of their language first; they have a message to communicate and simply speak because they have been bathed in the language. In the world language classroom, as soon as we begin to speak in English about the target language, we have ceased targeting acquisition and are now studying linguistics. Does this mean that there is no place in the foreign language classroom for explicit grammar instruction? ?? ???????! This explicit grammar instruction follows acquisition and is used to polish the language and help students understand the system – after they have sufficient experience and acquisition to see that there is a system. Perhaps an analogy with Art or Sports will help with understanding this. We do not take the budding artist and teach him color theory, elements of composition, and principles of line, shape and form. Instead, we encourage him to draw, show him great artwork, and make suggestions for small changes: “Why don’t you try this?” Only later do we discuss the “system”, the theory behind the work, in order to polish the product. Even then, there are many artists who cannot articulate art theory yet produce excellent works, especially when doing so for their own enjoyment. We do not subject the promising young athlete to drill upon drill and in-depth discussions of principles of ball handling, offensive and defensive strategy, or even the complexities of the game. Let her kick the soccer ball around and get a “feel” for it. Once she is mentally and emotionally ready to play at a competitive level (club or school), then she can get the instruction that polishes the game. But if she plays simply for her own enjoyment, the technical and regulatory side of the game will remain largely meaningless for her; yet she may have excellent skills and an intuitive understanding of how to play. Learning a language is more like this than it is like memorizing dates and facts for math or history.