On output and grammar: See my comment Sept. 22:https://benslavic.com/blog/blowing-up-alaska/
Krashen is not anti-any grammar and anti-any output! Grammar helps under monitoring conditions, can lower affective filters, and could even help make input more comprehensible. Output, as in interaction, allows us to provide input more personalized (compelling) and comprehensible. Output makes a person feel like a member of the club, which supposedly means lower affective filters.
Krashen has never been against output, but he’s against forcing output beyond what a person has acquired. VanPatten takes it a step further and considers time spent outputting what has been acquired to be important to developing fluency and accuracy of production.
And the answer to the $64,000 question is that Krashen would find a way to explain the result in terms of his theory. e.g. The output gave them more of a feeling of belonging to the L1-speakers club, which gave them confidence and motivation, both of which lowered the affective filter and made the subsequent CI more profitable. Or the output allowed the teacher to better tailor the input so as to make it more comprehensible.
Here’s one of Krashen’s favorite citations (Mason, 2004) that found that additional writing did not help. Reading was enough and much more efficient.
http://www.benikomason.net/content/articles/effect_of_adding_supplementary_writing_to_an_extensive_reading_program.pdf
On the affective filter hypothesis. . . all SLA researchers would allot a role to the social-pscyhological variables. It’s just no so simple as Krashen puts it. Low self-esteem would mean not acquiring, but don’t many many teenagers have low self-esteem? Motivation is a tricky variable too, because much research has found an optimal level of task demand in which motivation is higher (not too easy, not too hard). And how do these variables interact?
And where I think Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis makes least sense is that Krashen proposed that input that was comprehended can be subsequently blocked from acquisition due to the affective filter, e.g. Comprehension -> LAD -> Affective Filter -> Acquisition. But how would this filter work on the LAD? How would the filter communicate with the LAD and decide which parameters to filter?
And Krashen has used the Affective Filter to argue for child-adult differences. This is problematic. How does the affective filter develop? Why don’t these affective variables, which children certainly also possess, not have an effect on L1 and early L2 acquisition? And adults overcome a lot of those negative affective variables of puberty, so the affective filter shouldn’t be used to argue for incomplete acquisition of adults. Why would the affective filter screen only certain grammatical aspects? e.g. How could an affective filter explain why adults of L2 English don’t acquire or late acquire the 3rd person singular? How could the affective filter screen certain “parts of language” and not others?
*I am repeating criticisms expressed by Gregg, 1984. We should read all sides to an argument. Criticism is necessary for the advancement of science.
Gregg (p. 94): “Once again, it is uncontroversial to claim that affect affects adult acquisition of a second language; most people would accept the claim that, ceteris paribus, an unmotivated learner will acquire less than a motivated one, a nervous learner less than a relaxed one, a self-hating learner less than a self-respecting one. But this by no means justifies a theory postulating an Affective Filter the growth of which and the function of which are not explained, and for the existence of which there is no evidence. On the contrary, given the lack of compelling evidence, and given the incoherence of the construct itself, Occam’s Razor requires that we reject the Affective Filter Hypothesis.”
I notice VanPatten not talking about affective filters. He talks about processing principles and leaves affect out of it.
Then, there are sociocultural/sociolinguists who criticize generative linguists for ignoring the social and psychological variables in their models of acquisition.
Yes, we should all try to increase self-esteem and motivation and lower anxiety. We should do that in every academic subject. For a neurological-based argument, search “Willis” and “RAD.” Hence, Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis makes for great pedagogical practice, but as a scientific hypothesis, it needs improving.
And all this talk about being completely lost in the message due to compelling CI . . I’m with Terry Waltz on this one: compelling CI is for classroom management and engagement with the CI. As far as the stronger hypothesis that it be required for acquisition, I find that hard to swallow. Most everyday communication is not compelling and yet people still acquire.
I also have the feeling that the compelling input hypothesis is based on observation of L1 acquisition. L1 acquirers are focused entirely on the message. Krashen bases the argument for incidental vocabulary acquisition on L1 acquisition, too. But here’s the catch: L1 acquirers have tons and tons more time on the task of acquiring. If an L2 acquirer were to pay conscious attention to some form, rather than slow down, it could just as likely speed things up, especially if the conscious attention makes input more comprehensible!
I see this at work among my younger grades. The 4th graders aren’t paying any attention to the words. They don’t process the “es” and “está” and “hay” because they still understand the message. But without processing these, without some conscious attention to them, they aren’t acquiring them. I see my older kids picking these up a lot faster. This is an imperfect comparison of course, because my older kids get more instruction time. Still, I think the older kids acquire faster because they are paying more conscious attention to the words.
Dr. Krashen’s response:
THANKS to Eric for articulating my position on output and grammar so accurately.
Affective filter: Gregg can’t “reject” it. There is no counterevidence, and it makes accurate predictions. Gregg’s view of science incorrect. The value of the filter is that it claims affective factors function INSIDE the Language Acquisition Device but prevents input from getting there. It does not change the order of acquisition, for example.
My arguments for compelling input are based on both L1 (heritage language, Jack) and L2 (Paul)- all these available at http://www.sdkrashen.com:
1. Krashen, S. 2011. The compelling (not just interesting) input hypothesis. The
English Connection (KOTESOL). 15, 3: 1
2. Lao, C. and Krashen, S. 2008. Heritage language development: Exhortation or good stories?
International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 4 (2): 17-18.
3. Krashen, S. 2015. The end of motivation. New Routes, 55: 34-35.http://www.disal.com.br/newr/ (Ben found a typo in this one.)
4. Lao, C. and Krashen, S. 2014. Language acquisition without speaking and without study. Journal of Research of Bilingual Education Research and Instruction 16(1): 215-221.
5. For more on affective factors: Krashen, S. 2015. The ecstacy hypothesis. Peerspectives, 14: 7-9. (Kanda University of International Studies) http://peerspectivesonline.org.