I got this from a former student:
Hi Mr. Slavic,
Quick question for you. What was that statistic about the number of hours of listening that a person needs before they can do any real output? Was it 1000 hours? I’m pretty sure that that’s what it was but I just wanted to be sure. My teacher has decided that we are ready to speak, and, well, we really aren’t. Pronunciation is off, most kids are having trouble forming what they are thinking and they don’t have the vocabulary base to have a real conversation, so a lot (the majority) of the words spoken are in English. Overall, it’s just bad. Anyway, I managed to do pretty well with output despite the fact that I’m no where near ready, and so the boy in front of me turns around and says “That was really good – you’re always good at French. I can’t even say a few words, I must really suck.” I told him that he didn’t suck (he really is a great student that would probably thrive with stories) but of course he didn’t believe me so he just sat there looking embarassed. I think I will have a better chance of getting him to believe he doesn’t suck at French if I have a statistic.
Thanks,
K.
My response is just to copy and paste Mike Walker’s recent email on this topic. It has the statistics that this student is looking for. I might add that what looks like a fairly innocuous pedagogical activity in the above class is really the dealing of a crushing blow to the confidence of the student described above. The choice of the teacher to ask for output from her class before the kids are ready is not a casual thing. It leads to dropouts and kills programs. Here are Mike’s numbers:
I have stopped sometimes and have written the “formula” on the board: 80 x 87 x 4 ÷ 60 =464 (80-minutes x 87 classes per year x 4 years÷60 minutes= 464 hours).
“What is that”, they have asked. My reply: “That is the maximum number of hours that you can possibly learn German in this class, and that is based on four years. Then, subtract hours for early release days (40-minute classes that “count” as a school day), quizzing, testing, mid-year and final exams (that also “count” as time in class), rallies that omit a class, state and SAT mandatory tests, illnesses, being late, families who take students to Florida during school-time and not during a school vacation, and you have much less time than 464 hours.
I ask them: “How many of you play and instrument, play a sport, sing? How many hours have you done those activities (of course they don’t know the answer, but the “wheels” begin to click when they think of the number of hours in their lifetime that they have devoted to a sport or to playing an instrument). Are you ready to play in the NBA, NFL, AHL? Could you take part in the ESPN X-Games? Could you step in as a guitarist with Eric Clapton or play in a Led Zeppelin reunion?”
They laugh but see the point. I write up another formula: 14 x 365 x 15=…
I have one of the students pull out a calculator, type in the formula, and wait for the student to calculate it. I write the answer on the board: 76,650.
“What’s that?” they ask.
I tell them that the “14” represents a 14-year old: (14 years x days in a year x number of hours awake: I allowed 9 hours of sleep for all 14 years — (I shoot “low” here to make my point) — “That is the number of hours, give or take a few hundred or thousand hours, that you have been exposed to English. Even as a baby, you heard the sounds of the language, and language was all around you. You could not speak for probably the first two years, but some of that was physical, which is why you may have said, ‘I yike dat’. “You learned to control your tongue later to express an “L” or the “th” (my son used to call our neighbor “Yinda” instead of Linda until he could master the “L”). Now, I assume that with 76,000 hours of English under your belt, you must be all getting an “A” in English”.
They laugh or groan. “Why not? Gee, with all that exposure to English, haven’t you mastered English? Isn’t it easy to write, to express yourself?…”
They “see the light”. Students must be fair to themselves and be realistic about their expectations. I have found that when students understand that acquisition takes time—slowly and steadily— but that they can achieve great progress at each level of L2, even with the limited amount of time that we have with them. It gives them confidence that they have learned and are learning.