Our students learn how to write and speak only after hundreds of classes, every minute of each of them precious and best spent reading and listening. The more they do the latter, the more they succeed at the former. But it takes time.
The more time (two years, minimum) that they receive input in the form of listening and reading, the better they get at speaking and writing. But, again, there is that two year gap before emergence*. We have to learn to wait. We have to learn to accept that output will only happen over years. We aren’t born fluent in our first language.
And so listening is the bedrock of it all. Listening is such hard work. But once done, those hundreds of classes of pure comprehensible input having been successfully completed, the magic begins to happen – the students emerge after a few years as wholly and somewhat miraculously capable of output. We have proof of that in the wonderful speech output we see in four and five year olds.
Acquisition is the happy result of teaching for communication, but mere learning is the sad result of teaching editing skills to students who don’t even know the language that they are editing.
As Jen wrote to me in an email today:
…I think “writing” and “editing” are two separate skills. Writing is getting your story out. It is a flow of your ideas, imagination, soul, life force, etc. Editing is when you look at what you’ve spewed out, and begin to craft it in a particular way. …
learning vs. acquisition
actual writing vs. mere editing
using L2 in the classroom over 95% of the time
assessment based on standards
arguments between colleagues about how best to teach
Things are changing, no doubt.
*depends on the kid
The Problem with CI
Jeffrey Sachs was asked what the difference between people in Norway and in the U.S. was. He responded that people in Norway are happy and
