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7 thoughts on “Hart Crane”

  1. This is a scathing indictment of what many teachers still do today, in spite of all that Krashen has laid out before us, esp. about the natural order of acquisition:
    “The natural order hypothesis is the idea that children learning their first language acquire grammatical structures in a pre-determined, ‘natural’ order, and that some are acquired earlier than others.” (https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/natural-order)
    The fact is that we cannot control or possibly teach grammatical structures in the order that they actually occur in the soup of the unconscious mind. So tell me again why people still use the textbook and test students in increments of certain structures at certain times in certain groups of words in a certain order in a distorted process of memorization which has nothing to do with how actual authentic acquisition occurs according to the research.

  2. I remember reading from a few people on various blogs– maybe even this PLC– that working memory matters and that we are only capable of juggling 5-7 terms/chunks of the TL. The ol’ adage of “sheltering vocabulary, not grammar” shows up. Yet, the subconscious mind is much more robust and capable than we expected. With the advent of NT CI, I can see in my students freewrites (a french 1 class with over 50% of 100 words or more!!) and smiles (from the thick skinned academic kids) that there are greater more significant gains. There is more heart to heart communication.

  3. As usual, Steven puts his thumb on the pulse of this work in the above comment. I read it twice.
    This is the key to the idea:
    …the subconscious mind is much more robust and capable than we expected….
    We can extend that idea to say that testing to see what can be consciously recalled is an exercise in futility that is simply not aligned with the research. And yet it is what many CI teachers still do! Such has been the effect of the school environment and its traditions on our growth and effectiveness as teachers.

  4. When I worked for Medieval Times, I used to do presentations for schools. We would take one or two knights, a squire, me, and a horse. Obviously, we needed a trailer for the horse and other equipment.
    Most of the time, we had a large pick-up available, but one time we had only an older four-cylinder truck. We made it out to the school (about 50 miles away) okay, but on the way back the clutch went out. Suddenly we had no gears whatsoever; the transmission was in neutral. We coasted to the side of the road.
    Fortunately, one of the knights had chosen to take his personal pick-up – a V8. We unhitched the trailer there on the side of the freeway, switched the trailer hitch to his truck, and hooked the trailer back up. Then we returned to the castle, leaving the four-cylinder truck behind.
    The V-8 had no problem pulling the trailer with the horse.
    The trailer wasn’t any lighter. The load wasn’t any different. The work wasn’t any easier. So, what made the difference?
    The larger truck had the power to pull the load with ease, whereas the four-cylinder truck was overtaxed and unable to pull the exact same load.
    This is the difference between the unconscious and conscious mind.

    1. Now those who haven’t learned to appreciate the wit and wisdom of Robert can do so. That is INDEED the power of the unconscious vs. the conscious mind! Thank you Robert.
      Why so many teachers, even those who know of Krashen’s hypotheses, continue to use the lighter load pick up is a mystery to moi. I think it has something to do with not being able to relinquish control. “I am a teacher and I will teach, dammnit!” when all they have to do is deliver the CI – in both auditory and reading input* – and then let the powerful engine of the students’ unconscious minds bring the gains.
      *Susie once said that when they read it “should be like a movie in their minds”. That is why I don’t recommend class reading of novels, which bring the engagement of the conscious mind and analysis and the resultant paralysis of the part of the brain that actually does the work.

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