Again, with Dr. Krashen’s permission, I am posting selected passages from Foreign Language Education, The Easy Way (out of print). This is the second such installment here, and it describes more theory about comprehensible input and the process of acquisition of a language:
…given enough comprehensible input, structures students are “ready” to acquire are invariably present in the input. We do not have to make sure that certain structures or vocabulary are covered. If students get enough comprehensible input, they will be…. (p. 6)
To me, this does not mean that we can’t still try to agressively limit new structures in stories. Krashen is an expert on reading and he may be coming from that background in this book. We all know that the greatest gains in vocabulary come from reading. I prefer to think of stories and PQA as teaching primarily grammar, with less emphasis on vocabulary acquisition.
Further:
…the actual relationship between the amount of CI obtained and individual progress depends on whether the CI contains aspects of the target language that the acquirer has not yet acquired, but is developmentally ready to acquire. Thus, progress for very advanced acquirers may be slow, even if they live in the country where the language is spoken, becuase the comprehensible input they recieve has little in it that they have not already acquired….(p. 6)
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
