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33 thoughts on “Lowering of the Affective Filter”
I responded:
“Good. I have to say that teaching my middle school kids has been an eye opener in this regard. They REALLY don’t care about anything but the message. It’s striking how little they care about anything but the story and the silliness of it. Maybe the middle schoolers haven’t had the natural interest in stories beaten out of them like the high schoolers like those you saw in Denver at Lincoln High School. I am shocked at how many of my current students never forget a single detail of a story, even days later. One child retold in English an entire story with significant detail for about a full minute when all I did to start the next class was ask for a little refresher of what the story was about.
“So I hear what you’re saying about the laser pointer directed choral translation piece (which to be honest I can tell when we are doing it they don’t really care about). And your article makes me wonder if they even give a rip about free writes. Like…”It’s school, so I gotta do it.” is the vibe I get.”
“Is ‘choral translation’ compelling comprehensible input with a focus on the message?”
I love that question.
If the kids don’t care about the choral translation, we lose them. I’ve noticed that for sure.
The story suddenly becomes a chore or, for some, a rather mindless activity, or for others, just an opportunity to show off.
It also puts the story into their heads in English. I think this is an important point. Up until that point, they have heard it only in French. I’m sure the English eclipses (timely word choice) the French in their brains, at least for some of them. It becomes a back and forth game.
This goes well with my new goal of establishing meaning (Step 1) in French, too, with images, gestures, or actions.
I think they prefer reading the story in French sentence by sentence after me.
I have also found that I lose myself at the choral translation point. I don’t love them. They me out of the flow of French that I am already having trouble getting going. They can also make me feel like the story is over, or something. It’s like, okay the fun is over, we can put it into English. I don’t know exactly.
The point of the choral translation has been to make sure everyone understands in order to discuss in TL. I’m going to try making sure everyone understands in French and then discuss in French as before.
This is making me wonder about all translation activities. We don’t need English to check comprehension. Do we? Maybe I’d keep the quick “What did I just say?” We’ll see.
This is fascinating. Nice to be home sick and have time to think.
3rd to last paragraph – I meant to write, “The point of the choral translation…”
I don’t really do choral translation, except on the first few times reading in level one. I do a few sentence translations to check for their understanding within a bigger reading though.
Ben,
I am lost with your objective on this one? What are you searching for? We already have the answers and conclusions about the benefits of a lowered affective filter. I know this is your process to think out loud with us on the PLC.
I am wondering what you are really searching for on this one? Consider my inquiry as a challenge my friend.
What are you getting at with all this?
Michael when I in MN this summer I kept hearing Dr. Krashen saying the word compelling, all over the place, in every talk and in every lunchroom conversation. It was new to me, this new emphasis on the word “compelling” along with what I sensed in his speech to be a complete dismissal of the word “interesting” as not up to the task of conveying what he was trying to say to us at the conference.
Then the summer ended and I came here to India and met Steven Cook who showed the first bona fide interest in CI that I have ever experienced from an ESL teacher. As you know, the 2000 ESL teachers in Denver Publich Schools have expressed zero interest in what the (very successful) 100 WL teachers in DPS have accomplished under Diana Noonan’s leadership over the past 11 years. They seem, in fact, and still seem, sealed off from us by a 100′ high wall.
So when I started talking to Steven about CI, because – oddly for ALL the ESL teachers I have met – he showed an interest in it, I started to coach him after school in TPRS and all of a sudden we realized that there was a commonality to the things that came up in my coaching him. It turned that need for the affective filter to be lowered in ESL classes – as Steven Cook is seeing, is where we want to take his training in TPRS as it moves into his own ESL classroom.
In other words, Michael, for the first time in my own 15 years doing this work, I am seeing a section of Krashen’s work – who clearly agrees because since I started writing this response to you I just got – on the pop up Yahoo email feature on my computer – email #16 from Krashen in the last 10 hours – while I slept he was writing on this topic) a section of his work, the affective filter, that may not just be another hypothesis lightly treated, but the bedrock of the future change in this work.
That explains my interest.
Here’s another point explaining my interest in the affective filter, Michael. Dr. Krashen’s voice has been largely ignored by even the TPRS community on the point re: compelling comprehensible input. We still do free writes and choral translations and output activities. We mix in English. That is why in Denver in 2009 he came and announced to our great happiness that TPRS “comes closest” to his ideas but he never came out and said that we fully represent his ideas. He said that we do it more than the ESL community. Big deal, right? But how many of us in WL or ESL do compelling input? So that is another answer to your question. If Krashen is saying compelling and we are saying, “Whatever, as long as it’s interesting and we can do some output and speak English then it’s the same as compelling, right?” He is saying no to that. There is in my view a much bigger disconnect in our community between us and what Krashen is saying than anybody seems to care to look into.
I also wrote this back to Dr. Krashen this morning:
“I wanted to add to this thread two big reasons to support the idea that 100% compelling focus on the message leads to the greatest gains:
“Blaine’s original plan and the current Three Steps of TPRS were directly based on your research – we know that he based TPRS completely and intentionally on your research. Thus we see that the first two steps of TPRS deliver pure auditory input that should ideally be – in the original “BEP” terminology from around the year 2001 – “bizarre, exaggerated and personalized”. Those words, tossed aside by most people in the field as another sign that Blaine’s work was trivial and more than slightly wacko, all aim at making the material, seen in the light of 15 years later, compelling.
“In addition there is the astounding bar chart from Denver Public Schools from 2012 where Reuben Vyn’s students’ gains FAR outscored everyone else’s in the district. It was the most striking chart measuring language gains I have ever seen. You’ve seen it. This morning I asked Diana to send it as a screen shot to me to support what we are discussing here. (I know that the results are accurate because whenever I was around George Washington High School that year I NEVER heard Reuben speak a word of English – I’m talking about not a single word – even when I was just walking by the room on the way to Joey’s – which is quite different from all the teachers in DPS, including me, who spoke, to be truthful, some or even a lot of English in a typical class period. And of course those GW students read a ton that year. That one bar chart from 2012 stands in very strong support of the comprehensible input position.)”
Ben, I love it! I am glad I asked you…these discussions are important.
I will add my 2 cents about what you said from Krashen. I am kind of changing the topic off his AFFECTIVE FILTER hypothesis. I hope it is okay.
As a devoted TPRS teacher I respect, understand, and admire Krashen’s opinions about free writes, choral translations, and output activities. Publicly, I understand Krashen’s sentiments and concern for the use of output in our TPRS classrooms. OUTPUT misinterpreted is very dangerous and setback and regression for all the work that we do in our CI community. I am self-proclaimed Krashenista and I spent one entire school year withholding any type of output activities. When I had doubts…I just gave more compelling input. I went crazy providing compelling, contextualized, comprehensible input. It was a fabulous year I can’t deny it!
The following year I made some shifts based upon some things Blaine was telling me about Alina Filipescu. Blaine talked about the power of embedded readings, volleyball translations and a somewhat regimented free writing schedule (which I ignored). He specifically wondered what the result would be of weekly free writes. He spoke about this at NTPRS 2014 to some of us. I felt like I wasn’t willing to go that far off the input path.
However, I did do some of those other things…
*Choral translations meant comprehension was more transparent…100% comprehension.
*Occasional free writes meant that students interacted with the input more deeply.
*Volleyball translations meant that students went from slow processing the language they understood to fast processing the language in a narrow and concise way.
When I used those strategies I THINK I saw better results in acquisition. I continue to experiment in order to find ways to optimize the language acquisition experience for my students…it sounds like everyone does that in this PLC.
If these activities reflect better gains in acquisition does Krashen expect a TPRS to abandon them because they do not coincide with his theories?
Sorry, I know that is a tough question to throw out in the discussion…maybe others can chime in too.
You are still talking about the affective filter. Students who are sure that they understand are more relaxed. We see this in their body language when there is uncertainty about the message received. When they are certain that they understood clearly we can see their bodies relax. When they find out they did not understand correctly they more from uncertainty to a desire to understand clearly. Once they understand they will relax. They will grow in confidence. They will increase in motivation.
Nathaniel you are exactly right! We are still talking about strategies that influence the affective filter. I am so glad you articulated that!
…if these activities reflect better gains in acquisition does Krashen expect a TPRS teacher to abandon them because they do not coincide with his theories?….
Well that is the $64,000 question. I personally and only intuitively feel that there are no better gains in acquisition when those (very well expressed above) activities are used. If anything those gains are negligible. Why?
Because the research, such as it is in the first place, is probably made up by educators re: school settings. Even Blaine has that bias. But Krashen’s arena has been the wider field of just plain language acquisition.
Correct me if I am wrong on that, but isn’t it true that Krashen is a university dude dealing in pure research (he told us in MN that he is happiest in a room with a bunch of numbers to crunch)? Right now in those emails he is sending me where he breaks down the articles on the affective filter, in each one he points out the stance against ANY form of writing, choral reading, etc. that you point out as possibly bringing measurable gains and that have some value at least.
I’m expressing it in clumsy fashion because I’ve gotta run out the door, but I do believe Michael that in your comment above you really get to the nitty gritty of a conversation we all need to have. What is CI relative to teaching language classes in schools? Does the “school” part change it?
Like you say, maybe others will weigh in on this. Personally I don’t think that CI as Krashen envisions it can work in schools. It just doesn’t work. Our jobs are too hard, with too much resistance and push by people who are ignorant of the research towards output in class, too many students who want to speak “now”, want to do grammar, want to write, etc.
So there is CI and then there is CI for Schools. That is what I try to describe in that affective filter article that Krashen just responded to this morning in what are now up to 18 emails. (He responds to each point I make in that article in terms of HIS version of what CI is. Two kinds of CI. That’s where we are.
To be clear, I believe that only Krashen’s version of CI works. That is why CI in schools is always something akin to a train wreck.
The $64,000 question…I think in our CI circle we all have been wrestling with this issue for a long time. Ben, I think you made an important distinction for articulating this very fine point.
“CI in Schools” is an extremely fine point that we should be shouting loud and proud. Krashen of course it correct in his hypothesis and theories and we all are trying to make true his work in our classrooms. There are certain strategies/short cuts we HAVE to take in order to make the 180 days of instruction mean something.
I am with what you, Eric, and Robert added…I believe his version of CI is the holy grail of language acquisition but making it work in the schools has always been the challenge we have faced.
Eric mentioned Van Patten below, as has Robert in his recent writings about “traps.” This is because VP takes the classroom spin on this topic. Ultimately, if I could humbly say, we are the most AMAZING group of teachers because we are so dedicated to optimizing the acquisition process in school!!! We are doing it in real time with real students with real schools all across the world.
Cool stuff!
Great ideas!
Amazing conversation!
Talented educators!
Brilliant minds!
Just some random thoughts on a late Saturday evening.
Krashen is a researcher who is looking at acquisition in its purest form. He is absolutely correct – I believe – that Comprehensible Input alone is necessary for acquisition. This message is an extremely important corrective to traditional foreign language instruction.
We are teachers of students in our schools, and our world is very different from the ideal(ized) world of the motivated language learner. In addition, even the motivated students in our classrooms are teenagers who deal with teen insecurities and the generalized Angst of the entire school experience. Besides teaching students language, we create places where they can feel secure, begin to overcome those powerful anxieties, establish genuine relationships, and begin to show up as authentic human beings rather than presenting carefully constructed façades that conform to their perception of the prevailing culture. Within this context, I believe that some of these output opportunities have merit in that they provide students a chance to see their progress over time. To me, it is not the individual free write or choral translation that is important but the repeated instances that reveal growth over time and thus provide students with a sense of genuine accomplishment.
As I wrote at the start, just some random thoughts on a late Saturday evening.
Erratum: “… that Comprehensible Input alone is necessary and sufficient for acquisition.”
…besides teaching students language, we create places where they can feel secure, begin to overcome those powerful anxieties, establish genuine relationships, and begin to show up as authentic human beings….
May we all remember this. Therefore, there is CI and then there is CI in Schools. One, the learning of the L1 – is pure and powerful and natural real but doesn’t apply to L2 instruction in schools where what we do is necessarily watered down – for all the right reasons – as Robert describes above.
As deliverers of understandable messages we have got to be certain
– that we are not fooling ourselves
– that they really do understand
So the feedback loop is not necessary for acquisition, but it is necessary for knowing that we are, in fact, delivering what we think we are delivering: messages understood by our learners.
Are we giving L2 input?
Are we clear?
Are we compelling enough to keep them tuned in?
It is a big job in the FL classroom
Nathaniel… me likey what you say above. I will copy it and take it to my principal for a pre-brief tomorrow before a full observation on Wednesday. I will ask her to help me see if I am doing exactly those things you delineate above.
And doing what you say there IS a big job! And what if some output got in there? I am softening on my CI warrior input-input-input all the time stance. We can’t do it. We work in schools. They have got to be able to try speaking a little. To write a bit even if it has no real value (this justifies my love of dictee).
I will TRY to get Krashen’s notes to each point of my ROA article posted here in the next few weeks. Now we have to sit him down in Agen and ask him to address this idea of CI and then CI in Schools. But how could he know? Has he ever taught a K-12 class?
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.
Eric.
Gregg contends that their is no affective filter. But there are a lot of affective elements (emotions/moods) that filter out comprehensible input. But it would complicate matters by combining them into an affective filter (whether it be a real thing in the brain or simply a theoretical construct) and collectively accounting for a constellation of feelings that inhibit input and acquisition. I am not sure how eliminating a label or a theoretical construct will serve to promote a clearer discussion of SLA.
I am no expert on Gregg. But I do see his critique goes way beyond the issue of individual, interacting affective elements vs. a combined affective filter.
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.
Please clarify for me, Dr. Krashen, when you say that Gregg’s view of science is incorrect . . . what I understand is that hypotheses can be abstractions, e.g. LAD, affective filter. And that hypotheses are “good” even without loads of direct evidence, so long as there is no solid counterevidence. Furthermore, so long as the hypotheses provides us with predictions that we can test, then it’s good science, even if the results of these tests provide us only with indirect evidence.
It makes sense to me that input can be prevented from being comprehended due to affect, i.e. affect -> comprehension -> LAD.
But is Krashen proposing that comprehended input can be later filtered out? i.e. comprehension (intake) -> affect -> LAD.
Also, what gets filtered? All possible intake (i+1)?
Is it “all or nothing,” the filter working like a threshold beyond which everything is blocked? Or can intake be partially filtered due to the degree of negative and positive affect?
Side note: Krashen’s seeming reluctance to expound on a theory of language (sometimes mentions Chomsky and LAD) and tie it to his theory is good and bad. It’s good, because then Krashen’s theory can exist regardless of whether or not UG theory, connectionist models, etc. continue to be valid. It’s bad, because without a theory of language, Krashen makes no precise predictions/explanations of how CI and affect interact with these internal mechanisms, since these internal mechanisms are not defined. Here is where other researchers need to forward his work by using different theories of language to explain how comprehending input is essential to acquisition.
Gregg’s view of science is incorrect: He does not accept that hypotheses are valuable to the extent they make predictions, which can be tested. Eric noted that so long as the hypotheses provides us with predictions that we can test, then it’s good science, even if the results of these tests provide us only with indirect evidence.” This is actually the only game in town.
Also Gregg insists that I link my work to the fine details of modern grammatical theory. Others have done this. He also demanded that I settle the Chomsky-Piaget debate.
By the way. Gregg concluded that my view of language acquisition is obviously right: He agrees that “most language acquisition is unconscious, that comprehensible input is vital for learning and that a teacher’s job is to provide that input, that affective barriers can prevent successful acquisition of a second language and that a teacher has the duty to try to lower these barries whenever possible.” He then asks, “But then, does anybody disagree?” (p. 94). This comes from Gregg, 1984, Krashen’s monitor and Occam’s razor Applied Linguistics 5: 79-100.
Gregg (1984) can “agree” with the basic premises of Krashen’s model and still throw punches at Krashen, because Gregg expects something different, something more, and something more specific from a theory of language acquisition, e.g. he wants it to include a “property theory” – a theory of the language system.
I reread the affective filter hypothesis section of Krashen, 1982 and it says:
“the effect of affect is ‘outside’ the language acquisition device proper. . . affective variables acting to impede or facilitate the delivery of input to the language acquisition device” (p.32).
This is different from what Krashen wrote above about them being “inside” the LAD.
I can see affect working in 2 ways: prevents input from ever being comprehensible AND prevents comprehended input (intake) from affecting the developing system.
As for an explanation of the order of the morpheme studies, I see the explanatory power of the work done on processing input, the result of which are VanPatten’s principles of input processing (e.g. in Appendix A of VanPatten & Wong, 2003).
Welcome to the blog, Dr. Krashen. I hope that continue to post here, because that would be a tremendous boon to us.
OK so I am beginning to see this a bit more clearly. What we have to do to address the problem of too much output in FL classrooms is educate ourselves as to the differences between limited quality output and then the mountain of useless garbage that beckon us to pick trash from it and use it in our classrooms.
But educating ourselves in that way is not easy. You are laying out some good distinctions here as you address these points one by one in the Reading Option A paper.
I’m embarrassed that I wrote that you hadn’t been in a classroom. Of course you have. Mine in fact along with thousands of others. But so what should I do about this CI vs. CI in Schools idea? Is there a regular CI for L1 and another one for schools? Is the latter a sell out?
There is a CI for FL programs as they operate now and CI for FL programs as we would like them to operate. The issue, as I see it, is not to make CI fit the current FL expectations and assessments, but to change those expectations and assessments! That is the long-term goal.
I make Krashen’s theory work in my classroom every day, but because I have total admin and parent support and I am the only FL teacher at my school with no one pressuring me to teach or assess in any certain way. In other words, I have total freedom to make Krashen’s theory work in practice and I get to set the expectations and assessments to measure progress as I see fit.
I think what I will do with all this is just make sure Dr. Krashen’s comments in those emails and esp. those papers you attached all get posted here in the next few weeks. The papers he attached are by far the most important things for us to read here.
By ‘affective filter’ can we include such slippery states of being as, say, hungry, hot and tired? For over 20 years I’ve been teaching 1st through 4th graders. Often, I repeat the same lesson to the same level 3+ times in a row. I can get tremendously divergent response and ‘vibe’ in the classroom depending on whether the class takes place, say, right before/after lunch, or right after gym, or in my balmy, no A/C classroom on a Friday afternoon (before a long weekend…).
Then there’s the group dynamic. Some groups have great energy, a natural leader, a loud ADHD distractor, lots of kids pulled out for violin and re-entering 15 minutes into class in a most obtrusive way….
Then there’s my mood, how funny the picture prompt or source material is – to me, to them – again all influenced by hunger and exhaustion, and what just happened on the playground.
On a good day, most of the Ss are tuned in and have the where-with-all to play along, rejoin the rejoinders, offer a detail, pretend to be bunnies that run like crabs, while the rest cheer them on, etc. On those days I’m confident that CI went in…what happens to it in there? I’m not so sure, but I’ll keep plugging away until anyone comes up with anything even close.
Though I can use very little written input with the youngest groups and am often frantic looking for a break from my own cloying voice, I definitely see the value and the novelty of literacy activities. It’s so hard to take in, take in, take in all the time! Can we see such activities through the lens of novelty and give ourselves a break?
If only I could have my lil guys read independently and write once in a while!! The devil is in the how much/how frequently (for novices) detail.
Brava, Alisa, — very well-put…
could not have said it better myself….
thanks for making a nuanced comment on my day today…