In my ongoing work at AES with Steven Cook, we have been exploring Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis as it may apply to ELA instruction. A summary of that work, a result of about six weeks of inquiry into the nature of language acquisition with Steven, is attached below (“Affective Filter Lowering” attachment).
I sent the paper to Stephen Krashen as well. His response, including a link to a short paper he has just written (second link below) follows. Steven (Cook) and I feel that this area of how a student feels during class holds lots of possibility for us as we continue to unpack the comprehensible input suitcases.
Dr. Krashen’s response:
“Thanks for sharing this with me! We have lots to talk about…
“Instead of doing it all at once, I will devote each message to just one idea or issue. [The first is:] “PQA/Story – Steps 1 and 2 of TPRS.
“Yes, the stories lower the affective filter, but I think there might be a better way of saying this. Great personalized stories provide compelling comprehensible input, so interesting that students forget that they are in another language. This destroys the affective filter, at least temporarily. NO focus on language. Just the story. And it doesn’t matter whether students are “motivated” or not – language acquisition is an automatic by-product of understanding interesting stories.
“SHORT paper attached.
[You said:] “The fourth step of ROA is doing choral translation using the laser pointer.” [red text is in original message].
“I really like that you bring up the issue of ESL/EFL. This is the future of TPRS, and some adjustments need to be made, e.g. not only relying on translation.
“Is “choral translation” compelling comprehensible input with a focus on the message? I will ask this kind of question again and again.
“Lots more to come.”