Someone on FB named Thomas attacked my one pointed focus on Krashen and CI, arguing, like so many other foreign language teachers, for a more eclectic approach.
This is my unapologetic response to him:
Thomas you miss the point. I have been teaching for 38 years and my conclusion is that Dr. Krashen has it down perfectly for me and my students. Why would you attack such a position, one born of thinking and experimenting about this one topic for almost four decades now?
It is so simple – Krashen has provided me with sublime ideas that have allowed me to really enjoy my job and do what I have always wanted to do in my language classroom – be happy. Why would you want to shoot that down?
And don’t imply that my thoughts have a cult-like quality about them. Doing that is just wrong. Mine is not the response of a cult member, but simply my expression of what works best for me after having taught about 34,000 classes in my life.
Have you read my books? Then how could you accurately say anything about my position? Send me your email address and I will send you all five of my books and then maybe we can have a civil conversation about this topic of Krashen vs. Eclecticism.
Thomas, sometimes we have to pick a way to teach and just go with it. When we adults insist on continuously arguing the pros and cons of a thing without picking one best option and aggressively implementing it in class, then we end up arguing over ideas instead of rolling up our sleeves and getting in there and helping kids learn how to love learning languages. The kids don’t care about politics – they just need something that works for them!
By fully embracing Krashen, in my opinion, we who do so – and there are a lot of us – avoid all the talk and get right into making classes great for kids, classes that make them and us very happy and filled with confidence that makes them want to go deeper and deeper into the language. Do your students experience that? What percentage of students do you retain each year? What kind of students do you retain each year?
I am so very tired of your hackneyed old intellectual argument in favor of an eclectic approach. It is just so lame after having heard your position from different people for so long now that I just want to puke.
Thomas you are the intellectual bully in this discussion. But few have called you out on it. Now go join some FB page where intellectual bullies are welcome, and where CI “experts” publicly and routinely slap down new ideas in the name of intellectual debate without really understanding the new ideas. After all this time, I know how I like my coffee. So go elsewhere.
Go find some other people who like to stand around and talk in the hallway rather than go into their classroom and stand and deliver the best possible instruction – comprehensible input instruction – that is based on the best available research in the world, which is a fact in spite of the noise and stink you are making.
Stop intellectualizing this work. Just stop. Newsflash: This work is now about opening kids’ hearts, not just their minds. Language instruction requires both! What we do is not like teaching any other subject. It is about gaining and keeping trust in the classroom. Krashen has figured out a way to get that done.
When I see people like you missing the point about Krashen, I see people who for some odd robotic reason don’t want foreign language education to go in the direction in which it has to go now in order to survive, into a blending of the mind and the heart in the classroom, with lots of laughter and lightheartedness and good will thrown in and not just a continued yawning ineffective focus on form. The so-called eclectic model that you espouse doesn’t hold a candle to comprehensible input. Deal with it.
Go study Krashen’s work some more. You will see. It is time for a more humane approach to teaching languages. When we bring the laughter and the fun and the human back and forth reciprocal and participatory piece into our classes, we as a profession will see some marvelous things!
Join us in making our profession fun and not so boring!
Ben