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Robert Harrell – Philosophy of Language Instruction in High School
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6 thoughts on “Robert Harrell – Philosophy of Language Instruction in High School”
Thanks for posting this, Ben, and thanks, Robert, for another informative summary of the work we do, in the context of the language that school administrators will respond to. I vaguely recall the BICS/CALP (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills / Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) distinction from my credential training, and there was always a vague unspoken feeling conveyed that CALP was the be-all-end-all, even for FL/ESL instruction. But, as RH rightly points out, in a TL that one barely knows, there is no place for CALP. Language classes are different.
“Students will most likely use the target language, if they use it at all, for traveling, meeting tourists, speaking to clients or tradesmen, conversing with acquaintances. They will need some specialized vocabulary, depending upon the task at hand, but not academic language. Only a small percentage will continue with language study as an academic pursuit. ”
Only 4% or fewer are headed for careers in philology and linguistics. Again, Robert has words of wisdom for us which reflect the statistics (and I love the euphemism “legacy”) :
“Instead of leaving large numbers of students behind each year, we bring the majority along to greater fluency while providing the few with the means and opportunities to go beyond and above. Legacy programs have tended to cater to an “elite” few while sacrificing the many.”
John with your permission I will add this comment to the Primer article.
Thank you for the clarity. I sometimes think I tend to get so lost in the the scope and complexity of what I am trying to accomplish with my students, I tend to take this all too seriously and get diverted from the essential – compelling, comprehensible input. Thank you Robert for refocusing me on the essential. This article pairs nicely with your description of our high school students – the questions of motivation, ability, maturity, etc. What do we want to leave them with in the end and what is possible.
Carol you said:
…I sometimes think I tend to get so lost in the the scope and complexity of what I am trying to accomplish with my students, I tend to take this all too seriously and get diverted from the essential – compelling, comprehensible input…..
When Krashen and Diana and I and I few others from the district were walking into my building two years ago to observe two afternoon classes, I whispered to Diana in the parking lot, “What should I do?” She simplified everything for me with the comment, “Just do CI!”
I had lost track of how simple this all is, and her comment was the perfect thing to say to me, and probably is the perfect thing to keep in mind amidst all the NOISE of our profession, the constant business-laced fear that accompanies us through our days. It needn’t. We got this.
Yeahhhh! We easily get caught up being “teachers” and try to exercise too much control. Control is like the enemy of the unconscious. When we try to “teach,” especially “teaching grammar” we end up with students who can do less.
I’ve got a hand, or used to, anyway, in LSP (Language for Specific Purposes), the intent of which is to attend to the academic needs of our university students because (the belief goes), a university student who knows her university offers a chance to improve her language skills in her chosen professional pursuits will be more motivated to do well in the beginning two years of language study. This would justify some attention to CALP. HOWEVER, the ironic side of this is that universities only pay attention to one main CALP register: literary criticism. The literature professors who are in charge in the university mine the first two years of language instruction for their own specific purposes, transforming them into farm leagues for future literature students, not future language users who might want to align their BICS accomplishments with Language for Specific Purposes courses. I have written elsewhere that there is a tremendous opportunity to mash up CI with other “approaches” such as CI + Critical Language Teaching or CI + LSP. I believe as well that CI can be mashed up with literary criticism, but boy would it look a lot different than what we currently are doing in third and fourth year at the university. To be succinct, Robert is right on with this philosophy, but I’m not really sure it should be limited to K-12. I believe CI and BICS are extremely central to university language learning, as well. I hope we can do much more on this topic in the future as we begin to build the structure that is called K-to- lifetime learning.