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Krashen & some failures for Massive Input | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4321 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 41 of 67 29 October 2014 at 8:42am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I love how conversations on HTLAL invariably evolve to a completely different topic over time. At least the conversation about learning grammar from input lasted a few pages before being derailed. ;)
This is of the classic counter-intuitive soundbite that media friendly academics (like Pinker) make that gets lots of attention in the news, but is rarely backed up by solid data (or at least the data they use is very selective). I heard Pinker give a lecture about ten years ago, shortly after he published the Blank Slate, and wasn't super impressed. His arguments were very rigid, and the data at best questionable (OK IQ has a large genetic component, but few argue that environment doesn't also play a role - and that the environment at home matters). I remember asking him whether he really thought children growing up in an abusive family were not affected by this of experience, and he actually claimed that it had no affect on children going forward. But anyway to get back to the claim that children don't learn language from their parents. A quick Google search shows lots of arguments about the effect of parents on language, and its obviously not a settled question. Methodologically it's hard to tease apart the role of the parents and broader social environment in child development. But we don't need to get into the nitty-gritty of academic research to test this question. You just have to ask yourself if bilingual children are real or a myth. If they are real then parents do teach their children language. Edited by patrickwilken on 29 October 2014 at 8:45am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6370 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 42 of 67 29 October 2014 at 9:03am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yes, that's a good point, and I was certainly oversimplifying. But the fact that children can learn a language from the parents if there are no other sources doesn't say much about the relative amounts when there are many sources to learn from. And children who speak a language only with their parents rarely develop a solid fluency. They get some basics and pronunciation, but without a surrounding community, their fluency tends to be patchy at best. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| chiara-sai Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3496 days ago 54 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French Studies: German, Japanese | Message 43 of 67 29 October 2014 at 10:02am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
But this only implies that children learn language from the people around them, not that it has to be the parents. Of course if a child spends a lot of time with his parents, he will learn language from them, but that doesn’t mean that the parents are key to language acquisition; it’s entirely possible that a child who grows up without parents but with intense interaction with a group of people (such as a tribe) would still learn language as easily and as well as a child who spends most of his time with his parents. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4321 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 44 of 67 29 October 2014 at 10:45am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I am sorry but you are putting words in my mouth. Ari said:
I responded to the DON'T. If he said DON'T HAVE TO then I wouldn't have said anything. I also said:
I thought that made it pretty clear I was open to the idea that children learn from a multitude of sources. It's just not clear how much each source contributes. It seems pretty obvious to me that children learn lots of things, including language, from parents, books, school, TV, friends, etc. Do you honestly think you'll get much disagreement here? Edited by patrickwilken on 29 October 2014 at 10:53am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| chiara-sai Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3496 days ago 54 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French Studies: German, Japanese | Message 45 of 67 29 October 2014 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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My apologies patrickwilken, I misunderstood you.
4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4410 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 46 of 67 30 October 2014 at 12:38am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I think massive contextual input will inculcate all the necessary grammar rules. But it can take a long time.
People say kids pick up languages fast but a typical child thrown into a new language environment still requires 5-8 years to develop true academic usage. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4553 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 47 of 67 30 October 2014 at 2:09am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Back in graduate school, at least one professor advocated the idea that massive input for children leads to fluent native speech, but that massive input for adults, without a focus on form, leads to fluent pidgin speech.
The focus on form doesn't have to be standard grammar instruction, it just means paying close attention to form, getting correction, and "trying" to be correct. There are a lot of factors there to try to tease apart, but it always seemed like a good model to me. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4321 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 48 of 67 30 October 2014 at 9:17am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I am sure I would pick up more grammar with time, but its really telling to me that my brain hasn't worked out simple declenation rules after 2.5 years and millions upon millions of words of input.
That I was becoming fluent pidgin speaker of German via massive input sounds about right. In terms of paying attention to form I think purely writing on a regular basis with corrections, will be enough to fix a lot these problems. I am curious why your professor didn't think children also needed feedback to develop fluent native speech. Did he think that learners L1 knowledge blocked them attending to the details of form in their L2? Edited by patrickwilken on 30 October 2014 at 9:19am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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