Krashen revisited: Reading and Listening.

Here is the podcast: Download Krashen again

Stephen Krashen is controversial. I do not agree with all of what he says. But there is a lot of common sense there, backed up with research. This list of comments about reading is worth looking at. Here he talks about the connection between reading and spelling. Here are some studies that talk about the importance of listening. Here is a discussion about to "teach" listening skills.

I believe that we waste a fortune in training teachers in various skills related to teaching reading, listening, spelling etc,. We should be looking at how to enable learners to spend more time reading and listening to things that they find interesting. As Manfred Spitzer said in his book, the brain is a remarkable learning machine, much better at forming its own rules and recognizing patterns, than absorbing theoretical explanations. Reading and listening should be fun. If we like it we will do it.

Comments

[Eduardo Gomes Junior]

I agree that listening and reading are the most powerful ways of learn English. When I started to study English, back in 2007, I started listening and reading a lot content of interest. According to my little experience, it doesn't worth you read what simply don't make any sense to you. Doing that, you only tend to bring frustation to yourself. In my case, I love reading and listening tips about language learning, and I could find out a couple of that in LinQ. Last week a bought a few pages magazine called NEWSWEEK, because I was looking for material to improve my reading. But I realised ( unfortunately after paying for it ) that there was nothing of my interest. In short, I just wasted money and time. I remember when I was growing up, at school, my professor asked me to read a very known book here in Brazil called DOM CASMURRO wrote by Machado de Assis. It's a very known book here in Brazil and worldwide, but besides it has been wrote in Portuguese, I simply couldn't get the message of the book , because I didn't enjoy it. I was "forced" to read to it in order to get my gols at school. And when someone is forced to do something, it has a great chance to end up wrong.
I'm an English learner and I simply love to known about new ways of learning, and here at LinQ you are able to build up the way that you feel better to learn. Here you read what you want to, as well as listening , talking etc. I'm a new member at LinQ, but I'm enjoying it a lot.

[Igor, Steve's most hated visitor]

Eduardo Gomes Junior, that's all fine but you don't read and listen at lingq, you decode and memorize. About "NEWSWEEK", never waste time and money on short articles, you better go to gutenberg.org or gutenberg Australia and look for author (easy to read, interesting etc, etc) rather than a single book, look for a series of books, like Oz books, Pellucidar, Tarzan, if you like one book from some of the series you'll probably like the whole series, if you find it relatively easy to read one of the books from the series, you'll probably find it even easier to read the rest of the series.

Common Steve, be objective once in your life, forget about your "not well thought out" lingq project or even better, reform it. Krashen would describe it like "Smoke and Mirrors".

Yeah, I know you hate me, you don't have to repeat that, and you know why I appear only on certain of your posts, I don't have to repeat that too. :o)

Cheers

[jake the girl]

I just saw Krashen last week at SF State. He's such a great speaker! He said that, if the money allocated to No Child Left Behind was divided evenly among every teacher in the U.S., each classroom would get $1,000 for books and other teaching materials. That's insane! He also said that the best way to keep a foreign language fresh in your mind (aside from speaking with fluent speakers) is to read trashy novels in that language. I liked that too. : )

[Steve Kaufmann]

Igor,

I think people should read what they like. Short articles have their place.I have benefited immensely from Echo Moskvi and its short interviews.

Not everyone likes LingQ. Obviously you do not. On the other hand your dramatic and sweeping statements do not make a lot of sense to me either.

Jake,

I would not give the money to teachers. I think teachers are part of the problem. They try too hard to teach. WE need guides or coaches who can let learners discover things on their own more, through reading and listening.

Give the learners iPods (if possible with preloaded content, or which only work for downloading content from certain sites) so they can listen to things they are then going to read. Yes give them books.

No, reading trash books is not the best way, unless you like them, which I do not. The dialogue in such books is also difficult to follow. The best way is to read and listen to things of interest. So it depends on your interests.

[John Fotheringham]

@jake the girl

I saw Krashen speak in Taipei a few months and greatly enjoyed his talk. He has a good mix of data, humor and pasion not demonstrated by many researchers.

I met with him after his talk and he was gracioius enough to do an interview for my website! Unfortunately, we didn't have time to do it face to face, so we conducted the interview via email upon his return to the states.

If you guys are interested in reading the interview, just sign up for my free e-newsletter at http://l2mastery.com and it will be sent to you automatically.

[Steve Kaufmann]

John,

I just signed up. I must say your site is looking great!!

Steve

[John Fotheringham]

And as you mentioned Steve, it seems that Krashen focuses too much on reading and not enough on speaking. I mentioned this to him, and he replied that he does NOT favor reading, and that both forms of input are important.

I think that reading just takes up most of his attention these days in his effort to fight the extemely misguided "No Child Left Behind" policies.

[Steve Kaufmann]

John,

did you mean speaking or listening?

[Steve Kaufmann]

John,

I have subscribed. Where do I find the Krashen interview?

[Igor, Steve's most hated visitor]

Why the hell are you looking for the Krashen interview?! So you can misquoting him further?!!

[Igor, Steve's most hated visitor]

after all why don't you contact the professor personally and see for yourself once for all goddamit...

[Maite]

How many languages does Stephen Krashen know?
Does anyone know?

[Igor, Steve's most hated visitor]

English as a native language, has acquired French and German by reading translations of "Star Trek" novels just to taste "Free Voluntary Reading" personally.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Igor,

Relax and have another сливовица.

I might have misquoted Krashen, but it would not have been on purpose. Please tell me where I did so.

I have had an exchange with him, by the way.

Maite,

I do not know how many languages he speaks. Good question. Although, regardless of how many languages he speaks, I find much of what he says sensible and conforms to what many polyglots have said.

In other words you do not need to speak a lot, nor to do exercizes, in order to learn. Still, I do believe that he underestimates the importance of speaking, and some word and grammar review. It has it's place, although a minor place, and not the important place given to those activities by most language teaching programs.

I will do a blog post and video on my views on that.

[Igor, Steve's most hated visitor]

Yeah? And how embarrassed were you?

[John Fotheringham]

@Steve

Yes, I meant "listening input" not speaking (this is what happens when I read your blog after midnight!)

Thanks for joining. First of all, make sure that you click on the link in the confirmation email if you haven't already. The interview should show up in your in-box shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes up to 30 minutes for Aweber to send out follow up messages. If it doesn't show up, let me know and I'll e-mail it to you directly.

@ Igor

What's your deal? If you want to rant and rave, go make your own YouTube videos. This is not the place for flaming.

[Igor, Steve's most hated visitor]

@ John Fotheringham,

Did I said something to you pal? You can't tell me or anybody what to do or say so mind your own business, will you.

[John Fotheringham]

You have insulted Steve many times (a man I have come to respect greatly), so yah, "You did say something to me pal." There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with Steve, or me, or anyone else here, but differences of opinion can and should be expressed with respect. Please take your anger somewhere else and let us use this as a place to discuss and debate effective language learning, not trolling.

[Igor, Steve's most hated visitor]

First of all,
you just came to this blog yesterday mate, me and Steve we have a long history of correspondence, some time ago I also respected Steve greatly, in matter of fact I still respect him quite enough, but as the time passed I realized (on my great disappointment) that he's not ready to debate effective language learning, you can see that for yourself if you go through previous posts and their comments, the only thing that he does is not agreeing with anybody and aggressively promoting his product in any time and situation regardless how appropriate that is.
And second,
are you aware that you sound like a gay defending his lover by saying things like "You have insulted Steve many times (a man I have come to respect greatly), so yah, "You did say something to me pal."",
or maybe you're his lawyer?

[Steve Kaufmann]

Let me be clear. All opinions and contributions and ideas on language learning are welcome here. I will disagree or agree as I see fit.

Some people who disagree with me are able to defend their points of view with arguments and evidence.

A very few just rely on unsubstantiated accusations, straw men and gratuitous insults. Igor is in this latter category.

[Steve Kaufmann]

I have to say that when I clicked on Igor's name I was taken to Beniko Mason's website with some outstanding material about language learning. I recommend reading it. Just click on Igor's name.

Thanks Igor. Now just calm down and try to discuss things in a civilized manner. Perhaps you have had one too many slivovitsa.

[Igor, Steve's most hated visitor]

After tons of studies cited and delivered to you, you claim that I rely on "unsubstantiated accusations, straw men and gratuitous insults", and you "are able to defend your point of view with arguments and evidence"?! Where are your arguments and evidence? Actually is there at least one of your posts that you defend with arguments and evidence? You do really "disagree or agree as you see fit" but fit for your pockets. Is that an insult? Or plain truth.

[Igor, Steve's most hated visitor]

I send that link to you ages ago Steeeeve! I could never understand people that write more than read, sit down and analyze sources pleeease.

[Igor, Steve's most hated visitor]

P.S. what's the catch with "шливовица"? They drink that in Serbia, we drink "жолта домашна", not me, I drink few liters of coffee per day and pills for headaches.

[John Fotheringham]

Wow Igor, apparently you think that olive branches are a sign of war. Steve gave you a chance to act like a grown up, but you decided to continue your unjustified tirade of hate.

And I did not "join this site yesterday." I've been reading and posting on the site for quite some time, and I use LingQ extensively. Which, by the way, is the best language learning resource I have found to date, and I have looked long and far. Steve has every right to promote it, especially in an age where inferior products with big marketing budgets are getting too much attention (e.g. Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, etc.)

[Steve Kaufmann]

Igor,

If you wish to disagree with something I have said, please be specific.

Are you not Macedonian?

[Steve Kaufmann]

John,

Yes I think LingQ provides good support for extensive reading and listening since it is accumulating lots of content on different subjects and at different levels of difficulty.

I also believe that we need to do things to make the brain more attentive or the brain will just continue to miss things. Flash Cards help, reviewing phrases helps, Tagging helps, and the yellow highlight of saved words helps. I also believe an occasional review of grammar helps. We are going to expand the ability for native speakers to make grammar comments on our different content items. These will be FAQs that people can use or not.

The main activity should still be listening, followed by reading. A small amount of writing and speaking is also important for identifying gaps and helping make the brain attentive. That is my experience. More later.

[Igor, Steve's most hated visitor]

John, when I posted "After tons of studies cited and deli..." there wasn't the Steve's second post "I have to say that when I click..." so I saw Steve's "olive branches" too late, sorry. But I still don't understand your role here, actually YOU act like a child trying to protect his friend, not me.
Steve, I am Macedonian, but slivovitsa is not very popular here.

[EDUARDO GOMES JUNIOR]

Hey Igor.

Thanks a lot for your advice!. But I can tell you that at LinqQ you are able to read and listening, as well as decode and memorize as you said. But I believe that there's not a "single way of learning a language", there are several ways of learning it,and it depends on how it works better for you. Actually I never get enrolled in a English school before, because I never had time available to do that, once I work from Monday through Saturday,12 hours a day =(...I never have seen something like LinqQ. Initially I thought that if you wanted to learn a new language it was only possible by an English school. But I think there's no reason to you and Steve hate each other, you both are very intelligent and have different minds about ways of learning....=)

Thanks a lot Igor, and I hope talk to you again..=)

[John Fotheringham]

My "role" here is to continue expanding my understanding of second language acquisition. I have an academic background in linguistics and have been learning and teaching languages for 10 years, but there is always more to learn.

So to this end, can you please share specifically what you disagree with that Steve has said? This will help make this a constructive debate, not the dirty character attacks into which it has devolved.

[reineke]

Eduardo, in school you were required to read an awful lot of things you would have otherwise happily skipped on, including science textbooks and boring old stuff like Dom Casmurro. Whether or not you got the message is not very important. You might not care about the novel, but being able to read the stuff is important in itself. Or let’s put it in yet another way, you may even feel that it’s not important yet you received the training. Newspapers, magazines, fairy tales, novels, short stories, autobiographies, classical literature, modern literature etc. contain different types of language. Tarzan cannot replace Newsweek (or vice versa).

I agree in principle with the free reading mantra, it’s powerful stuff especially during the initial birthing pains but eventually most learners will run into problems (assuming they’re aiming at advanced proficiency). One key point to keep in mind is that native speakers already possess the language skills and they’re forced to go through formal schooling. Foreign language learners are largely left to themselves. If they’re blessed with a wide range of interests, they will have more fun and progress more rapidly. Others will struggle.

Trash vs literature. Define trash. I’d vote for 75% literature and 25% interesting pop lit. Maybe even 50-50. Pop literature has the benefit of covering all sorts of thematic fields (from ancient Japan to genetic engineering) in a very approachable manner. If it’s a page-turner so much the better.