Scribd
Upload
69 views

Optimal Input Is Comprehensible

This excerpt discusses how to aid comprehension of input for second language acquisition. It notes that comprehensible input is crucial, and the teacher's main role is to help make input comprehensible. There are linguistic and non-linguistic ways to do this, such as slowing speech rate, using common vocabulary, shorter sentences, as well as using realia, pictures and discussing familiar topics. The key is focusing on communication and comprehension over consciously controlling grammar.

Uploaded by

Natalia Popova
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
69 views

Optimal Input Is Comprehensible

This excerpt discusses how to aid comprehension of input for second language acquisition. It notes that comprehensible input is crucial, and the teacher's main role is to help make input comprehensible. There are linguistic and non-linguistic ways to do this, such as slowing speech rate, using common vocabulary, shorter sentences, as well as using realia, pictures and discussing familiar topics. The key is focusing on communication and comprehension over consciously controlling grammar.

Uploaded by

Natalia Popova
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Optimal Input is Comprehensible

Excerpt from Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition, (pgs. 64-66) by Stephen D
Krashen; retrieved September 3, 2015 from
http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/books/principles_and_practice.pdf

OPTIMAL INPUT IS COMPREHENSIBLE

(a) How to aid comprehension

If we are correct in positing comprehensibility as a crucial requirement for optimal input for
acquisition, the question of how to aid comprehension is a very central one for second language
pedagogy. Indeed, the comprehension requirement suggests that the main function of the second
language teacher is to help make input comprehensible, to do for the adult what the "outside world"
cannot or will not do.

There are basically two ways in which the teacher can aid comprehension, linguistic and non-
linguistic. Studies have shown that there are many things speakers do linguistically to make their
speech more comprehensible to less competent speakers. Hatch (1979) has summarized the
linguistic aspect of simplified input which appear to promote comprehension. Among these
characteristics are:

(1) slower rate and clearer articulation, which helps acquirers to identify word boundaries more
easily, and allows more processing time;

(2) more use of high frequency vocabulary, less slang, fewer idioms;

(3) syntactic simplification, shorter sentences.

Such characteristics and others appear to be more or less common to different types of simple
codes, such as caretaker speech, foreigner-talk, and teacher-talk (see Krashen, 1980), and clearly
help make input language more comprehensible. There is considerable empirical evidence that these
codes are significantly "simpler" than native speaker - native speaker language, and, as mentioned in
Chapter II, there is evidence of some correlation between the linguistic level of the acquirer and the
complexity of the input language: more advanced acquirers tend to get more complex input.

Does this mean that teachers should consciously try to simplify their speech when they talk to
students? Should they think about slowing down, using more common vocabulary, using shorter
sentences, less complex syntax with less embedding, etc? Consciously referring to these "rules"
might be helpful on occasion, but it appears to be the case that we make these adjustments
automatically when we focus on trying to make ourselves understood. Roger Brown, commenting on
studies of caretaker speech in first language acquisition, comes to a similar conclusion. He gives the
following advice to parents wanting to know how to "teach" their children language in the least
amount of time:

"Believe that your child can understand more than he or she can say, and seek, above all, to
communicate....There is no set of rules of how to talk to a child that can even approach what you
unconsciously know. If you concentrate on communicating, everything else will follow. (Brown, 1977,
p. 26)"

As I have argued in several places (Krashen, 1980, 1981), the same situation may hold for the
language teacher. If we focus on comprehension and communication, we will meet the syntactic
requirements for optimal input.

While we free teachers of the responsibility to consciously control the grammar of their speech,
other responsibilities become more important. One is to make sure that the input is indeed
comprehensible. I have nothing startling to add to the literature on comprehension checking, other
than to underscore and emphasize its importance. Comprehension checking can range from simply
asking "Do you understand?" occasionally, to monitoring comprehension via students' verbal and
non-verbal responses.

Another main task of the teacher is to provide non-linguistic means of encouraging


comprehension. In my view, providing extra-linguistic support in the form of realia and pictures for
beginning classes is not a frill, but a very important part of the tools the teacher has to encourage
language acquisition. The use of objects and pictures in early second language instruction
corresponds to the caretaker's use of the "here and now" in encouraging first language acquisition, in
that they all help the acquirer understand messages containing structures that are "a little beyond'
them.

Good teachers also take advantage of the student's knowledge of the world in helping
comprehension by discussing topics that are familiar to the student. Certainly, discussing or reading
about a topic that is totally unknown will make the message harder to understand. There is a danger,
however, in making the input too "familiar". If the message is completely known, it will be of no
interest, and the student will probably not attend. We want the student to focus on the message,
and there must be some message, something that the student really wants to hear or read about.

You might also like