Hi Whizzes!
On a cold, snowy, winter🌨🌨🌨 day of my junior year at a Western Massachusetts Fancy Boarding School that was founded in 1797, I ambled up the stairs🛝 of a colonial building to the second floor, sauntered into a rectangular classroom with windows facing some lovely trees🏝 and a small quad🏖, and sat down on one of those desk-chair thingies where you can put the desk part to the side or in front of you (you know what I mean!). And voila, I was in my AP French Class.
Monsieur French TeaCHER told us to get out the text we were about to discuss and turn to the pages we had read for homework.
It was…
🪓
🪓
🪓
🔪
🔪
🔪
I had done the reading (I always did, do and will—until my brain rots—do the reading⚰️⚰️⚰️). I discussed (I always discussed, discuss and—until my throat disintegrates—will discuss🪦🪦🪦). I was bored stiff (I have seldom been, seldom am, and—until my heart explodes—will seldom ever be, BORED💣💣💣).
Huis Clos—I had to look this up—is a one-act philosophical drama that proposes that "hell is other people" rather than a state created by God.
I'll tell you what hell is—a non-research based language classroom where you are made to read complex French plays French people don't even read.
After my junior year I decided I was fluent and never took French again.
END
Again, not the best story I’ve ever written, but it WASN’T supposed to leave you with warm and fuzzy feelings, anyway, 🦧🦧🦧just like Language Acquisition Horror Story from the Crypt #1 wasn’t, and didn’t, either.
But, let’s break some stuff down, please. Let’s elaborate on the reasons and indicators of why Monsieur French TeaCHER should have chosen something else as reading material:
🐲Even though Monsieur French TeaCHER was French, when I asked him what Huis Clos—THE TITLE OF THE PLAY— meant, he said he couldn’t quite explain it. Ok buddy, now that’s an indication that maybe you should have chosen something else to teach with.
🐲Sartre is an author that most NATIVE FRENCH SPEAKERS have not read themselves. CLEAR indicator that maybe this is not the right choice.
🐲It was a PLAY, but we didn’t do any THEATER. Boring, boring, boring. There should be a law against unnecessary BORING (which is any boring at all, if you ask me.)
And so, my senior year at fancy boarding school, I took Mandarin (and that was a whole nother adventure in botched language facilitation and acquisition.) Welcome to my life! 🐍 🦎 🦖 🦕
What, you ask, would have been more appropriate? Something that was in the Young Adult genre, perhaps. Something where me and my fellow students didn’t have to look up every other word in the dictionary.
This leads me to the research bit for the day:
Ok, that looks a bit dry, so I'll type it again and surround it by fun emojis:
Now, that's better (British accent). I even bolded it. I even linked it. Geez, all this WORK. 😩🥺
Ok, this is part of Stephen Krashen’s theory, folks, and it’s simple, and brilliant, and true. If you are at L, then the input you receive has to be at L+1, meaning, right above your level, meaning, level-appropriate.
I know, DUUUUUUUUUUUH. But, not duh. If it were DUH I wouldn't be working like a BEAVER on Input Wand, nor would I have taken 8 languages to no avail. 💩💩💩Not duh. Hopefully, we can make it duh, JUST THE TWO OF US, because, ya know, you complete me. 😻😻😻
And this goes even for native speakers continuing to acquire their NATIVE tongue—you CANNOT present a 5th grade class with Oliver Twist. This is ludicrous. They and you can TWIST🧬🧬🧬 their olive brains🦠🦠🦠 into understanding it, but there will be gaps, major gaps in their mental representation of the language, because their experience wasn’t gradual, age or level appropriate.😬😬😬
It seems obvious, redundant, unnecessary to even say it. But no, no, no. We ARE dealing in rocket science here, apparently🚀🚀🚀. I have received incomprehensible, too complex input in language classes aplenty, and, back in the days when I had no idea what I was doing as an educator, have given plenty of it too. 🐝🐝🐝Oh, give us an example of when you used to MESS UP, Constanza, please. Ok, I will. By GODDESS, I will. One isn't born knowing everything (or anything), after all. 😓
For example, I used to use BBC Mundo videos as part of my curriculum for Spanish 3, 4 and AP Spanish. I knew my students wouldn’t understand most of it—those videos are news videos narrated by native speakers, interviewing native speakers from around the world🌶🌶🌶, and, as such, contain complex language that is also WAY TOO FAST 🐅 🐆🐅 🐆for a learner to listen to and comprehend.
My students and I both knew they did not understand all of it, and we all acknowledged it, but, neither party knowing what the🔥🔥🔥 we were doing or why, the general understanding was “how much of this CAN you understand, both by identifying words and through the context of the video?” A LOT! YAAAAAY!!! 🍾🍾🍾I would kid myself into celebrating. They got the fact that it was about POVERTY because that’s all the video showed! YAYYYYYYYY💐💐💐. I’M DOING MY JOB! Nope. Epic fail. Hey, at least it was epic. 🍤🍤🍤
I knew nothing, and it was the best I could do. I still meet WL educators doing these things today. But, as much as nobody likes to hear the truth, here it goes:
🤢Learners can get incomprehensible input anywhere, anyhow, anytime they like.🍵🍵🍵
🤢The only place and context where they can get 100% (no, not 80% or 90% or even 97%)—ONE HUNDRED PERCENT Comprehensible, Compelling and Communication Enhancing Input is in their WL classroom. If you are an educator, this is your job, and if you’re a learner, now you know. BAM 🧃🧃🧃
Let’s look at some amazing ways learners could get incomprehensible input:
🐸Go to an ethnic restaurant and listen to the workers there.
🐸Watch a movie made for native speakers in the TL
🐸Watch/Read news in the TL designed for native speakers.
🐸Read a Nobel-Prize winning book in the TL, written for native speakers.
🐸Read a book or play written 400 years ago, for the educated and lettered minority of that time, in the TL.
Well, beloved folks, I could go on FOREVER.
Constanza Ontaneda
your own personal Language Acquisition Witch
