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A Month in Munich Creates a Case for Comprehensible Input
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9 thoughts on “A Month in Munich Creates a Case for Comprehensible Input”
This article is wonderful, Drew. If CLTA doesn’t publish it, submit it to IJFLT. More people need to read this.
I absolutely agree!!
with love,
Laurie
I feel that Karen Rowan will certainly publish this in IJFLT. Just send it in. Why let a lesser journal have your gold anyway?
This is a powerful epiphany and wonderful story, too. How can we spread these insights? Can they only be experienced personally?
Ben
Now I know where your perfect German comes from!!! The same happened to me in Paris many, many moons ago (although my French is nowhere near as good as your German). I had to realize after 5 years of – what I considered – intensive study of French in High School that I was unable to understand, let alone use the language in a productive manner. Two months in the streets of Paris and I had acquired more than in 5 years of drilling and rote memorization.
This experience was also what led me on the search for “something else/better” for my own teaching. I just didn’t know what it was. I am so glad it only took me two years to find it – I don’t think I could have made it the traditional way for 24 years like Ben did.
I am so keeping my fingers crossed that you will get your German program off the ground again – there can never be enough like you!
“in the meantime I am teaching real language to real people”
I think that is a real powerful lesson. There is no perfect language program, and various obstacles will always prevent our “ideal teaching situation” in some way or other. But if we are able to teach language authentically, as authentic human beings, that is better than most language teachers have ever had it.
One of the questions I keep going back to is, “What is the goal?” That is going to influence what we do and how we do it. My perspective comes from various experiences inside and outside the classroom.
In my Spanish acquisition I had lots of ALM. While I speak Spanish, I realize it is because of factors other than classroom instruction and the philosophical underpinnings of ALM – which are behaviorist.
When I was in seminary I learned Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic through Grammar-Translation. My purpose was to analyze and translate ancient texts. Don’t ask me to carry on a conversation, but I can still spot a Hiph’il imperfect 3rd masculine singular and translate an ancient text. The purpose and method aligned. Just remember that the purpose was not interpersonal communication; it was totally interpretive and analytical.
As a 4%er I can do reasonably well learning a language with traditional methods. Two summers ago I had a wonderful time in France using my two years’ worth of university French. I know I made lots of mistakes, but I communicated, and both I and the very helpful French people I met could laugh together at my mistakes. The experience reminded me in a very concrete way that my students don’t have to use the language perfectly. It also reminded me to be alert to sensory overload. There were a few times when even simple sentences sounded like “wah wah wah wah wah” because my brain was on overload. A pause and a repetition usually solved the problem.
During my first extended stay in Germany I lived with a family in which the father was Swabian and the mother was Swiss. All of my communication took place in Modern Standard German, but I heard the mother interact with her children in Swiss German on a daily basis. Near the end of my stay we were having Sunday dinner with a couple from the church we attended. (They were local Swabians.) The phone rang, and one of the children answered it. He came and told his mother that Frau X was on the phone. She asked him to find out what she wanted. He reported back, and the mother told him to tell her that she would call back that evening. When all of this was done, the visiting couple asked, “What was that about?” I said, “You mean you didn’t understand that?” Everyone at the table looked at me and said, “What, and you did?” I had come to understand Swiss German just by hearing it in context over time. Had I continued to do so, I’m sure I would be able to speak Swiss German as well as understand it.
Those experiences are what helped me recognize the value of Comprehensible Input over other methods when the goal is communication.
Excellent observations Drew! I totally agree with the others above that this needs to be published!
Ditto Drew, that’s a gem!
“I attributed this experience to karma for having ever embarrassed a student who was trying his best to communicate an idea to me. One point for the universe.”
I took an ASL class recently, and I think I was the slowest processor in the room of 13 students. The teacher did not hesitate to let that be known (in a not so subtle way). I was honestly trying to understand, but just needed SLOW. So, that quote of yours really resonated with me.
Well done.