This week we are continuing our look at CLT Principle 4: “Instructors and Materials Should Provide Appropriate Level Input (and Interaction)” from Bill VanPatten’s book While We’re on the Topic (ACTFL, 2017).
Last time we considered VanPatten’s definition of “input” in the field of second language acquisition:
“Input means one and only one thing in language acquisition: language embedded in a communicative event that the learner attends to for its meaning”
We also looked at various scenarios to determine whether or not input was being provided. Unfortunately, in far too many classrooms, the input is minimal – and thus delays acquisition.
Language teachers are, or at least ought to be, concerned with efficacy and efficiency of instruction. Is their instruction producing results? How effectively? Are the strategies, activities, procedures, etc. the best use of class time? Are teachers and students getting the “biggest bang for the buck”?
Once we accept VanPatten’s (and others’) basic premise that we learn language only through understanding messages in the target language, then we recognize that the only efficacious use of time in a language class is to provide students with comprehensible input.
The only efficacious use of time in a language class room is to provide students with comprehensible input
With this recognition, our attention shifts to considering the nature of the input and its delivery.
VanPatten addresses this concern in terms of quantity and quality.
The question of quantity is simple: Provide students with as much input as possible.
The question of quality is more complex. For the input to be efficacious, it must be understandable – and not just understandable but understood.
Currently, a discussion is going on about “comprehensible” vs “comprehended”. I believe these are simply two ways of looking at the same thing. From the teacher’s point of view, the concern is with providing comprehensible input. That is, lesson preparation is done with consideration of what student already know and how to make any new terms or structure clear.
From the student’s point of view, the concern is with understanding the language being used.
VanPatten describes these two aspects of the debate under the rubric of Quality of Input. He write, “By quality we mean two thing:
1. whether input is level appropriate;
2. whether learners are engaged with the input (interacting with it).
(P. 59)
By “level appropriate”, VanPatten simply means that the teacher chooses language that the learner can comprehend “without struggling too much”.
By “engaged with the input”, VanPatten means that students attend to what is being said (or read). He does not mean that students are learning formal rules of grammar because acquisition is an unconscious process. VanPatten warns: “Instructors can’t just ‘throw input’ at learners; they must structure activities and tasks such that learners constantly indicate comprehension and react to messages they hear.”
Instructors can’t just “throw input” at learners
Here, I point out that indicating comprehension and reacting to messages do not necessarily involve language production, verbal expression, or even an oral response. Gestures, actions, and facial expressions can all indicate comprehension and be reactions to messages.
James Asher built a “method” around the concept that actions can indicate comprehension. We call it Total Physical Response.
Many teachers ask students to make certain gestures as indicators of comprehension. (This may be more or less valid, depending on the circumstances.)
I often tell jokes and make humorous comments in German while teaching. My students indicate comprehension by laughing or otherwise responding to what I just said. Sometimes I make ironic comments, and students indicate comprehension through their reactions to those comments. Students also indicate comprehension by performing acts that I ask them to do, like taking out pencil and paper, handing papers in, putting cell phones away, etc.
So, how is input level appropriate?
First, it must be comprehensible. This is almost a tautology but not quite. There is the rare case in which comprehensible language is too simple to be level appropriate. Fortunately, most of the time students will tell a teacher when the language is too simple for them. Unfortunately, they often don’t tell the teacher when the language is too difficult or otherwise not comprehensible.
How, then, do we make language comprehensible? VanPatten gives some guidelines. Teachers make language comprehensible and level appropriate through
- short sentences – because long, complex, and compound sentences are often confusing to learners; as the language ability of the learners increases, the sentences become longer and more complex. However many teachers begin with sentences that are far too long and complex.
- repetition – because we know that the brain does not long retain most things that we hear or see only once (there are exceptions). How many repetitions do we need? It varies from person to person, word to word, and situation to situation. But in general, we need far more repetitions in the context of meaningful communication than most traditional classroom setting provide.
- rephrasing – because this is part of negotiating meaning. Providing synonyms, circumlocutions, a slightly different word order, etc. can be a powerful tool in helping students understand and acquire language.
- content that is clear – because ambiguity leads to misunderstanding and lack of clarity impedes understanding. To help make the content clear, teachers need to begin with the here and now; that is, new language (for the beginner) is grounded in the context of what students can see right before them.
- slow(er) rate– because learners need extra time to process all of the things they are hearing. Studies that I have read indicate that most adults speak too rapidly for children and young teens in their native language. Children in middle school can, on average, process speech in their native language at 135-140 words per minute, but adults speak at 160-180 words per minute. (Read an article about this here.) That means that older children miss a full fourth of what adults say to them simply because they can’t process their native language fast enough. The reply to many parents’ query, “Didn’t you hear what I said?” is honestly “no” for many children. The problem is compounded for a language learner. Teachers need to slow down.
- pausing at appropriate places – because this also provides learners with processing time
- learner engagement with the input – because we learn language only when it is used for genuine communication, and that means being engaged in the expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning.
The interesting thing is that, if teachers talk with their students and not at them, they will naturally adjust the level of the language until it is appropriate. We do this all the time in real life when we are conversing with people.
One other thing to remember in this discussion is that interest often has as much to do with how something is presented as what is presented. The US Department of State has some interesting comments on Relevance and academic rigor of content. According to the website, content becomes relevant when
- we have a prior intellectual or emotional connection to it
- it is connected to real life
- it is appropriately timed (i.e. when we are not hungry, exhausted or distracted by some other, more important need)
- it actively engages or involves us
- someone else has a contagious passion or enthusiasm
- it is novel
Much, much more could be said about strategies, activities, procedures, etc. that the teacher can use to make certain that language is comprehensible and level appropriate, but that will have to wait.
For now, I leave you with this quote from VanPatten (p. 62):
Students do not sit in class like little sponges. The teacher talks with students, not at them. Students are engaged from the beginning.