#half of this is a rant at how all or ntohing some learner forums can be feel free to ignore it

[rigelmejo]

some comprehensible input links

language learning forums can be so toxic sometimes...

so many people love to push that “one method” is phenomenal and works when others just WON’T, meanwhile another will say the opposite. And then its like... where is the room to acknowledge maybe parts of each method have merit for different individuals, since they might help or click in different ways.

just today i saw someone arguing about stephen krashen’s language theories and how they’re all disproven bullshit that are completely unusable. I don’t know a huge amount about his theories. But I do know the emphasis he brought up on “providing students comprehensible input and lessons to learn from” is a concept that also is in stuff like the modern Teach Languages Through Storytelling lessons and Comprehensible Input Lessons. Which if you’ve ever used them? They’re Amazing. They are lessons where teachers purposefully use the target language as much as possible, and use visuals to help make what they say as comprehensible as possible to students so they can learn. This is how when I volunteered, we were supposed to tutor ESL speakers - because we could not reliably teach with english translation since their english levels varied, and we did not have speakers of every learners native language present to help teach them. Our program coordinator showed an example of how to do it by teaching us some Thai, his native language, in this method. And it was extremely easy to follow and understand. Textbooks/grammar guides/flashcards certainly will help speed up the process - aka allow students to use Graded Reader books, learner podcasts, then target language native materials like shows and novels to learn quicker. But lessons in the target language as soon as possible, emphazising getting students to comprehend, is valuable. Just as its valuable later on when students can handle more complex lessons in the target language.

Examples of teachers teaching through comprehensible input (I am thrilled to notice there’s a lot more than last time I looked these sorts of channels up):

Hit Chinese: https://youtu.be/xG3w2i1OBfc

Unconventional Chinese with Keren: https://youtu.be/9N-nNvnAYTs

French Comprehensible Input: https://youtu.be/c2SUQVjklVA

Alice Ayel (french): https://youtu.be/DcuVNAnsWZM

Dreaming Spanish (a fantastic example): https://youtu.be/ObO1CGY_NHI

Comprehensible Russian: https://youtu.be/gHCvEKxeXvk

Comprehensible Japanese: https://youtu.be/gHCvEKxeXvk

Japanese Immersion with Asami: https://youtu.be/pr_yRUVQQt0

Learn Korean in Korean*: https://youtu.be/zUulbCruiMs

I just found the Learn Korean in Korean channel a few weeks ago, notable in that he also teaches hangul before the other lessons. I think he maybe uses too few pictures to make it as easy on students. But having said that, I know zero korean whatsoever and am watching his Lesson 1 and finding it completely easy to follow. So I’d say yes his teaching style probably falls under “engage student in the target language and make it comprehensible so they can learn it.” I’m really impressed with his channel tbh because it teaches totally in Korean so any language learner from any native language could use it.

Just found Japanese Immersion with Asami today while looking up “japanese comprehensible input” and its an amazing example of how these kinds of lessons work. In a classroom setting (or with a tutor), generally the idea is to provide learners with lots of comprehensible input of the language they’re learning and perhaps some help to keep things comprehensible (in a classroom that would be word definitions on the board maybe for reference, or in these examples subtitles to aid learners for reference - although first priority a teacher is aiming to use pictures/gestures/visuals to make as much as possible comprehensible).

Examples of textbooks that teach through comprehensible input (these were made before Krashen, so i merely bring up Krashen because Today’s Language Forum Arguement was ‘all krashen’s ideas are bullshit ALL of them even comprehensible input ideas so you shouldn’t even bother using even a little of something related to his ideas):

French: https://archive.org/details/jensen-arthur-le-francais-par-la-methode-nature

Italian: https://archive.org/details/LitalianoSecondoIlMetodoNatura

Latin: lingva latina per se illustrata 

English: https://archive.org/details/english-by-the-nature-method

(I’ve personally used that textbook for french and absolutely loved its teaching style, it works Really Well for me). 

Graded readers, if they teach new vocabulary in context, may also fall into this section (depending on learner’s starting level compared to a graded reader).

my only point here is just. i hate seeing valuable learning methods completely thrown away, just because someone’s decided to equate one person’s specific method as bad - to decide every single thing related to it must be useless. In this particular case - before Krashen was old enough to have any theories, Arthur Jensen was making some of those books listed above! (Back then it was called ‘the nature method’ - although plenty of books using the term ‘the nature method’ do not teach as comprehensibly as what I’ve listed above, there’s definitely a range from ‘these are just vocab lists’ to ‘these are actually slowly teaching me new words in context’ lol). and all those youtube channels for comprehensible input? There are learners who do find them useful! I’ve found them useful!

oh man just today... sometimes people will be like “you MUST use flashcards to learn a language” and hello no you absolutely don’t have to i never did with French. Some people say “you MUST use textbooks” and yet there’s examples of people who did fine without them, vice versa people say “you must NOT use textbooks if you want to sound natural’ or whatever which? Me using grammar guides has always been immensely useful for me personally - though again some people found success with Much more textbook use, and with none. So can we please accept different methods work for different people?! And beyond that - maybe some Pieces of methods are useful to someone EVEN if the ‘whole thing’ isn’t. 

Mass Immersion Method/Refold - its not ‘all’ for me. I’m never ever going to sentence mine. I rarely use flashcards and I never plant to MAKE any myself lol. Have I still found some useful pieces of Refold that have benefited me? YES I have. (Notably the parts about ‘comprehensible input’ since we’re on the topic). What I took from what little i have heard from Krashen - in particular a lecture he gave on improving reading ability in students - is reading for pleasure, exposing yourself to a lot of material even if its not perfectly at your level, will help you improve. Students who learned word lists, and students encouraged to extensively read, both made vocabulary and reading level improvements. Which - we’ve been in elementary school and had ‘free reading time’ to help us learn to read better! By reading something we liked for a period of time! Besides just the books assigned in class the teacher had us do vocab lists for! Well, in my french studies I very much saw that apply to my own second language learning too - sometimes I looked up words as I read, and learned words that way. Sometimes I simply read french for pleasure and just guessed at unknown words I Could guess at and moved past others - and also improved my reading ability and picked up some new words. Both ways helped my french improve, my reading improve, my vocab improve. And so that is what I took from it - that there is some merit in engaging with something you can understand Somewhat at least. That if you have some comprehension of a material, you may be able to learn Some More from it whether you just learn from context OR conciously look up everything unfamiliar. (And I do think looking things up speeds up the process sometimes). My point though is like... we’re really gonna throw out some good pieces because we don’t like one person who’s managed to touch on them? When so many before and after, their own levels of correct and useless parts, have found some usefulness in some parts?

I just do not get language forum drama lol... the issue is. These people were arguing because they find krashen ‘useless’ then all comprehensible input study is ‘useless’. Ok then. But pushing to all learners to use only a textbook, and avoid engaging with actual language (even when it may be comprehensible and therefore useful to them like the links above, for some learners), then they may slow their progress if it doesn’t suit them well. And it always depends on the individual, everyone’s a bit different.