Unveiling Krashen's Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis: A Cornerstone of Second Language Acquisition
Linguistics, the scientific study of language, delves into language rules, meaning, and context and a linguist is someone who studies linguistics, focusing on language structures rather than necessarily learning multiple languages. Dr. Stephen D. Krashen, alongside Noam Chomsky, significantly contributed to research in second-language acquisition, bilingual education, and reading. One of Krashen's most influential contributions is the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis, which distinguishes between two fundamental ways of developing competence in a second language: acquisition and learning. This article explores Krashen's Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis, its significance, and its implications for language teaching.
The Core of the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis
The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis posits that there's a fundamental distinction between language acquisition and language learning.
- Language Acquisition: This is a subconscious process, akin to how a child acquires their first language. It happens through meaningful interaction and exposure to the language, without explicit focus on grammatical rules. Language acquirers are often unaware of the rules of the language they are acquiring. Instead, language acquirers feel a sense of correctness, when the sentence sounds and feels right.
- Language Learning: This is a conscious process involving formal instruction, explicit knowledge of rules, and error correction. It results in metalinguistic knowledge and awareness. The learner is consciously learning the grammar rules and functions of a language rather than its meaning. This theory focuses more on the correctness of the language. The acquirer must set aside some time to review and apply the language rules in a conversation.
Krashen argues that learning does not become acquisition.
Diving Deeper into Krashen's Five Hypotheses
Krashen's Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis is part of a larger framework known as the Monitor Model, which comprises five interrelated hypotheses:
- The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis: As described above, this distinguishes between subconscious acquisition and conscious learning.
- The Monitor Hypothesis: This suggests that learners use their conscious knowledge of grammar (learned knowledge) to monitor and edit their output. The learner is consciously learning the grammar rules and functions of a language rather than its meaning. The acquirer must set aside some time to review and apply the language rules in a conversation.
- The Natural Order Hypothesis: This proposes that language learners acquire grammatical structures in a predictable order, regardless of their first language.
- The Input Hypothesis: This emphasizes the importance of comprehensible input (i+1) for language acquisition.
- The Affective Filter Hypothesis: This acknowledges that emotional factors like motivation, anxiety, and self-confidence can impact language acquisition. If the affective filter is higher, then the student is less likely to learn the language.
The Significance of Comprehensible Input
Krashen's Acquisition-Learning hypothesis revolves around the concept of “comprehensible input,” a term which essentially means “messages that can be understood.” Comprehensible input is best received when the learner is hearing something that he or she wants or needs to know. The Acquisition-Learning hypothesis acknowledges that students learn faster as they are given more comprehensible input. Inversely, a lack of comprehensible input delays language acquisition.
Read also: Skinner's Theory of Language Learning
Implications for Language Teaching
Krashen's theories have significant implications for language teaching practices:
- Focus on Communication: Emphasize creating situations for natural communication to facilitate acquisition. Learning a language should be fun and in some way it should happen naturally. Try to engage in meaningful interactions like reading exciting stories and relevant news articles, even talking with friends and family in a different language.
- Provide Comprehensible Input: Ensure that learners are exposed to language that they can understand, even if it's slightly above their current proficiency level.
- Lower the Affective Filter: Create a relaxed and supportive learning environment to reduce anxiety and increase motivation.
- Utilize Graded Readers: Graded readers are books written with limited vocabulary and grammatical structures tailored to a learner's proficiency level.
- Many modern language programs and apps embrace the principles of Krashen's theory, emphasizing understanding over rote memorization.
Criticisms and Counterarguments
Despite its influence, Krashen's Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis has faced criticism:
- Difficulty in Proving the Distinction: Determining whether language production results from implicit acquisition or explicit learning is challenging to prove. The first critique of Krashen’s Monitor Model is that the hypothesized distinction between acquisition and learning as posited by the acquisition-learning hypothesis, or, more specifically, determining whether the process involved in language production resulted from implicit acquisition or explicit learning, is impossible to prove.
- The Question of Learning Becoming Acquisition: Critics question the argument that learning cannot become acquisition. Furthermore, critics consider the argument that learning cannot become acquisition questionable. Kevin R. Gregg offers anecdotal evidence of his personal experience learning a second language as counterevidence to the clear division between acquisition and learning: He initially consciously learned the conjugations of Japanese verbs through rote memorization, which ultimately led to unconscious acquisition. In his case, learning became acquisition.
- Stephen Krashen has been criticized for not having sufficient empirical evidence to back up his theories. Gregg accused Krashen of using “ill-defined terms.” McLaughlin critiques Krashen’s theories as being weak and imprecise.
Total Immersion and Communicative Approach
Total Immersion Language Teaching, for example, succeeds so well is because it provides lots of comprehensible input. When people are immersed in a culture in which they do not know the language, they have an intense need and desire to speak that language. Krashen’s acquisition-learning theory has much in common with both the communicative approach to language study and Noam Chomsky’s theory of generative grammar. The idea of “comprehensible input” is simply another way of saying that students learn languages best when they are learning about things that interest them and this idea is the essence of the communicative approach.
Read also: Understanding PLCs
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