ESL MiniConference Letters, April to June, 2002

Send your note to Robb@ESLminiconf.net

Notes from MiniConference participants:

Dear Robb,
I read your interview w/Ann Raimes who taught my very first ESL course in 1973 at the New School. She's a great choice for your achievement [profile]!
Christy Newman
christynewman@ATTBI.COM

Dear Mr. Scott,
My name is Owen Buckland, the president of Buckland International Education group in China. David Papier worked for me for 6 months, and you were right: He is the best ESL teacher I have seen in my life! It's a great job you've done for us. Why do I say you did a great job? Because 90% of ESL teachers have a big problem in China with the big classes. Usually, China has an average class size of 50 students, so the foreign teachers are so shocked when they are facing 50 students in one class. David Papier was very professional in handling the big class problem in our school, and you are so kind to share his experience with other teachers. This will help all the other teachers who have the same problem. Your articles are wonderful!!
Owen Buckland
President, Buckland International Group (www.bucklandgroup.org)
China

Dear Robb,
Thanks for your coverage of the NJTESOL/NJBE conference and especially of Krashen's comments, which go far beyond the recent exchange between Krashen, VanPatten and myself. Your coverage of Krashen's views on "phonemic awareness" demonstrates how important your website has become in building awareness of central, critical issues not only in the field of EFL/ESL but in English Language Teaching in general, including of course teaching basic literacy skills to native-speakers.
Robert O'Neill

Re: Your E-mail Newsletter,
Thanks for mentioning our event in this week's ESL MiniConference Newsletter! Thank you for your good wishes! Sure, I will send you a report on the outcome of the Conference.
Warm regards,
Prof. Humberto J. San Pedro Soto
CILCCA2002@event.uo.edu.cu
Secretario Ejecutivo del Comité Organizador
CILCCA 2002, Universidad de Oriente
Santiago de Cuba, Cuba

Re: the whole language debate,
I couldn't agree more with Blaze Ryan. I am a younger teacher (32) and try not to overburden the students with grammar, or memorizing every traditional grammar term, I just teach what works and what they can understand. However, when students have never had to even think for one minute how English works, it can be very difficult teaching the difference between a subject, direct object, and indirect object, no matter how much you simplify it or avoid the heavy, old-fashioned terms. Even some of the "bright" kids seem to have difficulty distinguishing these concepts. The result is that they constantly confuse all the pronouns, and their Spanish ends up making no sense. You can take as communicative of an approach as you want in teaching language, but if the students can't distinguish grammar parts, they will never be able to put sentences together. Anyone else feel this way?
Jeff Faris
jdfarris@rcn.com
High School Spanish teacher

Hi Robb,
Thank-you very much for your insightful web page. I signed up twice under two different e-mail addresses: school and home. Upon reflection, I think you made the correct choice keeping the home address (napanet) for my ESL account because my mail box at school is jammed and I will have a more leisurely read of the ESL MiniConference site at home. The debate between Krashen and O'Neill has created a great discussion at my immersion school. Thank-you again for creating and maintaining your site.
Terry Faherty
Napa Valley Unified

Re: O'Neill-Krashen-VanPatten debate,
I took up the suggestion of the kind List member who posted the ESL MiniConference website on the debate on learning vs acquisition. It's really pretty short and no one says anything outrageous. It would be a succinct introduction for those who don't want to read a book or article and would lay to rest the notion that grammar shouldn't be taught, etc. I think Bill VanPatten's reply is extremely helpful. Those who claim we shouldn't teach grammar just don't understand communicative teaching.

One example: a teacher in my district was upset that the curriculum did not contain specific grammar features to be taught at specific points; you know, the preterite in November and the subjunctive in April (actually, come to think of it, that's just about how it turns out in my classes). The grammar was there, but as an appendage: you teach it where you need it to enhance communication, not as an end in itself.

She was upset with me because she knew I rejected the notion of teaching a language by going from grammar feature to grammar feature, yet I'll bet she teaches her kids how to function in the language; she just can't believe she is teaching "language" when her students are understanding and using the language - teaching the language to her means teaching the grammar.
Pat Barrett
PBarrett@cox.net

Dear Mr. Scott,
I just joined the ESL Miniconference. Thanks for creating this very interesting ESL site. I look forward to reading the articles and letters on your site on a regular basis.
Sincerely,
Jim Mischler
mischler@clipper.net
American English Institute
University of Oregon

Re: SLA Debate,
Thank you so much for bringing this wonderful debate to the attention of the NIFL-ESL list. My area of interest is adult SLA, so it was particularly fascinating to me. I especially enjoyed Bill VanPatten's contribution. He makes it clear that there is indeed a distinction between learning and acquisition, but O'Neill misses the mark in his theory about where that distinction lies.
Lorraine Dutton
lad-oh@etop.org

Re: Krashen-O'Neill-VanPatten debate
Thanks....I printed the exchanges and plan to use the material in my grad classes. The debate should generate lots of heated discussion....
Diane Epstein
DiaEpstein@cs.com

In response to Robert O'Neill's letter, Acquisition and Learning:
Obviously, I strongly disagree with Strozer's conclusion that parameter resetting is impossible after a certain time and that "persistent study" is necessary for language acquisition in adults.

Interestingly I agree with O'Neill that grammar has a contribution to make, and that there are limits to what these contributions are. Our views on how grammar helps may be quite different, however. I maintain it is only available as a monitor or editor, and that severe conditions must be met for conscious grammar to be applied: time to apply the rule, knowledge of the rule, and a focus on form. For most people, these conditions are only met after they have had some instruction and are taking a grammar test. This is when you see the full impact of grammar, and even then the effect is modest. The original arguments are available in Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition (1982), and I have discussed this more recently in an article in Foreign Language Annals in 1999, and it will be part of a chapter in a new book.

But even this modest contribution of grammar can be helpful. Our standards in writing are 100%. A single spelling or punctuation error in public can mean humiliation (as former US Vice President Quayle discovered a few years ago). Even well-read people don't acquire all of a language. There are usually a few gaps. In English this includes the it's/its distinction, who/whom, etc, places where, I suspect, the language is changing.

I recommend study of grammar for older students in both first and second languages, focusing on the use of a grammar handbook, to fill these gaps. It is part of language study, but is peripheral.
Stephen Krashen
University of Southern California

Re: Stephen Krashen's second response,
Acquisition and Learning
Two quotes from Judith R Strozer's LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AFTER PUBERTY (Georgetown University Press, 1994, p.p. 186-187) put the matter succinctly.
"The well-known facts cited in Chapter 7 suggest that linguistic parameter setting is possible only for a brain undergoing maturation at a particularly (early) stage."
"The conclusion that a foreign language can be acquired only through persistent study, and that a teaching program can only provide valuable but never sufficient help, is neither negative nor pessimistic."

Despite Strozer's use of "acquisition" here, I still think that the word is inherently misleading. If the parameter setting that drives acquisition in a child is not possible for an adult, the word "acquire" does not describe what even the best adult learners attain or the way they learn. I also believe, however, that what I understand as learning and what Krashen calls acquisition can result in highly tutored intuitions that go way beyond axiomatic rules and which may not involve them at all.

Grammar and Conscious Learning
As a textbook author, I use grammar as a supplement to comprehensible input. I have never believed that grammar alone is enough, just as I have never believed that what is learned through grammar can be a complete rule system. It cannot be, as even St. Augustine, and Erasmus knew. However grammar can - if used discretely and wisely (by learners as well as teachers) - promote and sharpen those intuitions we develop primarily but not only through comprehensible input. Of course, all this is and must be, in Krashen's words, "an empirical question, open to investigation". His reply has been, as always, illuminating.
Robert O'Neill
Author, Teacher, and Language-Learner

Re: John Dougill's comment,
John Dougill points out that forbidding teacher talk is contrary to Krashen's need for massive amounts of comprehensible input. I agree.
Stephen Krashen
Emeritus Professor
University of Southern California

Re: the Krashen-O'Neill debate,
As usual, I find myself totally on O'Neill's side, though I suspect the two are closer than the forced polarity suggests... Those of us like myself who have 'plateaued' in Japanese know only too well the limitations of acquisition for adults. I've also known adults master a language quicker than children - by 'learning' rather than acquisition.

I was heartened too to find O'Neill supporting one of my own pet peeves when he writes of such 'childish and sterile dogmas as 'teacher-centred is BAD' and 'learner-centred is GOOD'' - IMHO classroom time is too often wasted in ineffective learner-centred work (invariably carried out in the students native language), though on teacher training courses it is probably heresy to say so... I well remember having TTT (teacher talking time) being drummed into me as an evil that should be reduced to a minimum, a dogma that incidentally conflicts with Krashen's need for massive amounts of comprehensible input...
John Dougill
dougill@mbox.kyoto-inet.or.jp

Re: the Robert O'Neill interview,
I once taught with American Kernel Lessons, when teaching tired adult immigrants in the evenings, and found it to be an excellent book as far as the success that it elicited from tired students. Many ESL teachers would find it hopelessly repetitive, but it certainly did the trick for a lot of my students -- some of whom were 60 years old, heavily burdened by family responsibilities, etc. I left class every evening feeling exhilarated by what they had been able to do with the materials.
Margaret Scheirman (going on 22 years of ESL teaching)
Minnesota English Center, University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota

A brief comment on the "din":
In Robb Scott's post, "Get Aboard the Conversation Bus: A Simple Idea for Creating a Discussion Din" the word "din" is used differently from the way I used it in my publications. Scott is referring to out-loud conversations and real noise. I used the term to refer to an internal involuntary mental rehearsal of language, similar to what happens when you get a tune stuck in your head; you "hear" in your mind bits and pieces of language often spoken in the voices of people you have been interacting with. Several studies confirm the suggestion that this kind of din is a result of language acquisition. I'll be happy to post a bibliography if people are interested.
Steve Krashen
Emeritus Professor
University of Southern California

Dear Robb,
I've admired your energy in getting the ESL MiniConference up and running. It's certainly an asset to our field.
Best regards,
Jean McConochie
Professor of English & Director of ESL
Pace University, New York City

Dear Robb,
It looks great. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to communicate with my colleagues. Good luck with your site -- it's a good one.
Best regards,
Betty Azar
The Azar Grammar Exchange

Letters from 2002 First Quarter