That is Spanish which is well suited to a CI style of approach. English is a hybrid with a massive latinate vocabulary. I discovered when learning French that I could listen to podcasts, hear new words, and figure out their meaning from context and English cognates. With German I cannot do that, most words are impenetrable without study. I’m not saying CI works for a native English speaker learning romance languages, just that they can make a lot of progress with CI.
That’s fine. So are you claiming CI works for some people and not others? When people say CI works for them, my first reaction is to analyse what they actually do in practice.
Yes, it is an idea. However, there is no good evidence that “conscious effort permanently blocks natural, unconscious acquisition.” Matt is known for his high-level speaking ability in Japanese, and he did not follow ALG. In fact, he has documented putting in a substantial amount of conscious effort to learn it. Why didn’t that conscious effort block his acquisition?
Matt’s presentation of Brown here is also quite one-sided. There is plenty to criticize in Dr. Brown’s work, but it’s important to separate interpretation from evidence. When Brown’s classroom outcomes did not match his expectations, he attributed the gap to learner behavior (thinking, speaking, analyzing), rather than treating it as a limitation of the method. You cannot actually observe or measure this mental interference in any clear way, so the explanation becomes circular: if someone succeeds, they “did it right,” and if they fail, it is because they must have interfered mentally.
You could apply the same style of reasoning in the opposite direction. Success stories like Matt’s could just as easily be used to argue that conscious effort is essential: if someone succeeds, they “did it right,” and if they fail, they simply did not use enough conscious effort. The issue is not which interpretation you choose, but that the framework can be made to fit any outcome after the fact.
If someone wants to learn that way, that is their choice. But I do think it’s misleading when the conscious learning interference idea is presented as a proven or ALG is presented as a uniquely optimal path to fluency.
In the field of SLA, ALG is generally not part of the mainstream consensus. The broader view is that input is essential, but output, interaction, attention, feedback, and explicit learning all play meaningful roles.
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He’s just posted an interesting react video to and reviewed the series of foundation videos of ALG. (He’s going on with his experiment, despite his criticism. What a dedicated man!)
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I doubt any of us disagree that input is important.
According to Krashen:
- You cannot learn language through conscious (explicit) study, which he calls learning. In other words, classroom teaching is useless. He provides no method to distinguish between explicitly learnt language and implicitly learnt language, hence the claim is untestable and unscientific. He also provides no supporting evidence. It is true because he says so. In fact research shows that conscious study is beneficial.
- Consciously learned language can only be used to monitor output, it cannot be the cause. Research has shown that to be false. We can transfer items in semantic memory to procedural memory. I’ve explicitly learnt the names of birds in French, and can recall them as easily as the English names.
- Language is acquired in a particular fixed order independent of the learner. This was based on a tiny piece of research that studied word endings. There is no evidence that it is generally true. Of course learners tend to learn more complex grammar later on, but it will partly depend on the input they use, and the teaching materials.
Some people misinterpret Krashen’s theory as saying that learners need lots of input. Few of us would disagree with that statement, but it isn’t what the theory says. The Krashen theory is junk science in my view.
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Look, here’s something that doesn’t quite add up for me when it comes to Dr. Krashen’s position. For someone who has had such a massive influence on language learning theory, there’s surprisingly little public evidence of him actually sitting down and having a real, unscripted conversation in German—with a native speaker or even a highly advanced learner.
Take someone like Steve Kaufmann, for example. He’s the CEO of LingQ, he speaks multiple languages, and you can find plenty of footage of him engaging across different levels of fluency. But when it comes to Dr. Krashen, where are those moments? Why not demonstrate the theory in action with a spontaneous exchange?
Even in conversations between Krashen and Kaufmann, they default to English. That raises a fair question: if the method is so effective, why not showcase it more directly? I’ve also heard that Krashen has been learning French, but again, there’s little to no video evidence of him speaking—even at a basic level.
At a certain point, it’s reasonable to ask: if others in the field are willing to put their skills on display, why isn’t he? It’s not a criticism for the sake of it—it’s just an observation. And frankly, it’s a bit puzzling.
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