How to Learn Languages Better — A Review of Stephen Krashen’s ‘Explorations in Language Acquisition’

Quick answer: Read a lot on topics that interest you, or use the target language to solve a problem.

Even the 4th chapter of Krashen’s book is titled: How reading and writing make you smarter, or, how smart people read and write — Photo by Hümâ H. Yardım on Unsplash.

Check out the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Explorations-Language-Acquisition-Stephen-Krashen/dp/0325005540

Disclaimer: This book refutes traditional language learning methods or explicit rule-based learning. So, if you adhere to those methods, then you probably won’t like the inferences that Krashen makes.

Reading, or other forms of comprehensible input, are the best methods of language acquisition

“In Stokes, Krashen, and Kartchner (1998), students of Spanish as a foreign language in the United States were tested on their knowledge of the subjunctive… Formal study was not a predictor of subjunctive competence… The amount of free-reading in Spanish, however, was a clear predictor.”

And why is that exactly? Because when we’re reading, we’re actually using the language to accomplish a task, rather than in study where we’re not actually using the language, just observing it. Learning in general happens in context, when there is a reason to understand the meaning.

So how do we learn new concepts or ideas? Krashen references Graham Wallas’ The Art of Thought and Frank Smith’s Comprehension and Learning to present their stages of learning and emphasize that “we learn by solving problems, and not by deliberate study”:

1. Preparation — In order to come up with new ideas, we have to prepare or clarify our current ideas and the problem we are working on.
2. Incubation — The mind goes about solving the problem. Incubation occurs subconsciously and automatically.
3. Illumination — Illumination is the emergence of a new idea, the result of incubation (in other words, the “eureka” moment).
4. Verification — The catalyst for a concept to enter long-term memory happens by that concept being confirmed or verified: “when the thinker notes that he or she has arrived at the same conclusion from a different source or when he or she discovers that someone else has the same idea.”

Krashen goes on to say that reading facilitates preparation and verification. Since incubation and illumination are passively experienced, reading promotes the full process through the stages of learning.

And, reading is considered to be the best form of receiving language as it is naturally more rich in vocabulary than speech.

“About 95 percent of the words used in conversation and television are from the most frequent 5,000. Printed texts include far more uncommon words, leading Hayes and Ahrens to the conclusion that the development of lexical knowledge beyond basic words ‘requires literacy and extensive reading across a broad range of subjects.’”

However, light reading (comics, magazines, etc.) should be considered a bridge between more serious reading and conversation.

Some other interesting studies from this book

• For beginner learners of a foreign language, Krashen recommends teaching with engaging activities such as magic tricks, playing card games, learning to do a handstand, etc. The teacher should try to speak in simpler phrases, and the student is never pressured to speak back in the target language. Additionally, grammar should be included to fill gaps/answer questions, unless the beginner learner is a kid.
• Sheltered subject-matter teaching is a method of teaching a foreign language indirectly, by giving college students a semester of a separate course (history, math, etc.) and only speaking in a foreign language. It’s targeted at intermediate learners of the language. “Students in these classes acquire considerable amounts of the second language […] and they also learn an impressive amount of subject matter […] Sheltered teaching is very time-efficient; students get both language and subject matter at the same time.”
• Comprehensible output doesn’t work. In other words, language learning rarely happens when the learner of the foreign language is encouraged to speak and interact with the teacher. We don’t acquire a new language by having our speech/output corrected in real time.

For me, this book highlighted the complexities of language and the strangeness of how our brains learn new things. I’m not trying to say that we should throw away our language textbooks, but we should think of them as a reference, versus reading the ins and outs and doing all of the exercises. In other words, it’s better to just read about topics of interest in a foreign language, even if it’s just beginner material.

For the intermediate learner, you can easily Google in your target language; just change your Google location or language settings (do it in incognito mode if you don’t want it to get saved that way).

Have fun; learn languages!