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in a Russian pedagogy course I took. It's been years, here's what I read/was taught. It may have changed; these things do sometimes.
His big claim at the time was that there was no "critical period", the period at which the ability to acquire a native language essentially ended. Of course, there are probably exceptions.
Before it, kids can learn a language with little or no accent, and while they may have a slightly restricted code--omitting some of the less common grammatical constructions--they're fluent, getting the grammatical categories nailed pretty well, and having no trouble with vocabulary or grammar.
After the critical period, the standard theory goes, you cannot acquire a native language. You'll forever have an accent, problems with vocabulary, you'll never get the grammar down perfectly. Good, maybe, but you'll make stupid mistakes that a 5 year old wouldn't.
Krashen countered that it wasn't a "critical period", but a combination of things that yielded this effect. Precisely at the time the critical period kicks in, kids are no longer exposed to simple language: kids need to be exposed to input that is a bit harder than what they're used to, to gradually build their abilities, and at the critical period, 11-13 yrs old, the language they hear is fully adult. Give adult input to an adult trying to learn a language, or put a 13 year old in with other 13 year olds, and the input is wildly inappropriate. So inappropriate as to be useless.
Moreover, kids hear the languages they're exposed to constantly. Adults learning a language hear much less of it.
And, finally (I think), kids have no inhibitions. A 9 year old kid will say all sorts of things; if they're learning a language, they make a zillion mistakes and hear correct responses (not corrections) a zillion times. Statistically their output comes to model the input they hear. Adults are inhibited. They don't want to make stupid mistakes.
A corollary of this is motivation. Kids are highly motivated to communicate with their peers; adults will find dodges. I can get along in Polish in all kinds of situations, knowing a few hundred words, when I'm motivated enough to overcome my inhibition. A sick kid or wife, for example, and the need to buy decongestant.
If you think about it, Krashen's saying that the best way to teach kids is to give them structured input, but immerse them with native speakers. The structured input makes up for the baby talk and kiddie-speak they missed, but the lack of inhibition and the strong motivation should carry the day. Certainly until age 13, but if you can learn a native language at age 16, given the right input and motivation, it has consequences for teaching. It also means you should have high expectations.
Bilingual education, in the sense it's usually intended here, subvents motivation. The kids will get taught in their native language. They're grouped with other kids speaking their language, reducing opportunity, and yielding fewer relationships requiring the use of the second language. And the bar's set lower: the assumption by many is that it'll take year to mainstream a kid, more for teenagers. Krashen argues that with the proper input and motivation it'll take a year or two. In this he usually seems to side with the "English immersion" folks that have been waging war with most bilingual ed teachers, and professors (for that matter).
Krashen has, as far as I know, never been a rightwing loony. And I rather like his theories, in part, because they seem to agree with my language learning history--strong motivation overcomes inhibition, leading to greater fluency and abilities in the target language. I don't think they're right, in spite of his counterexamples, because of some of the neurolinguistic and psycholinguistic work on language acquisition and parameter setting.
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