Second Language Acquisition and Second ... - Stephen Krashen

advanced provides, often, for input that is "just beyond" the acquirer's current level.
While it may seem to be the case that foreign students will acquire each others'
errors, this may not be a serious problem, as "error-free" intake sources will also be
available (native speakers both inside and outside the classroom). Fathman (1976)
presents evidence suggesting that the presence of a foreign student peer group may
in fact be beneficial. In her study of ESL students in elementary schools in the
Washington, D.C. area, she found that "the students in schools where there were
more than forty non-native English speakers seemed to make more progress than
those in schools where there were fewer foreign students" (p. 437). This may be
due, Fathman points out, to the fact that schools that had more foreign students
tended to have better-organized school programs for them. However, "the students
within these groups became friends with those from other countries with whom they
spoke English" (p. 438). Helping foreign students get to know each other has always
been a popular activity in ESL classes (V. Sferlazza, personal communication); it
may be linguistically justified, and should perhaps be encouraged as good
pedagogy.
In a recent paper, I suggest another way of obtaining intake outside the classroom, a
way of encouraging the outside world to cooperate with the language teaching
profession (Krashen, 1978e): "Language Learning Buttons" would alert native
speakers to the linguistic needs of acquirers--a red button, designated "ESL Learner
1" would mean a beginning ESL student, a yellow button designated "ESL Learner
2" an intermediate, etc. Native speakers would hopefully provide the bearer of such
a button with simpler input (and perhaps a friendlier response).
Returning to the classroom, in recent years some novel ideas have been suggested
that encourage language acquisition by providing intake. Terrell (1977) has
proposed a method which he calls the "Natural Approach", in which class time
essentially consists of communicative activity, with the teacher speaking only in the
target language, and the students responding in either the target language or their
first language. Students' errors are completely ignored during this activity, unless
there is some communication failure. Homework is of the usual sort, grammar
exercises, etc. Of course, such a system is
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