Second Language Acquisition and Second ... - Stephen Krashen

e boredom. When they overshoot, the result will be frustration.
For drills that focus on learning, undershooting may produce either boredom, or,
occasionally, for interested amateur linguists in a class, "language appreciation" (see
remarks in Chapter 8). If a learning exercise is "on target" or in advance of i + 1, the
result will be a contribution to the conscious Monitor, if the exercise is successful.
As discussed previously, Monitor use has its advantages, but also has its limits.
The use of simple codes may thus have some real advantages over classroom
exercises. The latter take deliberate aim at the i + 1th structure; when they miss it,
as is probable for some students in a large class, the results are of dubious value.
Even when they hit it, there may be a need for more review and we can question
whether the quantity of input was sufficient (witness the constant need for review in
second and foreign language classes; for the latter, the second year is often
exclusively devoted to a review of grammar presented the first year). Simple codes,
however, provide a "shot-gun" approach that may cover the i + 1 with built-in
review.
Finally, many classroom exercises, with their emphasis on correctness, often place
the student "on the defensive" (Stevick, 1976), entailing a heightened "affective
filter" (Dulay and Burt, 1977), which makes them less than ideal for language
acquisition. The use of simple informal codes, on the other hand, generally occurs in
situations where the focus is on communication and not form, and where the filter is
"down" or at least much weaker. In Stevick's terms, this allows the input to strike
more "deeply" and thus be more effective intake for acquisition. (For discussion, see
Stevick, 1976; Chapter 2, this volume.) 3
Some Final Comments: A Summer as an Intermediate French Student
By way of conclusion, I would like to report on some recent personal experiences as
a student of French. The class I attended in the summer of 1978 in Los Angeles was
a private class, with a small number of highly motivated, highly intelligent, and
mature students. The official "method" used was the Pucciani-Hamil approach
(Langue et Langage), used with much apparent success at UCLA and at
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