Cummins and Krashen on Language Acquisition

Learning Acquisition vs Language Learning

http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/2013_siop_research_support_bclaims.pdf

There are opposing views in the field of language acquisition, The “Skill-Building” Hypothesis and The Comprehension Hypothesis. The Comprehension Hypothesis claims that language is acquired and literacy is developed in one way which is by understanding messages that we hear and read. According to this Hypothesis, language acquisition happens subconsciously, and it is not acquired by studying grammar rules or memorizing vocabulary lists.  The “Skill-Building” Hypothesis depends on conscious learning.  It holds that students first need to learn and master grammar, vocabulary and spelling skills before using them in real situations (Krashen, 2013).

Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, and world renowned linguist, educational researcher and activist explains that there is overwhelming evidence that supports The Comprehension Hypothesis which holds that nearly all of our competence in language comes from understanding what we hear and read as opposed to what we speak and write.  However, our ability to speak and write is a result of receiving comprehensible input.   Studies have long shown that students who read more, have develop higher abilities in vocabulary, reading and writing.  Krashen emphasizes the effectiveness of student free voluntary reading. 

 

Jim Cummins, a world leader in the field of second language acquisition makes an important distinction between BICS and CALP in this video (Cummins, 2013) –  BICS stands for Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills are the basic language skills we use in everyday conversation.  CALP stands for Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency which is the language in academic sources such as text books.   BICS is the language that small children take to preschool and kindergarten.  It is the language they use ask questions and hold simple conversations with their friends and teachers.  Our goal as educators is to expand their conversational skill into the academic realm over the course of their education.   We want to expand from basic familiar high frequency vocabulary and basic grammatical expressions into the realm of lower frequency vocabulary, complex grammatical structures and academic language(Cummins, 2013).

Cummins notes that literacy is very much rule governed.  Discreet language skills such as – phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling are taught.  Decoding skills are taught using high frequency words.  Second language learners can pick up these skills as well as conversational skills relatively quickly - within two or three years.  However, they may still have large gaps in their knowledge of English when expanding into low frequency vocabulary, more complex grammatical structures not commonly used, discourse conventions.  Academic language acquisition  our ability to interpret produce increasingly complex  language of text books, passive voice, low frequency words that have Greek and Latin roots  language we don’t use in everyday conversation(Cummins, 2013).  

Teaching vocabulary and grammatical rules out of context is difficult for second language learners.  They need to be taught patterns in vocabulary such as Latin and Greek based roots, suffixes and prefixes along with the passive voice and the language in the content areas of math, social studies and science(Cummins, 2013).

To summarize, while conversational fluency and discreet language skills may take one to three years to acquire, academic proficiency will take at least five to seven years and sometimes longer.  Just because a student is speaking fluently they are far from showing it on a cognitive academic assessment.  The question of “Where do children find academic language?” must be asked and answered.  They find it in printed text, text books and in the classroom, so unless children are reading extensively they are not accessing the academic language they need to become successful in the classroom.  

View video at:      Jim Cummins explains the differnces between BICS and CALP

Cummins, D. J. (2013). Dr. Jim Cummins explains the differences between BICS and CALP. (T. A. Inc., Interviewer)

Krashen, S. (2013). Does SIOP Research Support SIOP Claims. International Journal of Foreing Language Teaching. 8(1), 11-24.