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Abstract: Krashen’s Monitor Model has been a most controversial theory in second language research over the past two decades. This paper briefly introduces Krashen’s five hypotheses and critically presents some views on his theory and his contribution,hoping to gain insights into second language research from a comparatively fair perspective.
Key words: Krashen; Monitor Model; Critical Evaluation; Second Language Research
Krashen’s Monitor Model, known as “the most ambitious and most influential attempt to construct an overall theory of second language acquisition” (Gregg, 1984: 79), can be also regarded as the most controversial theory in the field of second language research during the past 30 years. On the one hand, Krashen’s theory has been widely applauded and accepted by second-language teachers in the United States and even been taken as “the word of God” (McLaughlin,1987: 58) by many educational practitioners around the world. Apart from his down-to-earth language in his research which is easily understood and followed by language teachers, the main reason for his popularity lies in his strong confidence and enthusiastic devotion to his theory.Krashen believes the hypotheses he presents “have been found to be consistent with a significant amount of data, experimental and otherwise, and have not yet been confronted with serious counter-examples” (Krashen, 1982: 2). Moreover, to promote his educational theory, Krashen has published over 100 books and articles, and delivered hundreds of lectures at universities throughout the United States and Canada. However, on the other hand, Krashen’s theory has been severely criticized by many scholars, ranging from its contradictory definition of terms to serious theoretical flaws, and “Krashen-bashin” (McLaughlin, 1987: 19) has become a hot topic in the field of second language research for years (Gregg, 1984; McLaughlin, 1987; Ellis, 1985). For example, Gregg (1984: 94) claims that “each of Krashen’s hypotheses is marked by serious flaws:indefinable or ill-defined terms, unmotivated constructs, lack of empirical content and thus of falsifiability, lack of explanatory power.”
Actually, realizing that “many researchers are no longer involved in language teaching and language acquisition, and do not interact with teachers,”Krashen (1982: 3) attempts to bring together all major second language research findings during his time and expects to provide teachers with an applicable framework of theory which can help them find ways to improve second language teaching. His theory is basically made up of five central hypotheses which interact and are complimentary with each other, and yet works as a whole to uncover the mechanism of second language acquisition:
The acquisition-learning hypothesis
The monitor hypothesis
The natural order hypothesis
The input hypothesis
The affective filter hypothesis
In the following paragraphs, I will briefly introduce Krashen’s assumptions involved in each hypothesis, and, instead of simply labelling it with a “good” or “bad” mark, I will present my own points of view based on evaluations of other theorists, hoping to see second language research from a comparatively fair perspective. The discussion will follow Krashen’s order of hypotheses one by one.
The first is the acquisition-learning hypothesis, which is considered by Krashen himself as the most fundamental among all the hypotheses (1982: 10). According to Krashen’s assumption,adults, as second language learners, have “two distinct and independent ways of developing competence in a second language” (ibid). One way is language acquisition, which is quite similar to the process of children learning their first language. It implies that language acquirers have no awareness of acquiring language; rather, they use language subconsciously for communicative purposes. Through communication they acquire language competence without consciously knowing what the language rules are, but they have a “feeling” for correctness. For example, a sentence may sound correct, or they may feel awkward if they say or hear something wrong. The other way is language learning, which “refers to the conscious knowledge of second language,knowing the rules, being aware of them, and being able to talk about them” (Krashen, 1982:10).Learning language, in Krashen’s mind, is the process of knowing grammatical rules and being able to correct them when they are violated. In this sense, when people use second language in communication, they mainly use their acquired knowledge, rather than the learned one. The learned knowledge has only one function, that is, to monitor what performers produce in second language (here Krashen comes up with his second assumption: the monitor hypothesis. And I will discuss it in the next part).
In addition, Krashen assumes that the acquired knowledge is stored in the language areas of the left brain, which can be accessed automatically in a language process. The learnt knowledge,though also stored in the left brain, is “not necessarily in the language areas” and “only available for controlled processing” (Ellis, 1985: 261). As the two kinds of knowledge are not stored together, they are not transformable in performance. That means “learning does not turn into acquisition” (Krashen, 1982: 83). In order to support his hypothesis, Krashen provides “very good reasons” from his observation on second language performers (ibid: 84). Firstly, many second language performers can use complex structures correctly without knowing grammatical rules consciously and never able to talk about these rules. Secondly, many performers know exactly what the rules are but they often violate the rules and make careless mistakes in using that language. Thirdly, even the best learners grasp only partial knowledge of rules, which means nobody can describe all grammatical rules.
Though people agree with his observation on second language performers and admit his statement is correct, it seems there is not much relation between his observation and his assumption. The biggest problem is that the reasons Krashen presents simply cannot prove his hypothesis. Admittedly, the process of language acquisition is so complicated that there is no universal rule for all performers to acquire or use that language in the same way. But this fact does not lead to the conclusion that learned knowledge cannot turn into acquired one. Based on infinite and general observation, it is a vain attempt for Krashen to come up with the acquisition-learning hypothesis, which is hardly convincing to readers.
Apart from his failure to reason logically, his view on the non-interfaced position of acquisition and learning is problematic both in theory and practice. According to McLaughlin(1987: 22), there are no objective ways to identify what is acquisition and what is learning, and even Krashen himself is unable to come up with a proper solution for his claim. Gregg (1984:81) also criticizes this claim as “nonsense” by stating that “at least some rules can be acquired through learning.”And Gregg also provides as evidence his experience of learning the past tense and gerundive forms of Japanese verbs by memorizing charts in his textbook. After a few days he could use these rules without any error, and it, in his belief, is “with no input other than a bit of drill” (ibid). In reply to his criticism, Krashen seems not very consistent with his claim by admitting that “the idea that we first learn a new rule, and eventually, through practice, acquire it,is wide spread and may seem to some people to be intuitively obvious. It was, I thought, exactly the way I learned languages myself” (Krashen, 1982: 83).
Theoretically, though Krashen holds that acquisition and learning are not interchangeable,he fails to put forward a clear and objective way to separate them in the process of learning and using a second language. Meanwhile, the unreliability of his claim also stems from his vague distinction between subconscious and conscious processes, which is also “not open to inspection”(McLaughlin, 1978, cited in Ellis, 1985: 264). In empirical observation, obviously, Krashen’s assumption of learning cannot become acquisition betrays the fact that many performers,especially learners without natural language setting, rely heavily on explicit vocabulary and grammar learning in the classroom to establish their second language system. In this sense,regardless of the validity of the acquisition-learning distinction, it seems meaningless to make an effort to differentiate them since they can never provide any implication for second language research.
As mentioned above, Krashen holds that the only function of learning is to editor, or monitor what performers produce in the acquisition area. The monitor hypothesis suggests that conscious learning of rules “comes into play only to make changes in the form of our utterance…this can happen before we speak or write, or after (self-correction)” (Krashen, 1982: 15). Krashen claims that monitoring plays an extremely limited role in language performance and also sets three conditions for its use: (1) performers need sufficient time for thinking about and using conscious rules; (2) performers need to focus on the form of language instead of only paying attention to meaning; (3) performers require the knowledge of rules so that they are able to do self-correction.Based on his case studies, Krashen comes up with three types of performers in monitor use:(1) monitor over-users who attempt to monitor all the time. Since they are constantly checking their output with conscious rules they have learned, they may speak hesitantly and often self-correct while they speak, thus losing fluency in utterances. (2) monitor under-users who never use the rules to check their output, whether they may have never been taught about the rules or they may have learned some rules. They usually rely on the feeling to ensure the correctness. For this group of performers, they may speak quite fluently but sometimes may lose accuracy. (3) the optimal monitor uses who “use the monitor when it is appropriate and when it does not interfere with communication” (Krashen, 1982: 19).
In my opinion, Krashen’s description of three individual variations in monitor use is very thought-provoking in second language education. It presents the interaction between emotion and language performance, explains how output, in terms of fluency and accuracy, is influenced by speaker’s sense of self-correction and other objective conditions like time and knowledge of rules. More importantly, it suggests that to reach the optimal monitor is important in language education, just as Krashen stresses that “our pedagogical goal is to produce optimal users” (1982:19). In this sense, the monitor hypothesis makes language teachers rethink the relationship between accuracy and fluency, and how to assist students in balancing them more skilfully in the second language process so that they can become more optimal-monitor-like.
According to Krashen (1985: 1), acquisition of language rules follows a predicable order,and “some rules tending to come early and others late.”The natural order hypothesis implies that people may learn grammatical rules in a more or less similar order and thus “when the learner is engaged in natural communication tasks, he will manifest the standard order” (Ellis, 1985: 262).For example, some experiments show that in the process of learning English grammar, children and adults alike learn to use the present tense before they can use the past tense, and master plural forms before possessive “’s” (McLaughlin, 1987: 17).
According to the natural order hypothesis, it is speculated that there exists a certain kind of learning order, and, in theory, if we find this natural order and follow it in the process of teaching students grammar, we can be better teachers. But Krashen points out that “the implication of the natural order is not that our syllabi should be based on the order found in the studies discussed here, that is, I do not recommend teaching ing early and the third person singular /s/ late”(1982: 14). I reckon it is difficult to understand and explain. On the one hand, the assumption is unreliable because the original studies Krashen and his colleagues made on English morpheme acquisition cannot represent all rules of English, let alone various rules of all other languages in the world. Therefore the conclusion they draw from the studies seems to be incomplete and partial. On the other hand, it is weird that the natural order hypothesis is not recommended in Krashen’s pedagogical methodology. I cannot help wondering, then, what is the point of the natural order. But Krashen tries to give an explanation through his fourth hypothesis.
The input hypothesis consists of four parts:
“(1) The input hypothesis relates to acquisition, not learning.
(2) We acquire by understanding language that contains structure a bit beyond our current level of competence (i+l). This is done with the help of context or extra-linguistic information.
(3) When communication is successful, when the input is understood and there is enough of it, i+l will be provided automatically.
(4) Production ability emerges. It is not taught directly. ”(Krashen, 1982: 21-22)
Krashen highly praises his own input hypothesis as “the most important concept in second language acquisition theory today,” because it not only “answers the crucial theoretical question of how we acquire language” but also “holds the answer to many of our everyday problems in second language instruction at all levels” (1982: 9). But like some other second language theorists(Gregg, 1984; McLaughlin, 1987; Ellis, 1985), I doubt the validity and power of his Input hypothesis.
As a continuum to his acquisition-learning hypothesis, the first claim here seems to be superfluous. As Krashen always puts acquisition as central and learning peripheral, his educational focus is definitely on how to improve acquisition instead of learning.
The second claim of i and i+1 sounds very plausible at the first glance, but it cannot provide more than a general truth which is acknowledged by all. In other words, though it states a universally-agreed opinion that teachers should teach students new knowledge based on what they have learned, neither far beyond what they can understand nor what they have learned before, it is difficult to clarify what the exact +1 is, and more, to test it. Even for second language beginners, teachers have no exact idea on what each student’s current competence (i) is and what i+1 is, since they may vary in terms of age, personality, cognitive styles, attitudes and learning strategies. Apart from the vagueness in the concepts of i and i+1, Krashen is also unclear about how to ensure the i+1 to be acquired by students.
The third claim seems to explain his suggestion that teachers should not follow the natural order in second language teaching because the part of +1 will be automatically acquired by students. But in practice, it is not uncommon that students are likely to forget what they have acquired without enough practice. In other words, the acquired +1 may be lost due to lack of drill or exercise. In this aspect, Krashen does not give us an elaboration on how to keep the automatically acquired knowledge.
As with his distinction between acquisition and learning, Krashen differentiates production and teaching effect in the last claim. Output automatically comes out as the production of acquisition, and has no relevance with teaching because teaching leads to learning which cannot be transformed into acquisition. But the reality is that the output, as contrast to input, is not as trivial as Krashen assumes. The output of second language, in forms of writing and speaking,plays an equally important role in communication as input like listening and reading, if not more.In addition, through self-correction and modification, the output presents another form of input to stimulate better acquisition. But sadly, Krashen just ignores the significance of output.
The final one is the affective filter hypothesis, which deals with how affective factors relate to second language acquisition. According to Krashen’s study, a variety of affective variables have a great influence on the success of second language acquisition, namely, motivation, self-confidence and anxiety (1982: 31). To be specific, performers with high motivation, more self-confidence and less anxiety tend to do better in second language acquisition while performers with high or strong affective filters, like low motivation, less self-confidence and more anxiety,tend to be confronted with more obstacles to second language acquisition, thus “receive less input and allow even less in” (Ellis, 1985: 263). Thus, even if performers are confronted with comprehensible input, the process of acquisition may be influenced by filters and part of the input may not be able to reach the brain.
In my view, this statement may be considered the most significant among all the five hypotheses not only for his theory but also for second language research. In terms of the contribution to his own theory, by adding the assumption of filter affection into his model, Krashen successfully rounds all his hypotheses to be a seemingly reasonable one. According to his acquisition-learning hypothesis, adults are supposed to have access to the same language acquisition device as children do in second language acquisition. Therefore, they should possess the same competence and perform as well as they do in the first language. But it runs counter to the reality that most adult acquirers fail to use their second language as native speakers do.According to Krashen’s explanation, it is not because they have different access to competence from children, but because they are more or less affected by what he calls “filters.”
As for a second language, this assumption “explains why it is possible for an acquirer to obtain a great deal of comprehensible input, and yet stop short (and sometimes well short) of the native speaker level…When this occurs, it is due to the affective filter” (Krashen, 1982:32). By taking performer’s emotional and personal variables into consideration, Krashen clearly demonstrates how these filters function in the process of second language acquisition and why there exists different acquisition among second language performers. Therefore, in terms of pedagogy, the affective filter hypothesis suggests that teachers should not only provide comprehensible input (i+1) to students, but also need to create a friendly and suitable setting that encourages a low filter to students.
However, once again, Krashen misses something in his last hypothesis. There is no denying that adults have various kinds of filters which hamper the acquisition of second language, but does it mean children, as perfect acquirers described by Krashen, have no such filters at all? Obviously the answer is no, since they also suffer from anxiety, lack of confidence or low motivation as adults do, but how can they bypass these filters and acquire language easily? Unfortunately,Krashen seems not to be interested in this issue and does not want to give explanations for it.
In conclusion, as an overall theory trying to explain all the facts and provide guidelines for second language education, Krashen’s monitor model seems to be too bold and inevitably arouses a lot of criticism in many aspects like the claims on incompatibility between acquisition and learning, the only function of learning as monitor, the i and i+1 description. Nevertheless,some of his assumptions are successful and very inspiring in second language pedagogy, such as his encouragement to build optimal monitor users and his concern about negative influence of emotional factors. Certainly Krashen’s theory has a lot of inadequacies which are far from perfect as theoretical guidance, but it’s also because of its imperfectness that triggers many followers to evaluate his monitor model and rethink his basic assumptions, so that better theories can be put forward which greatly promote the research of second language acquisition. In this sense his devotion to the field of SLA is overwhelmingly successful.
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