Linguist and professional researcher joins Benny Lewis and Shannon Kennedy to discuss comprehensible input, compelling input, and language acquisition.

Stephen Krashen is a professor emeritus who is well-known for his work and research into comprehensible input. He has hundreds of publications to his name and has greatly contributed to the field of language acquisition.

Featured Resources

• Stephen Krashen

Mentioned in this Episode

• Stephen Krashen’s Website
• Stephen Krashen on Twitter
• Steve Kaufmann
• Noam Chomsky
• Tracy Terrell
• Biological Foundations of Language
• TPRS
• Beniko Mason
• Bill VanPatten
• Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Episode Overview

Some of the topics brought up during the interview are:

• How a trip to Ethiopia led to Stephen Krashen’s career in linguistics
• How adults go through a predictable language acquisition pattern
• Why we know grammar but struggle to use it correctly, and how to bridge this gap
• What comprehensible input is and why it works
• How comprehensible input differs from compelling input
• Why graded readers are effective resources for language learners
• The power of reading fiction
• How the speaking approach is still a mostly input approach
• Making the shift from input to output
• Accents, and how we’re better at them than we think
• Managing your time with multiple languages
• Romanization and its role in language acquisition

Podcast theme: “A New Beginning” by Shannon Kennedy