Stephen Krashen: Input Hypothesis

Input Hypothesis

Stephen Krashen Monument

Who?

Stephen Krashen is a linguist that mainly studies the field of primary and second language acquisition, working with schools to improve their language curriculum.

He holds a PhD. in linguistics and has published hundreds of articles on the subject.

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He’s a supporter

of open-access research and publishes every paper he writes publically on his website sdkrashen.com.

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What?

Duolingo, textbooks, and classrooms: these are often the first things that pop into peoples’ minds when they picture how one learns a language. There are many people that love these resources and have achieved all of their language goals with them, yes, but there are many more who drop them after a week and chalk up language learning as some magical endeavor.

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To briefly summarize Krashen’s main philosophy—called the input hypothesis— this is because language isn’t learned like math, where sentences are bridged from our native language over by applying and memorizing vocabulary and grammar, but in a similar manner to how children learn their first language: through exposing the unconscious mind to the native language and wanting to actually understand what’s happening around you.

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This monument is a metaphor for the brain’s mental model of a language through input-based acquisition. Instead of setting a strict learning path and following it neatly, which is what the traditional routes emphasize, focusing on immersion will let the unconscious brain span long strings around the area naturally. You have to deal with a lot of uncertainty venturing into areas that haven’t been explored before, but this uncertainty isn’t as scary as some may make it out to be.

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The monument is in a slightly obscure spot, cutting into the wooded area around the path surrounding the RAC Field near Lot I. It connects to Ox Road near the metro station.

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An alternative location is at the United Nations Office at Geneva in Switzerland, north of the main building.

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