Ever since Stephen Krashen made it central to his Input Hypothesis, since rebranded as the Comprehension Hypothesis, “comprehensible input” (CI) has been part of both academic discourse and shop talk among language teachers. It’s easy to have misunderstandings surrounding a concept that has engendered so much spinoff research and so much water-cooler conversation, so let’s […]
Tag Archives: language
The Bummer about ‘Acquisition’ (Part 2)
In the last post, I lamented that the distinction between acquisition and learning that developed in 20th-century academia is prone not only to misunderstanding, but also to misrepresentation. In this post, I point out some deficiencies in the term acquisition itself and suggest another way of picturing the process. Bummer 2: ‘(Second) language acquisition’ suggests the transfer of a commodity […]
The Bummer about ‘Acquisition’ (Part 1)
I love it. I aim for it. I teach for it. I travel all over presenting about it. It pervades this website. If I had a gerbil, this would be its name. But it also carries two bits of baggage that I wish could be lost in one of those airline warehouses where duffels go to die. I’m talking about the third […]
TRUST in the Language Classroom (guest post)
This practical exploration of trust is from a discussion about classroom management on an email group for language teachers exchanging ways of providing their students with Comprehensible Input (CI)*. I’m honored to share it here with the permission of its author, Dr Bob Patrick (@BobPatrick), Latin teacher and world language department chair at Parkview High School in Greater Atlanta. Bob was […]
Share Your Greatest JOY and SUCCESS
When have you experienced your greatest JOY or SUCCESS as a language learner or teacher? Were these at the same moment?–in other words, were your joy and success linked? As the purpose of Indwelling Language is to help learners and teachers maximize their joy and success, we’re always eager to hear about experiences that link […]
Using Stock Photo Sites To Generate Language
Consider this picture. Think you could come up with something to say about it in your students’ target language? Think you could ask questions about it that your students could answer? I know you can. A quirky picture is just the thing for getting a lot of bang for your buck when you want students to […]
The Number One Mistake in Language Learning
There are lots of things language learners do or don’t do that block the joy and success of their language-learning. But the single biggest and most widespread mistake I observe is this: Spending too much time learning about the language and not enough time in the language. Or, put in other terms, spending too much time studying the […]
The Savvy Language Learner (infographic)
There are lots of savvy language learners with different interests, different personalities, and different opportunities, but there are two things they pretty much all have in common: Savvy language learners consume large amounts of well-chosen content. Savvy language learners engage in both scheduled and opportunistic habits. Check out this infographic–or indwellfographic–for a handy overview of wise principles pertaining to […]
Indwelling Language at MIWLA 2015 (session descriptions)
Happy 1st of October, the month of the Michigan World Language Association‘s (MIWLA) annual conference! I’m excited to meet colleagues there and honored to present three sessions, all of which I’ve presented before in some form or another, but never in Michigan. In case you’re interested, the titles and official descriptions are below. Feel free to follow up if you’d […]
Why Your Reading Habit Works
It’s my honor this week to have written a guest post commissioned by Jason Slanga, an expert language learner and teacher and one of the most thoughtful people I know when it comes to personal habits and disciplines. Jason recently organized the Latin Reading Challenge (#LatinReadingChallenge) to support people trying to boost their Latin reading ability. […]