What is comprehensible input?
It's not a method or an approach or a technique. It's a description of the kinds of Latin we expose our students to. "Comprehensible input" is a concept of Steven Krashen. His website has a ton of articles free for you to read and learn more about the theory behind this. Let's break it down.
Input
Input is the language your students hear and read. Sometimes we say "messages" instead.
Comprehensible
It just means "understandable." A chart of endings and an explanation of syntactical functions is not understandable.
This is understandable: puer pilam tenet. Why is it understandable? Because there is a picture to make the meaning clear. You don't have to use pictures. You can use gestures, actions, drawings, known vocabulary, and of course, translation. But a student will learn more Latin from seeing or hearing the expression puer pilam tenet and really understanding it in real time than they ever will from being told that puer is nominative so it's the subject, and pilam is accusative so it's the direct object, and tenet is third person singular present active indicative. |
Compelling
"Compelling" is another big goal of comprehensible input-oriented teaching. Why? Students don't learn when they're bored. It's that simple. You know how your admins keep talking about student engagement? That's what we're going for.
puer pilam tenet is not compelling. How do we make it compelling?
Maybe we give him a name, like Steve. Stevus. Maybe we tell a story about him. cur Stevus pilam tenet? vultne Stevus pilam iacere? ad quem pilam iacere vult? ad sororem? ad draconem? ad draconem quae est soror Stevi?
Better yet, we tell a story about our students or something they care about. puer pilam tenet quia puer est Tom Brady. Tom Brady pilam iacere vult ut Superbowl vincat! Tom pilam ad Endzone iacit! euge! Patriotes vincunt!
(This example brought to you by someone who knows nothing about football.)
puer pilam tenet is not compelling. How do we make it compelling?
Maybe we give him a name, like Steve. Stevus. Maybe we tell a story about him. cur Stevus pilam tenet? vultne Stevus pilam iacere? ad quem pilam iacere vult? ad sororem? ad draconem? ad draconem quae est soror Stevi?
Better yet, we tell a story about our students or something they care about. puer pilam tenet quia puer est Tom Brady. Tom Brady pilam iacere vult ut Superbowl vincat! Tom pilam ad Endzone iacit! euge! Patriotes vincunt!
(This example brought to you by someone who knows nothing about football.)
Caring
One of the associated concepts with comprehensible input is the idea of the "affective filter" and how it affects language learning. Basically it boils down to this: students don't learn well when they're scared, or tired, or anxious, or hurt. Think about your own learning experiences. You know it's true. Thus "caring" becomes the "third C" (for which concept I'm indebted to this series of presentations).
Caring means paying attention to our students' needs as well as or rather more than the needs of the curriculum or the lesson plan or our own frustration. It means noticing when a student is having a bad day and making sure to check in. It means adapting our teaching practices to emphasize growth rather than absolute accuracy. It means celebrating even tiny, partial successes rather than pointing out every error. I found this classic article on error correction by Corder illuminating on the subject.
Most of all though, it means treating our students like humans with real feelings that matter, even when they're doing their very best to convince you they're aliens from the planet teenager and incapable of empathy, kindness, or covering their mouths when they cough. It's exhausting, I'll tell you, and sometimes it's pretty boring, but it pays off both in their learning and in their lives. It also makes YOUR life easier because it really reduces or even eliminates the resistance to learning they've built up as a defense mechanism against people telling them they're bad and lazy and wrong so much over the years.
Caring means paying attention to our students' needs as well as or rather more than the needs of the curriculum or the lesson plan or our own frustration. It means noticing when a student is having a bad day and making sure to check in. It means adapting our teaching practices to emphasize growth rather than absolute accuracy. It means celebrating even tiny, partial successes rather than pointing out every error. I found this classic article on error correction by Corder illuminating on the subject.
Most of all though, it means treating our students like humans with real feelings that matter, even when they're doing their very best to convince you they're aliens from the planet teenager and incapable of empathy, kindness, or covering their mouths when they cough. It's exhausting, I'll tell you, and sometimes it's pretty boring, but it pays off both in their learning and in their lives. It also makes YOUR life easier because it really reduces or even eliminates the resistance to learning they've built up as a defense mechanism against people telling them they're bad and lazy and wrong so much over the years.
More to read
My first real exposure to what CI is was this presentation by The Pericles Group's Kevin Ballestrini. It made a lot of sense to me and still does.
Bob Patrick, the godfather of the Latin CI movement, has written and presented a lot of good stuff but I recommend this presentation for ease of reading.
A relatively accessible introduction to the what and why of comprehensible input for Latin may be found in Justin Slocum Bailey's article, "Teaching Latin to Humans."
There's a lot more theory out there that I'm not really familiar with, but that same Justin is! Use his annotated list here, in order of easiness.
Bob Patrick, the godfather of the Latin CI movement, has written and presented a lot of good stuff but I recommend this presentation for ease of reading.
A relatively accessible introduction to the what and why of comprehensible input for Latin may be found in Justin Slocum Bailey's article, "Teaching Latin to Humans."
There's a lot more theory out there that I'm not really familiar with, but that same Justin is! Use his annotated list here, in order of easiness.