C.I. QUIZ

A well-documented article by Butch Hillhurst came out on the tprsquestionsandanswers.wordpress.com blog some time ago. If you already have seen it, a refresher can’t hurt. We can all use logical and well-supported pieces like this to bolster our rationale for teaching with comprehensible input. Here are the points of the article arranged as a pre-quiz. Check your score and share your comments below.

1) Should students be taught and practice specific grammar points?
2) How much vocabulary, grammar and general language skill do students pick up via free voluntary reading (FVR)?
3) Do people acquire language via comprehensible input?
4) Should we organize curriculum thematically?
5) Should we “shelter” (limit) vocabulary?
6) Can learners “learn” grammar that teachers “teach?”
7) Should we use L1– the “mother tongue”– (English) in class?
8) Can we change the order of acquisition?
9) Does correcting or properly re-stating learner mistakes–recasting– improve learner performance?
10) Is there broad agreement among second-languages-acquisition researchers about what constitutes effective practice?
11) Do “learning styles” or “multiple intelligences” exist?
12) Do students like speaking in a second-language class?
13) Does speaking improve acquisition?
14) Should we speak s.l.o.w.l.y. in class?
15) Do learners need many repetitions of vocab items to acquire them?
16) Does feedback about performance in a language (e.g. correction, explicit information, etc) help acquisition?
17) Are some people better language learners than others?
18) Do children and adults learn languages in the same way?
19) Do we have data showing how well comprehensible input methods work in comparison with legacy (traditional grammar/vocabulary) methods?