Stephen Krashen
Encyclopedia
Stephen Krashen is professor emeritus at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

, who moved from the linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 department to the faculty of the School of Education in 1994. He is a linguist, educational researcher, and activist.

Work

Dr. Krashen has published more than 350 papers and books, contributing to the fields of second language acquisition
Second language acquisition
Second-language acquisition or second-language learning is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the name of the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process...

, bilingual education
Bilingual education
Bilingual education involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model.-Bilingual education program models:...

, and reading. He is credited with introducing various influential concepts and terms in the study of second language acquisition
Second language acquisition
Second-language acquisition or second-language learning is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the name of the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process...

, including the acquisition-learning hypothesis, the input hypothesis, the monitor hypothesis, the affective filter, and the natural order hypothesis. Most recently, Krashen promotes the use of free voluntary reading during second language acquisition, which he says "is the most powerful tool we have in language education, first and second."

Awards

  • 1982 : winner of the Mildenberger Award, given for his book, Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning (Prentice-Hall)
  • 1985 : co-winner of the Pimsleur Award, given by the American Council of Foreign Language Teachers for the best published article
  • 1986 : his paper "Lateralisation, language learning and the critical period" was selected as Citation Class by Current Contents
  • 1993 : the Distinguished Presentation related to School Library Media Centers, was awarded to by editors of the School Library Media Annual
  • 2005 : Krashen was inducted into the International Reading Association
    International Reading Association
    The International Reading Association is an international professional organization that was created in 1956 to improve reading instruction, facilitate dialogue about research on reading, and encourage the habit of reading....

    's Reading Hall of Fame.
  • 2005 : elected at the National Association for Bilingual Education
    National Association for Bilingual Education
    The National Association for Bilingual Education is an American advocacy group that provides teacher training, educational leadership, and lobbying efforts on behalf of legislation regarding individuals learning English as a second language. They oppose Structured English Immersion and favor...

     Executive Board.

Criticism

As education policy in Krashen’s home state of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 became increasingly hostile to bilingualism, he responded with research critical of the new policies, public speaking engagements, and with letters written to newspaper editors. During the campaign to enact an anti-bilingual education law in California in 1998, known as Proposition 227
California Proposition 227 (1998)
Proposition 227 was a California ballot proposition passed in the June 2, 1998 ballot. It effectively ended bilingual education programs in the state and replaced them with the Structured English Immersion model. The bill's intention was to educate Limited English Proficiency students in a rapid,...

, Krashen campaigned aggressively in public forums, media talk shows, and conducted numerous interviews with journalists writing on the subject. After other anti-bilingual education campaigns and attempts to enact regressive language education policies surfaced around the country, by 2006 it was estimated that Krashen had submitted well over 1,000 letters to editors.

In a front-page New Times Los Angeles article published just a week before the vote on Proposition 227, Jill Stewart
Jill Stewart
Jill Stewart is the Deputy Editor of News at LA Weekly, the largest alternative weekly newspaper in the Western U.S. She directs a staff of metro reporters who specialize in Los Angeles and California news and politics...

 penned an aggressive article titled 'Krashen Burn' in which she characterized Krashen as wedded to the monied interests of a "multi-million-dollar bilingual education industry." Stewart critically spoke of Krashen as the father of bilingual education. Krashen has been widely criticized in conservative and nativist political circles due to his influence on the field of language minority education, second language acquisition, and his efforts to educate the public on matters related to English language learners in schools.

Krashen has been an advocate for a more activist role by researchers in combating the public's misconceptions about bilingual education. Addressing the question of how to explain public opposition to bilingual education, Krashen queried, "Is it due to a stubborn disinformation campaign on the part of newspapers and other news media to deliberately destroy bilingual education? Or is it due to the failure of the profession to present its side of the story to reporters? There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence in support of the latter." Continuing, Krashen wrote, "Without a serious, dedicated and organized campaign to explain and defend bilingual education at the national level, in a very short time we will have nothing left to defend."

Personal

Dr. Krashen also holds a black belt
Black belt (martial arts)
In martial arts, the black belt is a way to describe a graduate of a field where a practitioner's level is often marked by the color of the belt. The black belt is commonly the highest belt color used and denotes a degree of competence. It is often associated with a teaching grade though...

 in Tae Kwon Do, and was the winner of the 1978 Venice Beach Open Incline Press/Nonsensical 100 meter dash Championship. He spent two years in Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

 teaching English and science with the Peace Corps
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...

.

See also

  • Second language acquisition
    Second language acquisition
    Second-language acquisition or second-language learning is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the name of the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process...

  • Krashen Second Language Acquisition
    Second language acquisition
    Second-language acquisition or second-language learning is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the name of the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process...

    's theory:
    • Acquisition-learning hypothesis;
    • Monitor hypothesis;
    • Comprehensive input hypothesis & Comprehensible output
      Comprehensible output
      In the field of Second Language Acquisition, there are many theories about the most effective way for language learners to acquire new language forms...

    • affective filter hypothesis.

External links

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