Perhaps one of the best articles on language learning that I have read in these last months! Antonio Graceffo is a language teacher, writer and martial artist. In this amazing article he discusses how he uses the ALG Concept (Automatic Language Growth) in his teaching. This article is just awesome, it shows how we can in fact change the way we teach, how we can forget this thing about “make the students talk” and start focusing on what’s really important: comprehensible input (OK, I love Krashen!).

Some quotes from the article:

So, in a strict ALG classroom, students would listen for around 800 hours before they are permitted to start speaking.

This is so cool! Listen to almost 1000 hours, after that start speaking. Katz and Steve Kaufmann would go crazy!

Sadly, EFL, ESL, TESOL and whatever other acronyms you want to use for English language teaching, is a business. If parents knew that their kids weren’t speaking in class, they would pull their students out and send them to another school.

That’s a reality we have to change. Unfortunately too many TEACHERS still believe it is necessary to speak in order to speak. Listening and reading, and how it can improve your output skills still misunderstood by many people.

“Just keep them talking!” is a mantra I have often heard from employers. But how can students talk if they have nothing to say? Perhaps the correct mantra should be “Keep them listening.”

100% agreed. Keep listening and you’re going kick a…

Check out the following video, and after that read the article! You have to!