1.2.2.2 Krashen’s Monitor Model
Krashen, similarly with Chomsky, adopts a nativist view of language learning
which is reception-based, i.e. it emphasizes the importance of input as opposed to
output (Ellis 1990: 96). However, as McLaughlin (1987: 23) points out, the two differ
in that while, for Chomsky, the LAD is but one of various ‘mental organs’ that
interact with each other and with the input to produce linguistic competence, Krashen
seems to equate LAD with unconscious acquisition of any sort, thus giving it a scope
of operation much wider than is normally the case in linguistic theory (for a further
discussion of the way LAD is conceived by Krashen see Gregg 1984).
Krashen, in a number of books and articles (see Krashen 1977, 1981, 1985,
1987), developed a theory of Second Language Acquisition known as the ‘Monitor
Model’ in which he claims that, in order for the LAD to be activated, the learner does
not need to speak the language at all, what she needs is to be exposed to language
which she understands. It is a view which Lightbown and Spada (1999: 128) refer to
as ‘Just listen…and read’, characterizing it as one of the most influential and most
controversial approaches to sec