UPDATE: I’ve decided to start doing something about the lack of comprehensible input that I wrote about in this post. Read more about it in my post Creating Comprehensible Input Videos for Beginning English Learners.
It’s been well over 30 years since linguist Dr. Stephen Krashen popularized the notion of comprehensible input as the basis for language acquisition.
According to Krashen, even as adults we become fluent in new languages not by studying and practicing words and rules, but by gaining exposure to language in ways that make it understandable to us.
You can see Krashen demonstrating comprehensible input in a 1983 BBC documentary where he’s shown giving an audience two brief German lessons.
Beyond Language Learning 