were older, and, as mentioned in Chapter II, older children are known to be faster acquirers (Krashen, Long and Scarcella, 1979).

(b) Other input methods compared

A variety of studies have been done examining the efficacy of methods that, like TPR, focus on providing comprehensible input and do not force early production. None of these methods has been analyzed in the previous section, since they are not "standard" or widely used, but they strengthen both the case for TPR and the hypothesis that methods allowing a silent period will do better than methods that do not, even when "speaking skills" are tested directly.

Gary (1975) examined children studying Spanish as a foreign language over a period of five months. Her experimental group did not speak at all for the first 14 weeks but, instead, had to produce "active responses" that demonstrated comprehension. Also, they were not forced to speak for much of the next seven weeks. The experimental group was shown to be superior to the control group in listening comprehension and equal in speaking, despite the fact that the controls had more "practice" in speaking.

Postovsky (1974) used students at the Defence Language Institute, studying Russian in an intensive 12 week course, six hours per day, in a fairly standard audio-lingual course. The "experimental" group did not speak for the first four weeks, but wrote their responses. The two groups were combined after four weeks. At mid-terms, the experimental group excelled in reading, writing, and speaking tests (especially with respect to "control of grammar" and "reading aloud"), and after 12 weeks, they were significantly better in listening comprehension.

Swaffer and Woodruff (1978) examined the effects of a first year college German course taught at the University of Texas. As is the case with the studies just cited, their approach was not exactly any of the standard ones described in the first part of this chapter, but it fits the requirement for providing optimal input for acquisition and for putting learning in its place very well. The first four weeks of the course were TPR based, with the emphasis switching to reading "for global meaning" (p. 28). Students were not required to speak at all in German for the first two weeks of the class, and "thereafter students were encouraged to speak on a voluntary basis" (p. 28). Also, "overt corrections of

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