Questionnaire: Input in SLA / Communicative competence

1. What does it mean that someone has communicative competence in an L2?

Communicative competence refers to a language user’s knowledge and mastery of the competencies required to establish communication in a second language. According to the model provided by Usó, E; Martinez-flor, A (n.d) Communicative competence is reached through the reciprocal interaction between linguistic, strategic, intercultural and pragmatic competencies with discourse competence which includes the four skills of the language: the productive skills; speaking and writing and the receptive skills; reading and listening.

2. Study the communicative competence framework proposed. What do you think the arrows imply about the relationship of the components of the framework?

The four arrows imply that each of these components helps to build discourse competence which serves to build the other competencies. They are interconnected.

3. Why is this relevant information in the field of TESL?

This information is relevant in the field of TESL because it provides a perspective of how people employ different types of competencies and how they relate them so as to communicate with one another. A thorough understanding of the processes that occur during the act of communication allows ESL teachers to think about models of teaching which include the development of those competencies in the activities designed. 

4. What is input for SLA? What is not? Give examples that are relevant for a classroom.

In simple words, Input is the language the learner hears or reads that has communicative intent. In the classroom, one of the teacher’s jobs is to expose the students to comprehensible input so they can develop an understanding of the language that allows them to use the L2 in a competent way. The student’s role is to understand what it means.

Examples of comprehensible input in the classroom.

·         A teacher explains a lexical content to his students using paralinguistic elements such as gestures or body language.

·         To listen to a song whose lyrics are not clear to the students, however: the images shown previously by the teacher and the preliminary exercises done before help grasp the lyrics meaning more easily.  

·         To watch a short film whose characters act out the actions they mention.

·         To read a text such a tale or a comic with pictures that assist the student’s comprehension process.

·         To read a text whose difficult words are underlined and defined on the bottom of the page with simple definitions in the target language.

·         To listen to a conversation whose input has been modified to fit a particular grammar or lexical content they students have been learning.

On the other hand, if a learner cannot understand the language he listens or reads, that is not input.

·         To listen to a song whose lyrics contain elements too advanced for the students’ proficiency level.

·         To listen to a teacher who does not provide the necessary tools to grasp the meaning of his utterances. (No comprehensible input)

·         To listen to a conversation where the meaning is not clear or has not had been properly introduced by the teacher.

·         To listen or read grammar explanations of the second language in the L1.

5. How do people acquire the ability to use a second language? What does this mean for teachers?

Teachers must consider the fact that unlike people who acquire an L1, those who acquire the ability to use a second language already know their L1 system, so they have an idea of how languages work and how they could be learned. This point becomes even more important when the L1 and the L2 share some features that can be used to facilitate the process of acquiring a second language. In addition, teachers must also know the stages through which a learner must go in order to become proficient in the L2.  According to Krashen, S (1986) these stages are:

1.  The silent and receptive stage:  Students are exposed to L2 input for the first time and generally cannot respond verbally to communication. Krashen suggests using the natural approach to teaching English in this stage.  Some activities that a teacher can do are working with visuals, employing card games, have the students do mimicry and hands-on projects.

2. Early production stage:  After a period of exposure, learners start producing language which is generally produced in one or two-word responses  such as “yes/ no” answers.  Krashen (1986) mentions that learners repeat words that are in a familiar context.

In this stage, teachers should emply scaffolding techniques, ask yes/ no questions or simple questions and allow students to illustrate their knowledge, make diagrams among others.

3. Speech emergence stage:  Students begin producing simple sentences and can understand a considerable amount of utterances.  At this stage, teachers must provide structured comprehensible input. (Krashen claims that the activities should be focused on meaning rather than on form)  

4.  Intermediate fluency stage:  Students are in transition to understand and produce more elaborated speech.  Teachers must continue to provide comprehensible input, model activities and give opportunities for the students to communicate.    

5. Advanced fluency stage:  At this level, students are able to participate in non-cued conversations, are familiar with a great number of utterances and can use their competences to produce and understand the target language.  Teachers must provide activities to develop cognitive processing and increase vocabulary.

6. Look at the second part of the Input in SLA PDF. What are some characteristics of structured input for instruction?

Van Pattern (2003:142) describes structured input as “input that has been manipulated in particular ways to push learners to become dependent on form and structure to get meaning” This input should be truly communicative.

Some suggestions the author makes are: 

-      To present one thing at a time:  So as not to overwhelm the students, teachers’ must present one thing at a time which can be a grammar content, a set of words or a pronunciation pattern.

-      To keep meaning in focus:  To comprehend the text (oral or written)  is the most important task of any activity designed to learn English.

-      To move from sentences to connected discourse:  Van Dijk, T Kinscht, W (1983) claim that people communicate in discourse. For instance, it is key teachers move from teaching words or sentences to teaching students how to use those sentences in context as a part of a wider set of ideas which together makes meaning. 

-      To use both oral and written input:  Both language skills are essential for the learners to study, practice and master.

-      To have the learner do something with the Input: Teachers should provide activities whose objectives must be truly communicative. Example:  Understanding the meaning of a sign or a menu or listening to the instruction of a “flight assistant” (teacher) in a simulation activity.

-      To Keep the learner’s processing strategies in mind: Teachers should help their students develop strategies to understand what they listen or read such as grasping the global idea of an oral or written text, using context to comprehend meaning, skimming and scanning a text among other strategies.

Questionnaire: Output in Second language acquisition (SLA)

1. What is output in the context of SLA?

According to Van Patten (2003), output is the language that a language learner produces which has a communicative purpose (Van Patten, p 63-64) That is, speaking and writing. Some examples of output are: 

·         To talk with a partner in order to solve a jigsaw activity.

·         To describe a picture using the pattern and the vocabulary given by the teacher.

·         To write a letter for a pen pal who speaks the target language. 

·         To fill in a form to complete an activity about the professions.

·         To write a resume. 

2. What is the role of Output in the creation of a learner's linguistic system?

Van Patten (2003) claims that there are three possible roles of output in the creation of the learner’s linguistic system.  The first role would be that output plays the same role as input. This assumption would give as much importance to the productive skills as to the receptive skills in the first stages of language acquisition. This would reject Krashen’s assumption that claims that language learners need to be exposed to the target language and therefore go through a “silent period” before they can produce language on their own.

Other role of output would be “no role” at all. However; it is difficult to assume that output do not actually have any influence upon the development of the learner’s linguistic system. Morgan-short, K; Wood Harret (2006) came to the conclusion on one of their researches that a combination of output practice along with meaningful input based instruction would be very beneficial for building fluency and accuracy in the L2  (Morgan-short, K; Wood Harret, 2006, p.59)

The third role is that output plays a facilitating role. Van Pattern (2003) asserts that producing language helps learners process information they would not be able to notice without the output production experience. (Van Patten, p 69)

    

3. How do learners develop the skill for speaking in a second language?

Van Patten (2003:70) states that there are two aspects to consider when talking about speaking. They are fluency and accuracy. Even though the meaning of these terms is described by the author, it is not possible for him to define how they really develop. In fact, he states that are no almost no research on skills development in speaking, so it seems to be difficult not to relate the development of this productive skill without turning to the development of skills theories in cognitive psychology.

4. How does interaction facilitate L2 learning?

According to Gass & Mackey (2006) as cited by Swain:M; Susuki,W (2008:558) “interaction facilitates L2 acquisition because it connects input, attention, and output in productive ways” 

Some examples of the facilitating role of interaction in L2 learning are:

·         Through interaction competent language speakers can modify their speech so the listener can understand their utterances (Modified output and comprehensible input)

·         Negotiation of meaning is possible when two learners try to get meaning from each other’s statements.

·         According to Swain (2005) as cited by Swain,M; Susuki, W (2008) producing language (as in a conversation) can stimulate learner’s awareness of linguistic forms.  This might occur when a teacher interacting with a student use a recast or a metalinguistic explanation of the target language to convey meaning, encouraging the learner to pay attention to grammar.

5. What is the role of corrective feedback in SLA?

In the language teaching field, feedback is said to be key to the learners’ success in SLA since it seems to provide the “tools” for the students’ to develop their competencies in the TL through thoughtful teacher’s correction. However, It is important to state that no agreement has been made regarding the true impact of corrective feedback on SLA which is still an ongoing debate.  De vries, B;Cucchiarini, C; Helmer &  S;Van Hout, R (2010) lists some type of corrective feedback that might have some impact on the learner’s language acquisition process.

1)     Explicit Feedback:  Teachers explicitly provides the correct form and indicate where the student is incorrect.  According to some researchers, this type of feedback has proven to be the “most effective” to deal with errors. Students are conscious they have made a mistake or an error.

2)     Recast:  A teacher reformulates a student’s utterance without the error. Teacher Luis Vera said that this type of correct is not always noticed by the learner so it would be less effective than the explicit feedback.

3)     Clarification request: It’s a type of questions that requires the reformulation of an utterance so that it can be understood. 

4)      Metalinguistic feedback:  It has information about the language usually focused on a grammar aspect of it.

5)     Elicitation:  It’s a teacher attempt to foster the production of an utterance by asking for completion of a sentence.  

6)     Repetition: It’s the teacher’s repetition without the erroneous utterance.

6. What is "scaffolding", and what is its role in L2 learning?

In simple words, scaffolding consists on the fact that more competent language users of the L2 such as a teacher or a tutor helps the less experience ones (children or students) achieve goals in the L2 that they would be unable to complete on their own.  Celce Murcia, M;Brinton, D;Snow, M (2014:558) mentions that scaffolding plays a supporting role which set the students up for success.

Summary: Input, Interaction and Output by Gass & Selinker (2001)

Input

When learning a second/ foreign language, the first thing people are exposed to is input, that is, any type of language that a learner is exposed to. Behaviorist linguistics used to think that the answer for language learning success was external to the individual and therefore it was a learner’s duty was to get as much exposure as possible to learn a second language. The understanding of learning back then was interpreted as mere exposure and imitation. Successful learners would eventually “pick up the language” through hard work and constant practice.  After Noam Chomsky’s universal grammar breakthrough, researchers quickly shifted their focus on the learning processes that occurred inside the brain, leaving behind all attempt to demonstrate that the answer for language acquisition was in the corpus. A new era had begun and a new definition was shaped for the term input thereon. Corder in 1967 made a distinction between input and intake. The first being considered by current applied linguistics as the language available that a learner hears or receives from which is possible to learn, and the latter as the language which is internalized.

Krashen in 1985 would present his “input hypothesis” in which he claims that  second language learners can acquire a L2 “by understanding messages or by receiving comprehensible input”. Input that needs to be I +1 meaning slightly more advanced for the learner’s level of language proficiency.  The reason is that the available input that has not been internalized yet is the only one that can alter the current language learner’s grammar. This is based on a basic learning principle, If the available information is totally known by the learner, no learning beyond the current developmental stage takes place.  Krashen’s input hypothesis claims that output is the result of acquisition and acquisition a consequence of sufficient internalized input.  

In my opinion, this hypothesis is effective in explaining why L1 language learners go through a silent period before they utter their first sentences. Babies do it because there is no available language information in their brains (apart from the learning device) to what they can resort when there is a need for communication. They have to be exposed to the language until they have internalized enough input.   In the case of second language learners, there is linguistic information already available other than the target language, so it would be questionable to claim that this type of learners need to go through a silent period as L1 learners do. In fact, as a teacher, you can take advantage of this prior information to have your ESL/ EFL students produce language from day one. 

Comprehension. 

Understanding and to be understood is what guarantees the success of communication. Trouble in understanding messages generally occur when native and nonnative speakers cannot grasp what they mean due to their pronunciation, vocabulary choice and grammar among other language aspects.

One area of difficulty is pronunciation. Even if the sentences produced by the NNS are grammatically accurate, a failure in pronunciation can cause a change in the meaning of an utterance or unable the understanding of it.  The same happens with non-target-like word choice or grammar errors. What of these aspects is more relevant for the authors?  Their opinion suggests that grammar is less important than pronunciation and vocabulary.  Why have they made this conclusion? The authors explain that there is more limited number of grammar possibilities as opposed to vocabulary items or possible pronunciations.

Notwithstanding the aspects abovementioned, some people have developed an ability to understand NNS’s utterances irrespective of the difficulty because they have experience in talking with them.  One of these abilities is using backchannel cues to understand. Nods, gestures, indications or simple sound expressions such as “uh, uh” can help NNS comprehend their utterances were understood or not.  The ability to fill the missing information or negotiate meaning other ways of facilitating communication, especially if both speakers have some shared background knowledge. 

As I have observed in my experience as a former student teacher, there is still a great concern on grammatical correctness. An example of this took place some years ago when a teacher following a notion-functional methodology decided to lower his student’s speaking presentation grade because the student made several unimportant mistakes that did not interfere with communication. The explanation for this demotivating experience for the learner is merely based on behaviorist perspectives of language acquisition that consider it as something negative; a product of the lack of practice.  In terms of evaluation, one should consider the way in which communication takes places regarding the use of linguistic and paralinguistic elements so as to achieve it. 

Interaction 

When two or more people communicate with each other, they are involved in a type of interaction.  The interaction hypothesis claims that language acquisition takes place through meaningful interaction. Unlike the input hypothesis, this considers language production from an early stage.

According to the authors, interaction involves three concepts: negotiation, recast and feedback.   The first one according to teachingenglish.org is “a process that speakers go through to reach a clear understanding of each other”  The second: recasts is a type of negative feedback in which there is always involved a more competent interlocutor that reformulates incorrect or incomplete utterances. Moreover, the objective of this type of feedback is to draw the less competent interlocutor’s attention to the form being corrected.  Finally, the latter: feedback refers to any information that learners receive explicitly or implicitly concerning their performance in the L2.  

Susana Sotillo in a study of corrective feedback via instant messenger concluded that competent NNS when providing feedback to less proficient NNS tend to give explicit metacognitive explanations in the TL, usually focusing on grammar correctness whereas NS to NSS tend to correct implicitly, focusing on meaning rather than on form (Negotiation of meaning generally) 

Output 

This term refers to the language a learner produces which can be spoken or written.  According to the output hypothesis, Swain (1985) language acquisition not only occurs when there is comprehensible input but also comprehensible output.  The effort that the learners make to communicate with other interlocutors pushes them to a position that forces them to notice aspects of their performance that would not see in other way. This eventually leads to acquisition.

I agree with Swain (1985) on his claim that “comprehensible output” is crucial for SLA because it rejects partially the input hypothesis without objecting its usefulness and importance, and it takes into account the need for production the learners have when they want to learn how to communicate effectively in the TG. In a speaking lesson I prepared for 4^th grade students in 2013, I considered the fact that they were not empty recipients of information, but active learners who could speak despite their low proficiency in the L2. How did it work? I started by providing a set of words on the whiteboard (Toys, fruits, sports, animal related vocabulary) my students could use to talk about their likes and dislikes. After a moment of preparation, the students formed pairs and began talking. To my satisfaction, they were able to maintain a conversation in English regardless of their low proficiency level. Of course, their output was not absent of errors, but they achieved to made themselves understood. I confirmed the apparent success of the activity when my students stated they understood each other. 

Feedback

This concept can be defined as any information that allows an individual to modify his “behavior”   There are two types of feedback: explicit feedback which is stating that there is a problem and implicit feedback: not mentioning there is a problem, but using strategies to make the interlocutor aware of their errors or mistakes.

Negotiation

It can be understood as a set of strategies used to enable interlocutors to communicate with each other successfully by focusing on incorrect utterances. Some examples of negotiation of meaning are: foreign talk, paralinguistic elements, language speed modification and implicit feedback providing.  Swain and Selinker (2001) express these strategies take part in a constant restructuring of linguistic knowledge. 

Recast. 

It is a type of implicit feedback which is provided by a more proficient language user who replaces (by changing a problematic feature) a wrong utterance for a correct one.  The authors mention that the effectiveness of recast has not been confirmed yet since research in the field has shown mixed results.

Automaticity. 

It is the ability to process information which involves “no effort or need for attention”

The role of input and interaction in language learning.

Input plays a fundamental role in language teaching since it provides the data learners are exposed to. This also contains the information the student need to process from input to output to develop automaticity.  Among the most important assumptions the authors evidence are: 

·         Adults tend to receive more correction than children.

·         Syntax can develop out of a conversation.

·         Negotiation of meaning can facilitate acquisition.

·         Effective learning takes place during interaction.

·         Conversation stimulates later learning.  It has positive effects on motivation.

·         Negotiation might direct a focus on the correct form which may lead to a successful uptake and therefore development in language acquisition.

·         There are mixed opinions related to the role of interaction in SLA.  The issue continues to be discussed. 

Attention. 

This is the ability to concentrate on a language feature which, according to the interaction hypothesis, plays a major role in language acquisition.  Examples of attention directing occur during a negotiation of meaning episode in which the learners need to focus on a linguistic form in order to communicate intended meaning. 

 

Conclusion

Even though great progress has been made in the field of SLA, there is still  much work to do to find new supportive evidence that allows researchers come to an agreement regarding how input is processed, produced and modified.

Whereas input hypothesis suggests learners should focus on meaning limiting their production until they feel linguistically prepared, the output hypothesis claims that languages can be acquired through meaningful interaction which involves meaning processing and output production on early stages of language acquisition.   As language teachers, the information presented in this article is absolutely valuable to understand how different perspectives in SLA can help open up our minds to employ more teaching styles and communicative strategies to help our students overcome their difficulties to communicate effectively.