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GLOSSARY(words marked by a   t  in the text)

drawing out: causing (them) to speak freelyface:  are confronted bytake a back seat: defer to someone elseskits: short plays, especially performed byamateurs

spoiled brat: an ill-mannered annoyingchildruns into: meets by chance (also bumpsinto)make sure: ensure; cause to happenbusybody: an inquisitive person especiallyinterested in the affairs of othersrun: operate; take care of; managewhat he is up to: what his scheme or realpurpose is

member; otherwise, his/her sudden inter-vention might be seen by the weaker stu-dents as a sort of reprimand. Second, teacher

participation ensures genuine conversationalinteraction by students. Those who havememorized lines discover quickly the "wildcard" nature of the teacher's role. Also, if one student dominates the exercise, theteacher can spontaneously redirect theaction of the play to the weaker student.

Roleplaying is only a small part of acomprehensive approach to teaching con-versation, but it is quite important.(SeeMichael Agelasto, "Teaching English Con-versation,"  Journal of Shenzhen University, 1,1989.) For students this kind of group work proves highly entertaining; for the teacher itprovides a way to make reticent students

more active. And it's fun. Here are some of the skits I use:

Two-student skits

M A R Y   is   dining  at a  very expensiverestaurant with her father (played by theteacher). She finds a rat tail in her fishsoup.  L Y N N   is the  restaurant's  famouschef. Mary complains to Lynn, whorefuses to believe it's a rat. Eventually,Mary convinces the chef.

M A R Y   goes  to the  dentist (played  by theteacher).  L Y N N ,  her husband, goes withher. The dentist tells Mary that her teethare in terrible shape and must all come

out. She tells her husband this andhopes that he will still love her.

M A R Y   and  L Y N N   have  a  child (played  bythe teacher) who is a spoiled brat.t  Hegets into fights in school, steals students'lunches, draws on the wall, etc. The par-ents must find out why their child is sobad, then decide what to do.

A famous athlete (played by the teacher)has mistakenly invited two women to goto an awards banquet with him. Thewomen,  M A R Y  and  L Y N N , meet at the ban-

quet as they wait for their boyfriend.They discover the situation and thenmust decide what to do.

M A R Y  has  lost  her pet dragon (played  bythe teacher). She runs intot her friendL Y N N ,  who is  very scared  of   dragons.Mary knows the dragon is living underLynn's house. She must explain this andfind the dragon.

M A R Y   is  assistant director  of the  nicesthotel in town. (The teacher plays herboss.) A visiting delegation of execu-tives, headed  by  L Y N N ,  is  staying  at thehotel. Lynn needs to tell Mary that thedelegation had a party and ruined all thefurniture.

M A R Y   an d  L Y N N   ar e  best  f r iends  whowork in the same factory. Mary gets pro-moted and is now Lynn's boss. Lynnalso wanted the job. Mary must tell Lynnof her promotion and make suret theycan remain friends. (The teacher playsMary's secretary.)

M A R Y   is  visited  by her  rich  A U N T L Y N Nfrom Hong Kong. Lynn tries to teachMary how to drive her Mercedes, butMary hits a tree. (The teacher plays apasserby.)

Four-student skitsGuess who's coming to dinner?  It is NewYear's Eve. The family is gathered forthe big meal and awaits the arrival of theoldest SON (who's been living in the

U.S.). He arrives with a surprise—hisnew  W I F E. He explains what happened tohis earlier wife. The family takes sides:M O T H E R   vs.   F A T H E R .  The  teacher  (an ad-lib role) plays the grandfather. This situ-ation may be both serious and comedic.

 Love on a train. We're in the sleeper on atrain. Four people find themselvestogether.  A  M A N ,  his  F O R M E R G I R L F R I E N D ,his  NEW   G I R L F R I E N D ,  and the  former  girl-friend's NEW   HUSBAND. Emotions flare:

 jealousy, anger, love, etc. The issues to beresolved: who is in love with whom, andfor what reasons. The teacher will playthe train conductor, a busybody, t

 Love  triangle  at the restaurant.  T H R E E  SIS-T E R S  runt  a restaurant. They  are in lovewith  the same man—the   H E A D C H E F . Sep-

Michael Agelasto, bytraining a city planner and screenwriter, is pre sen tly an associ ate pro fes sor of Engl ish at Shenzhen University,where he is working oncurriculum reform aswell as teaching compo-sition and conversation.

arately he tries to romance each sisterand convince each that she should getrid of the others. They finally learn whathe is up to.t The teacher plays the localhealth inspector.

 Deadly sports contest.  It's a ping-pongmatch: A player (played by the teacher)is killed by an exploding ping-pong ball.A  POLICE   INSPECTOR  arrives  and  discov-

ers, through interviews, a motive formurder.  He  finds  P L A Y E R  #2 is guilty.  Buthe's wrong. It's either  P L A Y E R  #3 or  P L A Y -ER #4 who murdered the teacher (whohas the amazing ability to reappear as aghost).

Do you  believe? A  S T R A N G E R  comes to visita rural community and brings with himstrange powers (such as raising thedead). Some townspeople treat him as agod, others as the devil. He's really fromouter space.  The   townspeople  ( M A Y O R ,H O U S E H U S B A N D , W O R K E R ,   and  peasant[played by the  teacher])  must decidewhat to do. •

HCINGARY_____________

Krashen's Input Hypothesisand Swain's Output Hypothesisin Practice: Designing

  i + 1

Teaching Techniques

Zoltan

 Dornyei

Eo tvo ' s  University, Budapest 

Stephen Krashen's theory of languagelearning

1

 has been the source of consider-able controversy and academic discussion,but it has undoubtedly succeeded in bridg-ing the gap between linguistic theory andactual language teaching by affecting thethinking and attitudes of many practicingteachers. This article focuses on the practi-cal implications of one part of Krashen'sconcept of language acquisition, the InputHypothesis. It is, according to Krashen(1985:vii), "the most important part of thetheory," since it attempts to answer the cru-cial question of how language learning

actually happens and what kind of expo-sure to the  language—inside  and outsidethe classroom—is  the most efficient for it tohappen. In discussing how the Input Hy-pothesis can be used in designing classroomactivities, I will draw on a related theoryproposed by Swain (1985), which can beseen as an extension of the Input Hypothesisand can be termed the "Output Hypothesis."

1.

  For a concise overview of Krashen's theory seeHigashi (1988) in English Teaching Forum.

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The input hypothesis

Krashen's  Input Hypothesis claims thatlanguage acquisition occurs through under-standing messages or, in other words,through receiving "comprehensible input."That  is,  in Krashen's view, perceptive lan-guage behaviours such as listening or read-ing play the major role in the learning pro-cess, while everything else, including thedevelopment of speaking skills or theknowledge of grammar rules, will follow

automatically as long as a sufficient amountand type of input is provided.

How can we describe "efficient" input?Krashen argues that it should involve amessage whose general language difficultydoes not exceed the learner's ability (i.e., itis comprehensible), but which also containsstructures that are a step beyond the stu-dent's current level of competence. If thelearner is at level

 "i",

  the input should be,as Krashen puts it, a small jump ahead atlevel "i+1." The "+1" part of the input can-not be precisely defined but should be,according to Krashen, "roughly tuned."

The "i+1" formula has made a remark-

able "career" in applied linguistics, but itspractical significance can be questioned.One may wonder whether it actually saysmore than what most language teachersknow, namely, that learning a language is astep-by-step process proceeding from thesimple to the more difficult, and teachingtherefore should follow a similar progres-sive pattern. In order to design actual teach-ing techniques we would need to knowhow much and what kind of new materialcan be most efficiently "consumed" by thelearners at one time. Unfortunately, the"roughly tuned" "+1" element of Krashen'sformula does not serve as a proper guide-

line. Therefore, later in this article I willargue that for practical purposes "finelytuned" input appears to be more useful.

The output hypothesis

Swain (1985) examined the languageproficiency of Canadian immersion stu-dents who had been learning French forseven years and also had several schoolsubjects taught in French. They had obvi-ously received an abundance of languageinput, which they must have understoodsince they were achieving well in the sub-

 jects taught in French. Yet, as Swain(1985:246) points out,t "after seven years of 

this comprehensible input, the target sys-tem has not been fully acquired." Althoughthese students had in some respects reacheda high level of target-language proficiency,they were still relatively weak in otherareas, such as verb morphology. Otherresearchers, such as Scarcella and Perkins(1987) and White (1987), also found thatlearners exposed to comprehensible inputfor a long time still had problems with cer-tain aspects of the target language.

The conclusion Swain (1985) drewf  fromher results was that although comprehensi-ble input is essential for language learning,it is not the  only  thing students need. Sheargued that the importance of language out-

 put  should also be recognized. Output, thatis, productive language use, has two mainlearning functions that comprehensibleinput cannot fulfil:

a. It is possible to comprehend a mes-sage (input) without its grammatical analy-

sis simply by knowing the meaning of thewords, whereas producing language outputrequires explicit knowledge of linguisticrules. Thus, output forces the learner to payconscious attention to the form of the mes-sages.

b. Output is also necessary for the learnerto test hypotheses about the target languageas well as to receive corrective feedback about some incorrectly learned or overgen-eralized language forms. In other words,one must speak to be able to try out variousmeans of expression, to see how they work,and to find outt where the problem is if they fail to work.

Efficient output, according to Swain(1985), should involve more than un-controlled student talk. She argues thatlearners quickly establish ways of commu-nicating their messages even though theseways may not be the most appropriate orelaborate ones. Once that has happened,there is no communicative urge for them tofurther polish their speech. Therefore, inorder for students to improve, they shouldbe "pushed" to use alternative means toexpress their messages more appropriatelyor precisely. Thus, being "pushed" in out-put is desirable, and it involves some pres-sure on the student to analyse further the

grammar and usage of the target language,and to produce output that is a bit beyondtheir current level of   competence—that  is,"i+1" type of output. This concept of "i+1"output is very much like the "i+1" input of the Input Hypothesis and was termed bySwain the "comprehensible output" hy-pothesis.

The interrelated nature of the twohypotheses

I believe that both the input and the out-put hypotheses touch upon some veryimportant aspects of language learning, andthese aspects are usually not independentof each other. A student cannot be expectedto produce "i+1" output without learningfirst about the "+1" element, that is, withoutreceiving some sort of "i+1" input. On theother hand, comprehensible input in itself may not lead to language development,since, as we have seen, only the pressure toactively use the new material (the

  "+1"

part) in their output will force the studentsto consciously analyse the linguistic formsthe message contains.

GLOSSARY(words marked   by  a  t  in the text)

points out: directs attention to; statesdrew (a conclusion):  inferred from evi-dencefind out: discoverkeep track of: maintain an awareness of getting around: circumventing; evadingWhat's more: In addition joint: undertaken or produced together by

two or morepick out: selectspot: identify; noticeswap: exchangetry and guess: try to guess jot down: write quicklyHand out: Distributeslip of 

 paper

 a small piece of paper

In the next part of this article I widescribe several classroom techniques thare based on the two hypotheses. They wclearly show the interrelated nature of inpand output, especially because a student

comprehensible output may very often bcome comprehensible input for others.

Designing "i+1" teaching techniques

As has been mentioned, a "roughltuned" conception of the "i+1" formudoes not serve as a proper guideline fodesigning actual classroom techniques. Lus, however, assume that the  "+1"  parefers not to a "small jump ahead" in geneal but rather to a definite number of nelanguage elements. This would be the cawith "fine-tuning," which Krashen consiered problematic and rejected. The argument was that only the learner "know

his/her current state of language proficiecy, therefore outsiders (even teachers) asimply not in a position to manipulate thinput to a precision that would allow fofine-tuning (cf. White 1987). In other wordsince we cannot keep track oft what exactour students know or do not know, we caonly guess what is going to be new fothem, and therefore we cannot "finely tunthe new material.

There is, however, a way of gettinaroundt this problem by having the "i" paof the  i+1  formula come from the learn ethemselves. The speech or writing the stu

dents produce will represent exactly thecurrent level of development, and all thneeds to be done is to add to this the

 "+

element to obtain ideal "i+1" input or ouput. In fact, we do this all the time whemarking our students' written homeworfor example. The "i" part is the studentwritten work, whereas our corrections comprise the "+1" element. When the studenread their marked work, they are presentewith real "i+1" input.

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It is reassuring to find that this "theoreti-cally ideal" input works wonderfully inpractice, just  as the Input Hypothesis sug-gests.

 Indeed,

  it involves the students tosuch an extent that usually you can hardlystop them from reading the corrected work immediately after receiving it, and it teachesthe new information extremely efficiently.What's more,t the efficiency of the task fur-

ther increases if you ask the students towrite sentences (or a composition) usingevery structure that contained a

  mistake—

proving that  "i+1"  output adds to theinstructive value of a language exercise.This series of tasks can be translated intoinput-output terms as follows:

Output —>-

 "i+1" input —

"i+1" output

Marking homework is not the only wayof producing "i+1" input/output. We mayinvent several other language tasks that arebased to some extent on the input and out-put hypotheses. The common feature of all

these "i+1" exercises is that some languagebehaviour is elicited from the  students—that will be the "i"  part—and  this languagematerial is then used for further practice byadding to it some new language ele-ments—the  "+1"

  parts. What is importantfrom the practical point of view is that allthese exercises will share a kind of "i+1"magic: Students will find them involvingand challenging, and the exercises will fulfiltheir teaching purpose with remarkableefficiency.

Suggested teaching activities

1. In class, students produce a jointtrecording (e.g., a discussion of a certaintopic or a roleplay activity). At home theteacher types out the text, correcting themistakes and paraphrasing the clumsyparts. In the next lesson the students listento the recording again, while following thecorrected written version at the same time.Then they are asked to perform the situa-tion again, without looking at the writtenscript, using the new language elements.This is a variation on the marking of writtenhomework mentioned before.

2. For homework, students write a freecomposition on a certain topic with only

one specification: They have to incorporateinto it 15 recently learnt new words fromtheir vocabularies. Either the students selectthe items themselves or the teacher specifiesthe items to be used. The composition mustbe as long as is necessary to include all thenew items. If, as an extreme, they manageto include all of them in one sentence, thenthey won't have to write a lot. This simpletask demonstrates well the efficiency of the"i~l" principle: By adding 15 new elementsto   a composition which would otherwiseu s u a l l y   not exceed the learner's current

level of competence, the rather traditionalessay-writing task acquires a dynamic prob-lem-solving character, while the studentswill surely master the selected new ele-ments. If they themselves are to pick outtthe new words to be used, then they arealso likely to master some of the other itemsfrom which they were making the selection.

3. Working in small groups, studentsrecord a dialogue. After listening as it isplayed back, they produce another record-ing in which they  (a) correct the mistakesand (V) insert some new items/structures.They then play the two versions to the class,and the others must spott the changes.

Variation:  Before preparing the secondrecording, students swapt the cassettes sothat they will be working on someone else'sdialogue.

4. Working in pairs or small groups inclass, each pair/group is given 5-6 newvocabulary items with their

  definitions/

translations. Together they must write a

short passage that contains the new wordsso that it is possible to guess their meaningfrom the context. When they are ready, theypass round their text to the rest of the classand the others try and guesst the meaningof the new elements. The winner is thepair/group whose new items were under-stood by every other

 pair/group.

5. A version of (4): Everybody in theclass is given one new vocabulary item withits definition/translation. Then each personin turn must "explain" his/her new word tothe rest of the class by putting it into threesentences where the context helps themguess the meaning of the new item. (Some

time may be needed to prepare for this.)Students jot downf their guesses for all thewords, and the winner is the person whoseword has been found out by the most stu-dents. Since some words are easier to"explain" than others, a fair result will beobtained only after several rounds.

6. Two-language  t ex t s—for

  studentswho share the same mother tongue (fromMorgan and Rinvolucri 1980). Translate aninteresting English text into the students'mother tongue, leaving one word per sen-tence in English. Select words whose mean-ing can be guessed from the context. Hand

outt copies of this text in class and let stu-

Zoltdn

  omyei is alecturer at the Depart-ment of English, E o t v o sUniversity, Budapest.

 Hi s int ere sts inc lu dethe motivational psy-chology of foreign-lan-guage learning. He isalso involved in teacher training and writingcoursebooks.

dents work out the meaning of the itemsthemselves. A fairly long text can be used inclass several times, leaving more and morewords in English every time.

7. Divide the class into small groups andask each group to perform a situationalroleplay activity for the rest of the class.Afterwards, each of the participants is givena slip of papert with an expression or a

phrase on it, and they are asked to performthe same activity again, but this time incor-porating the new expression/phrase intotheir parts at least twice. The audience mustspot these expressions and try to guess theirmeaning.

Follow-up:  Collect all the introducedphrases and expressions on the board. Ask the students to extend their original role-play situation so that they can include allthe new expressions in it naturally.

REFERENCES

Higashi, A. M. 1988. Adapting Krashen's second-

language acquisition theory.  English TeachingForum, 26,4 pp. 41-44.Krashen, S. D. 1985.  The input hypothesis: Issues

and applications. London: Longman.Morgan, J. and M. Rinvolucri. 1980.   Learning

 Engli sh words: Cross-leve l vocabulary activ ities for the  E FL classroom. Canterbury: Pilgrims.

Scarcella, R. and L. Perkins. 1987. Shifting gears:Krashen's input hypothesis.  Studies in Second  Languag e Acquisi tio n, 9,  pp. 347-53.

Swain, M. 1985. Communicative competence:Some roles of comprehensible input and com-prehensible output in its development. In

 Input in second language  acquisition,

 ed. S. Gassand C. Madden. Rowley, Mass.: NewburyHouse.

White, L. 1987. Against comprehensible input:The input hypothesis and the development of second-language competence.  Applied Linguis-tics, 8, pp. 95-110.  •

JAPAN

Heroes and Villains:  GainingInsights into Your

 Students

Values

Paul WaddenKyoto University of Foreign Studies

The finest teachers have considerableinsightt into the character and values of their students, appreciating them as diverseindividuals within a single, multifacetedtclass. In foreign-language teaching, suchapprehension of students does not comeeasily, given the communicative and cultur-al barriers that often separate student andteacher. Yet in language instruction, per-haps more than in other fields, rapporttbetween teacher and student is vital tolearning. Thus, inevitably, the committedEFL instructor has to take some pains to

  : . i s h   T e a c h i n g F o r u m   35 January   1991