input and output

CHAPTER THREE THE ROLE OF INPUT- AND OUTPUT-BASED

PRACTICE IN ELT WILLY A RENANDYA

Abstract

The familiar saying practice makes perfect resonates well with those of us in the language teaching profession. Rarely, however, do we question this collective wisdom. We seldom ask about the kinds of practice that contribute more directly and critically to language learning. Also, we rarely ask about what is probably the more important question of how much practice is required before a skill is fully acquired. In this chapter, I discuss the role of input and output-based practice in language learning. While the current thinking within SLA is that both types of practice are important, and that each plays a distinct but complementary role in language acquisition, this view is not reflected fully in the language classroom. Many language programmes today give learners a lot of output-based practice but deprive them of the opportunity to engage in meaningful input-based practice. This often results in learners who are fluent users of English but whose linguistic system remains underdeveloped. I argue that language programmes must provide an appropriate amount of balanced input and output practice that L2 learners engage in deliberately and systematically on a sustained basis. A balanced language programme increases the chance of our L2 learners developing language competence that enables them to use the target language not only more fluently and accurately, but also with a higher level of grammatical complexity.

Keywords: L2 learning, SLA, input-based learning, output-based learning, extensive reading, extensive listening.

Renandya, W. A. (in press). The role of input- and output-based practice in ELT.

In A. Ahmed, M. Hanzala, F. Saleem & G. Cane (Eds.), ELT in a changing world:

Innovative approaches to new challenges. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars

Publishing. (UNCORRECTED PROOF)

The Role of Input- and Output-Based Practice in ELT 2

Introduction The secret of success in art, sport, music, business and science is practice. To be good at music or sport, one needs to spend hundreds of hours of practice. To achieve international stardom, one needs to do even more practice. World-renowned psychologists who specialise in the acquisition and development of expertise and expert performance (e.g., Ericsson, 1996; Sloboda, 1994) now agree that world class musicians, athletes, scientists and business people become masters of their own fields after they have put in at least 10,000 hours of practice. This translates roughly to 3 hours a day over 10 years. The research finding that practice is key to learning seems to support what we have long believed to be one of the most important axioms of learning, i.e., practice makes perfect. If one puts in enough hours, they will become proficient in whatever they are learning. In language teaching, people also believe that practice is an indispensable part of language learning. Anyone who has had classroom experience teaching a foreign language will whole-heartedly support this axiom. But does practice really make perfect in language learning? We often see students spending hours and hours doing language practice but they dont seem to make any significant progress in their learning. This is particularly true in EFL contexts, where the majority achieve a less than desirable level of proficiency. Those who manage to get to the lower intermediate or intermediate level of proficiency are usually stuck at this level and are unable to move to the upper-intermediate or advanced level. In addition, it has been observed that there is a high degree of fossilization among these learners, with the majority unable to move beyond their current level of grammatical competence. This is particularly true in language programmes that give a heavy emphasis on authentic communication in the early stages of language learning (Higgs & Clifford, 1982). So if practice is indeed a key variable in language learning, then our students should reach a high level of proficiency after going through a sufficient amount of practice. Since this does not always happen, we need to ask why classroom practice doesnt seem to produce the desired results.

Is it because we give our students the kinds of practice that do not promote language learning? Is it because the amount of practice is not sufficient?

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These are questions that I will try to address in this paper. But first, in order for us to understand the role of practice and its impact on language learning, I will discuss two critically important aspects of learning that relate closely to what we normally mean by language competence.

Two Aspects of Language Learning

It does not matter whether English is being learned as a second or foreign language, learners are ultimately interested in developing competence in the following areas (Wong & VanPatten, 2003):

Developing an underlying linguistic system This system is very complex and consists of a phonological system, a network of lexical items, a syntactic system that enables us to produce grammatically acceptable sentences, a pragmatic system that enables us to interpret the meanings of utterances, a sociolinguistic system that allows us to produce language that is sociolinguistically appropriate, and a set of rules that allow us to produce a stretch of longer utterances. All learners must develop this linguistic system in order to become successful language learners and users. It is important to note that this system is largely implicit. Developing the ability to use the linguistic system for communication This refers to the development of skills for language production, i.e., speaking and writing. The goal here is to promote fluency and accuracy, namely the ability to produce language fluently and effortlessly without any noticeable errors in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.

To be considered a competent user of a language, we need to know the underlying system of the language and be able to use this system for communication. But how do we develop these two aspects of learning? Research has shown that different types of practice are needed to develop these two aspects of language learning (DeKayser, 2007). The underlying linguistic system is developed through exposure to language input. In other words, learners need to engage in what is known as input-based practice. The ability to use language fluently, on the other hand, is developed through output-based practice, which I discuss in the following section.


Output-Based Practice What types of practice are commonly done in the language classrooms? As we shall see below, the majority of practice types in language learning are output-based. Below are three major categories of classroom practice, all of which are output-oriented practice.

Mechanical practice (or drill). This refers to a controlled practice activity where students are required to produce a response without having to understand the language they are using. Repetition drills and substitution drills of particular grammatical items are examples of this kind of practice. Meaningful practice. This refers to an activity where the language is still controlled, but the students need to understand the language in order to successfully produce a correct response. Communicative practice. This refers to activities where the focus is on communication and where the students are required to produce language that is appropriate for a particular communicative context.

Output-based practice such as drills of various types, information-gap activities and oral communication games enables students to develop fluency in language use. Fluency is indeed an important dimension in language development as it allows our learners:

To produce language with ease To speak with good but not necessarily perfect command of intonation, vocabulary, syntax and grammar To express their ideas coherently To produce continuous speech without causing comprehension difficulties, with minimum breakdowns and disruptions (Richards, 2010, p. 8)

However, while output-based, production-oriented practice allows learners to use known language forms with ease and accuracy, it is not particularly useful for the development of the linguistic system (but see Swain, 1993). What often happens in communicatively oriented classrooms which provide students with lots of output-based practice is that their communicative skills may increase but their linguistic system remains stagnant and shows features characteristic of those in the lower levels of the proficiency range. Richards aptly describes the key characteristics of learners whose fluency may have developed at the expense of complexity:

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Learners language may be both relatively fluent and accurate but shows little evidence of appropriate grammatical development; Complexity of the learners language does not match his or her proficiency level (2010, p.8).

Input-Based Practice As I pointed out earlier, exposure to language input is largely responsible for the development of learners complex linguistic system. There seems to be practically no disagreement among second language researchers regarding the central role of input in the development of learners linguistic system. Wong and VanPatten (2003), summarising years of research in SLA, point out that the development of this complex and implicit linguistic system is not dependent on learner practice of language, but rather is dependent on exposure to what is called input (p.404). It is worth pointing out here that the word practice in the quotation above refers to output-based practice such as speaking and discussion practice and other oral drills. Unlike output-based practice which is popular among ELT professionals, input-based practice does not seem to receive sufficient attention in the classroom. This is understandable since in many language programmes, learners often demand that they be taught how to use English for real communication early in the course. So many communicatively-based programmes engage learners in classroom activities that encourage language production through role-plays, simulations and communication games. Thus fluency in production is given more curriculum time than input-based activities that encourage receptive comprehension. What is input? And in what ways does it promote language acquisition? Input refers to oral or written language that a learner receives. In order for input to benefit the language learning process, it has to meet the following requirements (Renandya, 2011):

It has to be comprehensible. It has to be abundantly and reliably available. It has to be frequently encountered. It has to contain language features that are slightly beyond the learners current level. It has to contain language features that engage the learners attention. It has to be meaningful and interesting.


Extensive exposure to comprehensible language, either through reading or listening, is critical for language acquisition. Some second language researchers (e.g., Krashen, 2004) have even gone so far as to suggest that comprehensible input is the only way in which people learn a second language. Krashens view is perhaps a bit too strong and dogmatic and many researchers tend to disagree with him. But to my knowledge, no second language researchers or practitioners would consider large amounts of meaningful language input to be harmful for language acquisition. Empirical evidence supporting the critical role of comprehensible language input in second language learning is now available and well-documented (see www.extensivereading.net). Research studies investigating the impacts of extensive reading on language learning have demonstrated that exposure to comprehensible language can increase students knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, which in turn enhances their proficiency in the four skill areas of listening, reading, speaking and writing (Day & Bamford, 1998; Jacobs, Davis & Renandya, 1997). What is notable here is that the students obtain all these benefits by simply doing something that is pleasurable. They just read anything that they find enjoyable. The only condition is that they should choose reading materials that they can understand on their own and that they read a lot of these materials. Elley (2001) after reviewing a large number of book-based (input-based) programmes describes the acquisition process through extensive language exposure thus:

When the student repeatedly focuses on the meaning of a large number of interesting messages, he/she incidentally and gradually acquires the form in which they are couched. This is where the learning takes place, not in the conscious, step-by-step direct teaching and applications of rules. (p. 129)

A compelling account of the impact of input-based learning can be found in the numerous case studies of individuals that have been reported in books and journals. One case study is reported by Cohen (1997, as cited in Krashen, 2003) who attended secondary school in Turkey at the age of 12. Turkish was the main language used in school and in the wider community in Turkey. English was taught as a foreign language. Cohen started to read extensively after only two months of study and by the end of the first year in secondary school, she became an avid reader. She would read all sorts of books she could get hold of. She got into a bit of trouble in her writing class when she submitted two flawless written

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compositions which her teacher refused to mark. Her teacher suspected that someone must have helped her write the essay, as the quality was way beyond the level of the class. In Cohens words (as cited in Krashen, 2003):

She wanted to know who had helped me write them [the compositions]. They were my personal work. I had not even used the dictionary. She would not believe me. She pointed at a few underlined sentences and some vocabulary and asked me how I know them; they were well beyond the level of the class. I had not even participated much in class. I was devastated. There and then and many years later I could not explain how I knew them. I just did [emphasis added]. (p. 18)

To use Krashens (1982) terminology, Cohen had acquired the complex and implicit linguistic system through input-based learning. She was able to use this knowledge to produce well-written compositions without being able to explain how she did this. In recent years, second language researchers have also looked at how language exposure through extensive listening can benefit second language learners. Evidence is now emerging that simply listening to comprehensible materials through simple and familiar classroom activities such as dictation, repeated listening and frequent teacher read-alouds can improve EFL students listening skills (see Renandya & Farrell, 2011). In Renandya and Farrell (2011), for example, I described a classroom-based research study by Zhang (2005) who provided her middle school students in China with extensive listening activities. In her study, the students listened to a large amount of comprehensible and highly interesting stories read aloud by the teacher. During the read-aloud sessions, the teacher made sure that the speed was appropriate to beginner levels of English and that the language was comprehensible so that the students could follow the stories fully. At the end of the six-week long experiment (approximately 42 hours of listening sessions), Zhangs extensive listening students performed significantly better in the cloze and recall listening tests than the control students who received intensive and systematic listening strategy training. Not only did the extensive listening students outperform the strategy-based students on the receptive measures, they also outscored the control students on the picture story-telling test, a measure that required a productive use of the language. The language learning benefits of extensive listening are many. One of the most important benefits is that it can provide learners with a cognitive


map, i.e., a network of linguistic information from which learners can build up the necessary knowledge for using the language (Nation & Newton, 2009, p. 38). This knowledge, according to Nation and Newton, allows for the development of the other language skills. The importance of listening in language learning is highlighted by Nord (1980, as cited in Nation & Newton, 2009):

Some people now believe that learning a language is not just learning to talk, but rather that learning a language is building a map of meaning in the mind. These people believe that talking may indicate that the language was learned, but they do not believe that practice in talking is the best way to build up this cognitive map in the mind. To do this, they feel, the best method is to practice meaningful listening. (p. 38)

In the next section, I discuss two types of knowledge that will help explain the need to provide our students with extensive and sustained language practice. It is only through this type of practice that we can increase our students chance of success in language learning.

Declarative and Procedural Knowledge

Cognitive psychologists make a distinction between declarative knowledge (knowledge about something, also known as knowledge THAT) and procedural knowledge (knowledge about how to do something, also known as knowledge HOW). Knowing about certain grammar rules in English (e.g., the past tense is used to mark past events) is an example of declarative knowledge. Knowing how to use the past tense when describing a past event, for example, is an example of procedural knowledge. While knowing certain facts about how English works can be useful, the goal of learning a second language is ultimately to develop procedural knowledge, i.e., knowing how to use rules of grammar and knowledge of vocabulary for real communication. Knowing how to use the past tense to recount a past event is pretty straightforward. But being able to use this grammatical feature accurately, fluently, and effortlessly in a variety of contexts requires a massive amount of practice. Lets look at another example. Following a lesson on how to write an academic essay, you may be able to write a decent piece of essay, albeit with difficulty and a high degree of effort. Without further practice, you will find that writing an essay is quite an effortful task and that your essay may contain lots of errors. This is quite normal. In order for you to become skilful in writing, you will need to automatise your

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procedural knowledge. Automatisation refers to the whole process of knowledge change from initial presentation of the rule in declarative format to the final stage of fully spontaneous, effortless, fast, and errorless use of that rule, often without being aware of it anymore (DeKeyser, 2007, p. 3). The only way one can develop automaticity is through practice lots of practice. The question then is: how much practice is required in language learning? More specifically, how much input-based practice is needed to develop the underlying linguistic system? No research has been specifically conducted to address this issue, but there seems to be agreement among second language researchers that thousands of hours of input practice are needed. Drawing on years of second language acquisition research, N. Ellis (2002), for example, states that:

The real stuff of language acquisition is the slow acquisition of form-function mappings and the regularities therein. This skill, like others, takes tens of thousands of hours of practice, practice that cannot be substituted for by provision of a few declarative rules. (p. 175)

How about output-based practice? How much practice is required? Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that it takes years of deliberate and sustained practice to use language fluently, accurately and effortlessly. The more practice one does in using language, the more fluent he/she becomes.

Conclusion It should be clear from the discussion above that both input- and output-based types of language practice are equally important in language learning. Input-based practice develops learners underlying linguistic system, while output-based practice enables learners to develop skilful use of the language. It should also be clear that a huge amount of practice is needed to develop automaticity in both comprehension (through input-based practice) and production (through output-based practice). I said at the beginning of the paper that classroom practice does not seem to produce the desired results. I will now address the two questions that I raised in the introduction:

Is it because we give our students practice that does not promote language learning?


This seems to be the case, in my opinion. There is ample evidence to suggest that that ELT professionals tend to give students too much production oriented practice at the expense of input-oriented practice. As a result, learners seem to become fluent early in the course, but their grammatical and lexical development seems to be lagging behind. This is particularly true in language programmes that aggressively promote CLT methodology, with its heavy emphasis on fluency of language use. Because of the pressure to use language for communication and because their underlying linguistic system is still pretty weak, students use whatever limited linguistic resources they have available and whatever communication strategies they have at their disposal to express their meaning in the target language. This is a classic case of fluency progressing at the expense of accuracy and complexity (Richards, 2010). What we need is a more balanced curriculum that provides learners with appropriate input- and output-based practice at different stages of learning. Is it because the amount of practice is not sufficient? Yes, to this question too. Language acquisition is a long and drawn-out process. Thousand of hours of input and output practice are required if learners wish to develop a high level of proficiency in the language. L2 practice in most EFL contexts is generally quite limited. The overall amount of instruction is often limited to six to eight hours per week. Consequently, the quantity and quality of input and output practice are quite impoverished. One solution to this problem is to encourage students to seek greater input and output practice opportunities outside curriculum time. This is not an easy thing to do, but if we can show our students how to engage in input and output practice in a meaningful and fun way, there is a chance that our students may just be willing to spend those extra hours to develop their language knowledge and skills.

We often hear people say that practice makes perfect. Does it really? Id like to quote a legendary football coach, Vince Lombardi, who says that practice does not make perfect. It is perfect practice that makes perfect. In the context of our discussion here, perfect practice refers to an appropriate amount of balanced input and output practice that L2 learners engage in deliberately and systematically on a sustained basis.

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References

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Richards, J.C. (2010). Moving beyond the plateau: From intermediate to advanced levels in language learning. Retrieved from: http://www.professorjackrichards.com/work.htm Sloboda, J. (1994).


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Swain, M. 1993. The output hypothesis: Just speaking and writing arent enough. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 50, 158-164.

Wong, W., & VanPatten, B. (2003). The evidence is IN: Drills are OUT. Foreign Language Annals, 36(3), 403- 423.

Zhang, W. (2005). An investigation of the effects of listening programmes on lower secondary students listening comprehension in PRC. Unpublished MA dissertation, SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, Singapore.

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