Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain

Presentation by:

Elena Kadi-Montague

Dionisis Psoinos Marilena Choraitou Persia Dafnou Alexander Strbak

Presentation slides by Elena Kadi-Montague

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain

Focus of her research: the relationships between input and output at the level of language proficiency

Sample of the research: Native and immerse speakers of English learning French as a second language( infrequent use of French-only by the teacher and by non-native peers).

Swain’s hypothesis: Although comprehensible input (Krashen,1981 b 1982) may be essential to the acquisition of a second language, it is not enough to ensure that the outcome will be native like performance.

She introduced the term of “comprehensible output”

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain

Overall aim to explore the influences of : 1.Social 2.Educational Variables on the processes and outcomes of

SLA3.IndividualLinguistic traits under research(as Canale and

Swain proposed,1980)

1.Grammatical 2.Discourse 3.Sociolinguistic

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain

Grammatical competence

Oral productionAs rules of morphology and syntax focus on verbs and prepositions in French.

Able to use certain forms accurately?

Multiple choice

Aspects of syntax and morphology similar to those of the interview-oral

Have they got good knowledge of using them?

Written productionPresented 4 situations:To write :2 narrations using past and present tense and 2 letters of request (using future tenses)Errors with accuracy?

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain

The results?

The immerse students had not acquired native like abilities (the native students scored higher than them).

Grammatical competence

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain

Oral productionNarrative and argumentation The film “The mole and the bulldozer”taken individually and asked to tell the story:1.Setting the scene2.Identification 3.Logical sequence4.Time orientation (use of verbs and adverbs)

Able to tell the story?

Multiple choice

Measuring coherence: They were given sentences from the passage to complete from a set of 3 alternatives

Recognised coherent text?

Written productionPresented 4 situations:To write :2 narrative discourse and2 letters of suasionScoring according to:1.Basic task fulfilment(semantic)2.Identification3.Time orientation4.Anafora5.Logical connection6.Punctuation

Discourse competence

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain

The results?

The immerse students scored higher on punctuation (in the written production).

The native speakers rated higher than immerse students on time orientation (oral production).

Discourse competence

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain

The results?

Differences between the immerse and native speakers depend on the trait being measured

Discourse competence

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain

Oral productionUsing slides with audio to present 12 situations of:1.Request2.Suggestion 3.Complaint High or low formality (e.g. Adults or peers) In school or out of school settings

Could vary their language according to the social demands?

Multiple choiceTesting the ability to use a utterance (choose the best way out of 3).

Authentic materials used (magazines etc) –both oral and written language.

Able to use a utterance with respect to the social context?

Written production 2 formal letters requesting a favour

and 2 notes to a familiar person

Able to use markers of politeness ?

Sociolinguistic competence ( as the ability to produce socially appropriate language within a context given)

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain

The results?

The native speakers performed better on the sociolinguistic tasks (the immerse students were weak in verb morphology and in the use of conditionals -they received input in that way by their teachers and peers in

class).

Sociolinguistic competence

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain

Consequently: Krashen’ s hypothesis of comprehensible

input into question. Maybe it forwards only to grammatical

acquisition

Swain included in her research two other parameters:

1.The discourse 2.The sociolinguistic competence

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain

According to Swain: 1.The first step to grammatical acquisition is meaning.

2.Because the message is understood the learner pays attention to the form.

3.So,the comprehensible input is important because is understood and not because of its focus on the meaning.

4.The delivery of what was understood-the comprehensible output –it is just as important with the +1.

Comprehensible output hypothesis