English Language Teaching in its Social Context

COMPREHENSION AND PRODUCTION STRATEGIES 79From comprehension to productionKrashen’s proposal (198S), that comprehensible input drives forward language developmentand generalizes to speaking was attractive. Claiming that we learn through exposure tomeaningful material may not be very startling ~ we are unlikely to learn from material wedo not understand, after all. But claiming that interlanguage change arises in a receptivemodality and later becomes available to production was by no means self-evident hencethe attraction of the argument.We have seen, though, that the evidcnce reported from evaluations of immersion wassupportive of the original claim and so we have to accept that speahng docs not come ‘forfree’ simply through listening to comprehensible input. In this respect, Long (1985) makesa three-level distinction between conditions for second language learning. He suggests thatit is valuable to consider whether factors such as input are:1 necessary2 sufficient3 efficientLogically, an influence might operate at a level 1, 2, or 3, with 3 efficiency constituting themost searching criterion, that an influence is not just causative (necessary and sufficient), butis likely to produce successful language learning most quickly. At the other extreme, level1, necessary, an influence would have to be present, but would not be enough, in itself toproduce successful learning (let alone accomplish this rapidly) since it would act simply asa precondition. Krashen’s proposal was that input is necessary, sufficient, and efficient, whilethe preceding pages have argued against this.Roles for outputSwain (1985; Swain and Lapkin 1982), an important contributor of immersion-basedevidence, was led to consider whether other factors besides input might take us further inmeeting the three levels of condition proposed by Long, and account for how languagedevelopment might be driven forward. In particular, shc proposed the ComprehensibleOutput Hypothesis, that to lcarn to speak we have to actually speak! Drawing on her specificsuggestions (Swain 1985), as well as on other sources, several roles for output can beidentified that are relevant to language learning.The first two ofthc proposed roles still havea connection with input, but rework this relationship in some way.The remaining roles foroutput are more specifically targctcd on the productive modality itself.To generate better inputParadoxically, one necds to start by drawing attention to the way in which one could onlyget good quality input by using output (speakmg) to give one’s interlocutor feedback, so thatthe input dircctcd to the listener is more finely tuned to the listener’s current competence(Long 198s). In this view, output is important as a signalling dcvicc to negotiate better input:input would still be the major explanatory construct, but output would be necessary togenerate it most effectively. Simply listening would not ensure that good quality input wouldbe received, since one would have to rely on good luck or the sensitivity of one’s interlocutor,neither of which is very dependable. The strongest form of this account concerns the