Voytek wrote:Finny wrote:I'm part of the cult of belief that with enough input, it takes very little effort to produce output.
That was the case with my English. I've never spoken or written much but never found these activities hard due massive exposure I've got..
P is for Push
"On my MA Methods course I’ve been pushing the notion of ‘push’. ‘Being pushed’ (I argue) is a precondition for effective learning. In order to progress, learners need to be challenged to go beyond their immediate comfort zone; they need to be coerced into extending their present level of competence. Otherwise, there is a danger that they will simply mark time as language learners, or even – to use a now fairly discredited term – fossilize.
The term ‘push’ is borrowed from a comment that Merrill Swain made as long ago as 1985, in proposing what became known (in contradistinction to Krashen’s Input Hypothesis) as the Output Hypothesis. If you remember, Krashen had argued that comprehensible input alone is a sufficient condition for second language acquisition to occur, with the proviso that the input should be pitched a little above the learner’s present state of competence – what Krashen dubbed “input + 1”.
Swain, on the other hand, argued that, while input is necessary, it is insufficient. Instead (or as well), the learner needs to produce language, and not only produce, but be “pushed towards the delivery of a message that is not only conveyed, but that is conveyed precisely, coherently and appropriately”. She adds that “being ‘pushed’ in output … is a concept that is parallel to that of the i + 1 of comprehensible input”.
One reason for this is – as I point out in An A-Z – “being pushed to produce language puts learners in a better position to notice the ‘gaps’ in their language knowledge”, encouraging them to ‘upgrade’ their existing interlanguage system. And, as they are pushed to produce language in real time and thereby forced to automate low-level operations by incorporating them into higher-level routines, it may also contribute to the development of fluency.
So, what can teachers do to provide this extra ‘push’?"
Read about it here:
https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/20 ... -for-push/