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 M A I N F E AT U R E
Encouraging
output
Ali Shehadeh considers
T
here are three main functions of
output in second language (L2)
the role of learner production learning:
1 It enhances learners’ fluency.
and the consequences for
2 It generates more comprehensible
input through feedback.
classroom interaction. 3 It facilitates the internalising of
linguistic knowledge.
Before we examine them further, I
should like to provide some theoretical
background to these three functions. I will
then illustrate how they can enhance L2
learning, and suggest ways in which the
teacher can utilise learner output in order
to promote language learning and make
classroom interaction more effective.
Enhancing fluency
Output, in the sense of producing and
practising the target language, enhances
learners’ fluency and automatises
knowledge of comprehended L2 rules
and structures. Skills are initially learned
as a body of declarative knowledge
(‘knowing that’), then transformed into
procedural knowledge (‘knowing how’)
through practice, and then automatised
through further practice. As summarised
by Richards, Platt and Webber, the
importance of output in achieving
fluency in communication is that it
enables learners to:
a) produce written and/or spoken
language with ease
b) speak with a good (but not
necessarily perfect) command of
intonation, vocabulary and grammar
c) communicate ideas effectively
d) produce continuous speech without
causing comprehension difficulties or
a breakdown of communication.
4 • Issue 31 March 2004 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •
Feedback and
comprehensible input
Another function of output is that it
provides opportunities for correcting
learner errors and generating more
comprehensible input through feedback.
Output that contains incomprehensible
or incorrect/inaccurate structures or
rules generates negative evidence or
corrective feedback, such as explicit
corrections and recasts, which enables
the learner to replace incorrect
hypotheses and assumptions about the
L2 structures and rules with the correct
Output provides
opportunities
for correcting
learner errors
ones. Thus, output provides a domain
for error correction. Krashen tells us,
‘When a second language user speaks or
writes, he or she may make an error.
When this error is corrected, this …
helps the learner change his or her
conscious mental representation of the
rule or alter the environment of rule
application.’
By the same token, output provides
a further source of comprehensible
input by inviting more input from
speech partners. As Krashen puts it,
‘The more you talk, the more people will
talk to you. Actual speaking … will
affect the quantity of the input people
direct at you.’
Internalising linguistic
knowledge
Output can also facilitate L2 learning
by providing learners with an
opportunity to achieve comprehensible
output by modifying and approximating
their production and thus move toward
successful use of the target language.
Swain proposed three different but
closely related functions of output in L2
learning, which enable learners to
control and internalise linguistic
knowledge:
● It promotes noticing.
● It serves the second language learning
process through hypothesis testing.
● It serves as a metalinguistic function
for language learners.
 Noticing/consciousness-raising
While attempting to produce the target
language, learners may notice a gap in
their output between what they want to
say and what they can say. Production
stimulates noticing because it raises
learners’ awareness of such gaps. This
noticing prompts learners to recognise
some of their linguistic limitations,
pushing them to reprocess and modify
their output toward comprehensibility.
There is good evidence to suggest that
when learners reprocess and modify
their current performance in order to
enhance it, they are engaged in mental
processes that are part of the process of
language learning.
 Hypothesis-testing
Learner output (spoken or written)
reveals hypotheses held by the learner
about how the target language works.
To test a hypothesis, the learner needs
to do something, and one way is to say
or write something in the target
language. Producing output is one way
of testing out hypotheses about
comprehensibility or accuracy of
linguistic form. Similarly, learners may
use their output as a way of trying out
new language forms and structures just
to see what works and what does not.
 Reflection
The metalinguistic or the conscious
reflection function of output constitutes
learners’ reflection on their own use of
the target language. Such reflection
enables them to make explicit the
hypotheses that underlie their language
use. Research has shown that doing this
State of Freedonia
Meeting of the Grand Revolutionary Council
You are members of the Grand Revolutionary Council of Freedonia, which has
just won its independence after a revolutionary struggle with its colonial masters.
You have met here today to draw up part of the Constitution of Freedonia.
You must decide which propositions to accept, which to reject and which you
wish to amend.
Your final decisions must be unanimous. Remember that the future and fate
of Freedonia is in your hands.
It has already been agreed that one of the members of the Council (ie one of
you) will be chosen President of Freedonia.
You have to decide on the following questions and propositions.
1 Who will be elected President? or
The decisions of the Freedonian
2 The President will be elected for life Parliament will be supreme.
or for a period of seven years.
5 All persons who supported the
3 Following the first Presidency, all colonial administration of the
other Presidents will be elected enemies of Freedonia will be
a) by the Grand Council. a) executed.
or or
b) directly by the people. b) exiled until pardoned by the
or President.
c) by a Parliament of Freedonia. or
4 The decisions of the President will c) given a general and immediate
amnesty.
be supreme.
6 Freedonia will remain forever
or
The decisions of the Grand Council neutral in military and political
and the President will be supreme. affairs, and will join no alliances.
has consequences for language learning. depends in the first place on the
For instance, Swain states that ‘as learners’ ability to produce output that
learners reflect on their own target is comprehensible and as accurate as
language use, their output serves a possible. Good examples are
metalinguistic function, enabling them to information-gap and decision-making
control and internalise linguistic tasks.
knowledge.’
 An information-gap activity
Pedagogical implications In this activity, ideally carried out in
pairs, one student holds all the
We have seen that the main pedagogical information and supplies it in response
implication for classroom interaction we to the other’s request. Students have
can derive from these functions of shared goals in carrying out the activity
output is that learner production must and reaching mutually acceptable
be encouraged as a standard and outcomes. An example would be
favoured classroom activity. How can ‘Describe/draw a picture’, where one
this implication be utilised in a student has to describe a picture to
classroom context? How can teachers another, who has to reproduce the
devise techniques and create situations picture as precisely as possible, solely on
that encourage learner output? Three the basis of their partner’s description.
ideas are suggested below. Successful completion of the task
depends in the first place on the
1 Task-based interaction student’s ability to give a clear and
One way in which teachers can accurate description of the picture. The
encourage the learners’ output is by picture itself must be carefully selected:
selecting or devising pair/group it should have clear, easily recognisable
activities where successful completion features which can be described using 
• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 31 March 2004 • 5
 Encouraging
output
 simple vocabulary. Where possible,
colour pictures should be distributed to
all the students whose role is to describe
the picture to their partners. If
sufficient pictures are available, students
can then reverse roles and repeat the
activity using a different picture.
 A decision-making activity
In this activity, ideally carried out in
groups, each student has access to all
the information needed and supplies it
in response to the request of the others.
This decision-making or consensus-
reaching task gives every student the
same opportunities to talk because all
students have equal opportunities to
supply and request information. Each
student is required to participate in
requesting and supplying information
because only unanimous, mutually-
acceptable decisions must be reached.
Thus, students are expected to work for
a single goal, but they have a number of
outcomes available to them. There is an
illustration of a decision-making
activity on page 5. In this activity,
students are required to draw up part of
the constitution of Freedonia, a newly
independent country, and must make
decisions and reach unanimity with
regard to every decision they make.
2 Self-initiated,
self-completed repair
Research has shown that self-repair
plays an important role in learners’
output modification toward
comprehensibility. In my research, I
have compared the frequency of
modified output (MO) instances
resulting from self-initiated repair with
those resulting from other-initiated
repair. I found that learner-based MOs
resulting from self-initiation were
significantly greater than those resulting
from other-initiation in four of the five
interactional contexts examined in my
study. Specifically, I found that the
instances of MO produced by learners
resulting from self-initiation were two-
and-a-half times more frequent than
those resulting from other-initiation.
These results suggest that if learners’
production of MO is integral to
successful second language learning (as
6 • Issue 31 March 2004 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •
suggested by recent research findings), it
is not just other-initiated repair which
matters, but also self-initiated repair.
In a classroom context, this means
that students must be given both time
and opportunity to repair their
messages. This is important when we
realise that students are not always
given sufficient time or opportunity to
self-correct in a classroom situation. For
instance, McHoul observed that
teachers initiated corrections ‘either a)
immediately a trouble-source is over, with
usually no gap occurring or b)
immediately the repairable [ie the
trouble-source] itself is spoken or heard’.
McHoul goes on to say that ‘the latter
cases of other-initiations either i) overlap
the trouble-source turn or ii) interrupt it.
In instances of i), teacher and student
can both be heard to be speaking, albeit
briefly, at the same time. In instances of
ii), the student immediately yields the
floor to the teacher.’
This, however, does not mean that
learner-based repair should always be
encouraged over teacher-based repair.
To some extent this depends on the
proficiency level of the learner because
self-completed repair is feasible in L2
classrooms only where learners already
possess an adequate level of proficiency.
Further, teacher-based repair can also
be qualitatively important, serving as a
model for more accurate modification
and greater message accuracy.
3 Students’ preferences
and student-generated
activities
Finally, and most importantly, learner
output can be encouraged by using
student-generated activities or by
selecting tasks and activities that are
sensitive to, for example, students’
preferences, their proficiency levels, and
their gender differences. For instance,
women have been found to be more
inclined to engage in activities of a
social, legal or cultural nature, whereas
men are more inclined to be engaged in
activities of a political or historical
nature.
With regard to the level of
proficiency, the usefulness of oral
feedback to learner output has been
found to be more effective for L2
learning with learners who already
possess an adequate level of proficiency,
rather than with beginning or more
advanced learners.
Activities that take into consideration
the various learner factors, are sensitive
to learners’ preferences, or those that are
generated by students themselves ensure
a) that students take on responsibility
for much of the work
and
b) that there is greater student
involvement in supplying and
receiving information.
At the same time, such activities free
teachers to focus on monitoring and
providing relevant feedback.

We have considered different positions
and research results pertaining to the
roles of output in L2 learning. These
demonstrate that learner output must
be encouraged as a standard classroom
activity. Consequently, it is important
for the language teacher to devise
techniques and create situations that
encourage learner output and, as a
result, promote language learning. ETp
Krashen, S Principles and Practice in
Second Language Acquisition
Pergamon 1982
McHoul, A ‘The organization of repair in
classroom talk’ Language in Society 19
1990
Richards, J, Platt, J and Webber, H
Longman Dictionary of Applied
Linguistics Longman 1985
Shehadeh, A ‘Gender differences and
second language acquisition’ Research
Journal of Aleppo University 26 1994
Shehadeh, A ‘Self- and other-initiated
modified output during task-based
interaction’ TESOL Quarterly 35/3 2001
Swain, M ‘Three functions of output in
second language learning’ In Cook, G
and Seidlhofer, B (Eds) Principle and
Practice in Applied Linguistics: Studies
in Honour of H G Widdowson OUP 1995
Swain, M ‘Collaborative dialogue: its
contribution to second language
learning’ Revista Canaria de Estudios
Ingleses 34 1997
Ali Shehadeh is a visiting
associate professor at the
College of Languages and
Translation, King Saud
University, Saudi Arabia.
His areas of interest include
SLA, teaching methodology,
and task-based learning and
instruction. His work has
appeared in English
Teaching Forum, ELT
Journal, TESOL Quarterly,
Language Learning and
System.
ashhada@ksu.edu.sa