Page 123 - Beyond Methods

Facilitating negotiated interaction 111
Finally, the metalinguistic function of output relates to the pos- sibility that learners may be consciously thinking about language and its system, about its phonological, grammatical, and semantic rules in order to guide them to produce utterances that are linguis- tically correct and communicatively appropriate. In fact, learners can be encouraged to think consciously about linguistic forms and their relationship to meaning when they are asked to do commu- nicative tasks that focus on form as well as meaning (see Chapter 8 on activating intuitive heuristics). In espousing these three functions of output, Swain makes it clear that we do not yet know whether or how any of these functions really operate when learners attempt to produce the target language.
Further research on output-related studies conducted by Pica and her colleagues (e.g., Pica, Holliday, Lewis and Morgenthaler, 1989) and Gass and her colleagues (see Gass, 1997) confirms that output has the potential to provide learners with a forum for im- portant language learning functions such as hypothesis testing, cor- rective feedback, and moving from meaning-based processing to a grammar-based processing. Krashen (1998, p. 180), however, ques- tions the usefulness of comprehensible output, saying that it is “too scarce to make a real contribution to linguistic competence.” While that is true, it is worthwhile to remember that comprehensible out- put, where available, can provide much-needed impetus for learn- ers to notice specific features that are problematic to them and thus take corrective measures to progress toward language development.
Reflective task 5.3
Krashen has consistently argued the case of comprehensible input and has almost dismissed the role of learner interaction as well as learner output. In what way do you think the input hypothesis, the interaction hypothesis, and the output hypothesis complement or contradict each other?
LIMITATIONS OF INTERACTION AS AN INTERPERSONAL ACTIVITY
Clearly, interaction as an interpersonal activity is not as limited as interaction as a textual activity. Unlike the latter, which is con- cerned mostly with the linguistic aspect of modified input, the for-