Communicative competence Some roles of comprehensible input and

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 n 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 SLA 3. Individual Linguistic 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 n Grammatical competence Oral production Multiple choice Written production As rules of morphology and syntax focus on verbs and prepositions in French. Aspects of syntax and morphology similar to those of the interview-oral Able to use certain forms accurately? Have they got good knowledge of using them? Presented 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 n Grammatical competence The results? The immerse students had not acquired native like abilities (the native students scored higher than them).

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain n Discourse competence Oral production Multiple choice Narrative and argumentation The film “The mole and the bulldozer” taken individually and asked to tell the story: 1. Setting the scene 2. Identification 3. Logical sequence 4. Time orientation (use of verbs and adverbs) Measuring coherence: They were given sentences from the passage to complete from a set of 3 alternatives Able to tell the story? Recognised coherent text? Written production Presented 4 situations: To write : 2 narrative discourse and 2 letters of suasion Scoring according to: 1. Basic task fulfilment(semantic) 2. Identification 3. Time orientation 4. Anafora 5. Logical connection 6. Punctuation

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

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain Discourse competence n n n The results? Differences between the immerse and native speakers depend on the trait being measured

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain n Sociolinguistic competence ( as the ability to produce socially appropriate language within a context given) Oral production Multiple choice Using slides with audio to present 12 situations of: Testing the ability to use a utterance (choose the 2 formal letters best way out of 3). 1. Request 2. 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? Written production requesting a favour Authentic materials used and (magazines etc) –both oral and written 2 notes to a familiar language. person Able to use a utterance with respect to the social context? Able to use markers of politeness ?

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

Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development-Merrill Swain n Consequently: n Krashen’ s hypothesis n question. Maybe it forwards only to grammatical acquisition n of comprehensible input into 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 n n 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