Most Foreign Language Teachers

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

英语输入量与学生英语学习成绩的关系研究

覃琼芳

学 科 专 业： 教育硕士

研 究 方 向： 学科教学 英语

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A Research in the Relationship

between English Input

and Students’ Achievements

A Thesis

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Master’s Degree

by

QinQiongfang

Supervisor:WenJinfang

Guangzhou University

April, 2013

Acknowledgements

I am greatly indebted to my supervisor Wen Jinfang, who has shown great enthusiasm and attention to the present thesis. Only with his insightful guidance, critical judgment, resourceful advice and unforgettable encouragement, can I have this pleasure and possibility to complete this thesis. Without his invaluable instructions and warm-hearted help, this thesis would not come to much. Special thanks also go to Professors who has provided much help in knowledge of Teacher Language Awareness in Guangzhou University.

Thanks are also extended to my friends and fellow graduates. Their persistent help and encouragement support me greatly and enable me to smooth away the one barrier after another during my thesis writing process. I’m also thankful to all my students and my colleagues who have been investigated in this research. They give me a lot of kind of help and encouragement in various ways, especially my colleagues helped me a lot in the experiment of my study. Without their cooperation I would never finish this study.

Finally, I want to dedicate this thesis with love and gratitude to my beloved husband, my son, and my parents for their love, encouragements and support during these years.

Abstract

Changing China’s foreign languages teaching time-consuming and inefficient situation is the aim of most foreign language teachers .Many researches are about the teaching methods .A lot of teachers of primary and secondary schools are trying to changing teaching methods to improve the effectives of teaching .It’s also not uncommon that teachers put Krashen’s Input Hypothesis as teaching theory guidance .However till now ,there isn’t a report about just according to only one teaching method to get a remarkable teaching effects .In the thesis ,it holds that enhancing the target language input is very important in order to improve the teaching effect .But enhancing the comprehensible input is the key .Listening and reading are the main ways of comprehensible input. They are the main ways of language learning .Input is primary and output is secondary. Without enough input, no one can learn language well. In order to master a language, students have to get plenty of comprehensible input .Listening can benefit speaking, and reading is the best way of improving writing .With the international spreading of the Input Teaching Method, many teachers have realized that the importance of Input Teaching Method

Since the 1970s, great importance has been attached to the research on SLA by the academic circles and the research achievements have been constantly applied to language learning and teaching. Among the studies on SLA, the most influential ones are Krashen’s Input Hypothesis, Swain's Output Hypothesis and Longs Interaction Hypothesis. Based on the former studies, this thesis takes the Input Hypothesis, the Output Hypothesis and the Interaction Hypothesis as its theoretical bases. Through further discussing the relationship between linguistic input and output and their relationship to interaction, it is recommended that the interactive teaching mode should be adopted in the present English teaching. Interactive teaching mode fully embodies the concept that students are the center of teaching practice. It can make maximum use of classroom time to provide students with sufficient opportunities for language application and thus makes the students achieve a balance between linguistic input and output. Being an incentive to the students' SLA, this will undoubtedly improve their English application ability. In addition, it can stimulate the students' interest in English learning and promote their autonomous learning ability.

Specifically, it investigated whether the application of increasing the English input in primary school could promote the students’ English achievement . The Experimental Group (EG, N=45 and the Control Group (CG, N=45) were chosen from Grade 5 in a primary school in Panyu District of Guangzhou City in Guangdong Province to participate the study. The experiment lasted twenty-one weeks. During the twenty-one weeks the teacher increased the amount of the English input ,which contains the listening input and reading input . Both of the Experimental Group and the Control Group chose the textbook of Guangzhou Edition for grade five .Besides , the Experimental Group chose "two newspapers and two books ".They are Modern Primary Students, Guangzhou Morning Post ,English Development for Reading and Writing . The pre-test and the post-test led to the following findings: first, EG participants who received increasing the amount of input training yielded more gains ;second, after training, the EG participants showed significantly more positive attitude towards English learning .

This experiment fully proves that creasing input and combining input and output English teaching can promote student’s English achievements and learning attitude. Based on an in-depth comparative analysis of the data obtained from the empirical study, the experimental result is comprehensively reviewed in this thesis. It is hoped that this study will pave a way for exploring an effective method of English teaching and therefore provides some beneficial references for the advancement of English teaching.

Key words: English Input ; English teaching ; students

中文摘要

改变我国外语教学费时低效的状况一直是广大外语工作者孜孜以求的目标，相关的探索主要集中在教学方法的层面。很多中小学教师试图通过教学方法的改善来提高教学效果，把克拉申的输入假说作为教学指导理论的也不少见，可是至今未见有依靠某一种教学方法取得显著教学成效的报告。本研究认为，提高英语教学成效，在于加大听读输入，但关键是"可懂"的输入。听和读是输入"可懂"语言的主要方式，是语言学习的主要手段。通过听读获得的"可懂"语言输入是语言输出的前提和保证，没有可懂的语言输入，任何语言学习者都不可能学得或习得语言，要掌握好语言，就必须进行大量的"可懂"语言输入。多听是学说的最好方法，多读是学写的最佳途径。随着输入法在国际上影响力的扩大，很多老师也开始承认输入法的重要性。

自上世纪70年代起，二语习得的研究已引起了学术界的高度重视，其研究成果也不断地渗透到学生的语言学习和语言教学之中。在二语习得的研究中，最有影响力的当属Krashen的输入假设理论、Swain的输出假设理论和Long的交互假设理论。在前人研究的基础之上，本文以输入、输出和交互假设为理论框架，深入探讨了输入、输出与交互的关系。通过对三者间关系的研究，笔者认为当前我国英语教学应采用输入输出相结合的交互式课堂教学方法。因为这种方法有助于体现学生在英语学习实践中的主体作用，它可以最大限度地利用课堂给学生提供充足的语言运用机会，使学生的输入、输出平衡发展，这无疑有利于提高学生的英语运用能力，从而促进学生的第二语言学习，激发其英语学习兴趣，提高他们的自主学习能力。具体研究为在小学的英语日常教学中加大输入量，看是否能提高学生的英语学习成绩和英语学习兴趣。根据初测结果，按照配对分组方法，将实验对象随机分为实验组和控制组。其中实验组（45人）和控制组（45人）学生分别选自广东省广州市番禺区一所小学的五年级。实验研究采用的是定性和定量的两种方法，定量的方法包括问卷调查、实验前测和后测，并运用社会科学统计软件计算这些定量数据，检测衡量样本差异的显著性。定性研究以问卷调查和访谈形式进行，目的是对定量研究的结果进行补充性说明进而对实验前后学生的输入和输出情况有一个清晰的认识和全面的了解。因此，在为期21周的时间中，对实验组实施持续不间断的加大英语输入量，其中包括听力的输入量和阅读的输入量。实验组和控制组均采用的是广州版的小学五年级的英语教材。除此之外，实验组还采用了"两报两书"，即现代小学生报、广州英文早报、《英语拓展读与写》和《英语名师导练》。从实验的前测和后测、问卷调查和采访结果来看，本研究发现：第一、接受加大输入的实验组的学生的考试成绩远远高于控制组；第二、接受加大输入训练的实验组学生的学习态度明显比控制组积极。此次实验较充分地证明了加大输入，输入输出相结合的课堂教学能有效地促进语言学习者的语言输入与输出，有利于学习者的英语交际能力和英语成绩的提高。本文对本次研究中所得数据做了深入的分析和比较，并将实验结果做一综述。希望本研究能够为现在的英语教学发掘出行之有效的方法，为切实提高英语教学质量提供一些有益参考。

关键词:英语输入；英语教学；学生成绩

Contents

Acknowledgements 3

Abstract 4

中文摘要 6

8

Chapter 1 Introduction 9

1.1 The necessary for this study 9

1.2 Objectives and Significance of the Study 10

1.3 Research Questions 11

1.4 Thesis Structure 11

Chapter Two Literature Review 13

2.1Background 13

2.2 Krashen’s (1985) Five Hypotheses 13

2.2.1 The Hypothesis of Acquisition and Learning 14

2.2.2 The Hypothesis of Natural Order 15

2.2.3 The Hypothesis about Monitor 15

2.2.4 The Hypothesis of Affective Filter 16

2.2.5 The Hypothesis of Input 16

2.3The Evaluation of the Hypothesis of Input 19

2.3.1 The Critiques of Krashen’s (1985) Input Hypothesis 19

2.3.2 The Advantages of Krashen’s Input Hypothesis 22

2.4 Conclusion on the Importance of Input Hypothesis 25

2.5 Output Hypothesis 26

2.5.1 Swain's comprehensible Output Hypothesis 26

2.5.2 The Roles of Comprehensible Output 29

2.5.3 Researches on Output Hypothesis in China 32

2.6 Longs Interaction Hypothesis 33

2.6.1 The Negotiation of Meaning 33

2.6.2 The Interactive Modification 35

2.7 Limitations of previous studies and starting point of the current study 35

2.8 Summary 37

Chapter 1 Introduction

With the process of globalization, English is becoming more and more important in the international communication. Therefore, more and more people of different places in the world start to learn English .In China, China has set up the cooperative relations with a lot of other countries in different kinds of fields , especially with the entry of WTO and the successful bidding and holding for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. all this shows that there is a big explosion in the demand of English in China .The reqirement for learning a foreign language especially for the international language---English has been becoming an increasingly urgent task to all Chinese students even all the people in China. English as an international language has been becoming more and more important. Consequently，English ,the international language has gained more and more attention of different levels in China more than twenty years. So , Every Chinese students has to learn English when they are little kids , because English has been become into a compulsory course in all kinds of schools.

1.1 The necessary for this study

English teaching as an important subject teaching has gained more and more attention. Many scholars have researched how to teach English. But the relant teaching research (Scherer & Wertheimer, 1964 Smith, 1970) showed that "the decisive role of teaching pedagogy is difficult to be recognized" (R. Ellis, 1985.143). Therefore, since the late 1960s, linguists, researchers and foreign language teachers start to research the process of English teaching and learning in the classroom.

Some aspects of second language acquisition are clear to those research community. One of these is input and the acquisition of grammar. (Vanpattern, 1996) Input may be one of the most important concepts in the SLA. If there is no inout, SLA is undoubtedly a problem.Therefore, many scholars have tried numerously to research what is input, as well as how to provide input.The most valuable theory is Krashen's input hypothesis "This gave us a lot of important enlightmeng in Second Language Acquisition. With the enligtment of his input theory, this study tried to find out the possible input teaching guidance of SL learners to improve their English achievements. About input of SLA, reading and listening have always been the most important to SL teachers and learners. Krashen (1985) says that the real competence in speaking, writing and grammatical accuracy is developed only by listening and reading . Liu Runqing (1999) concludes that the formal foreign language teaching is the same as that of the other courses. If you want to really master a foreign language, it needs a great amount of reading and listening as well as independent thinking and independent analyzing.

1.2 Objectives and Significance of the Study

The purpose of this study is to find a new teaching methods to improve students’achievements by using Krashen’s input hypothesis into English class. To be more precise, the following are the objectives of the study.

Through the investigation on the basic situation of the most of primary school ,we know that the present English learning is difficult to promote students' achievements .It's time-consuming and inefficient . The traditional teaching methods can't effectively promote the students' achievements, It caused the whole English teaching is inefficient .And the English skills of the students is not high, can not meet the requirements of the social demand for the students .

Through this study, I hope finding an effective English teaching method to improve the students' English achievements .

A successful solution not only benefits all the students but also helps all the people to learn English well. The problems of solving in this study will also help improving English teaching to all the students，such as the lack of interest and motivation to learn English，and teacher’s failure to satisfy each student’s need for English input. So，the study is designed and made in the English classroom of the students，but has significant implication to all the courses.

1.3 Research Questions

(1) Can the increase of comprehensible English input promote students’ English achievement?

(2) What are students’ attitudes towards the increase of comprehensible English input ?

1.4 Thesis Structure

This thesis is composed of six parts.

Chapter one states that learning language becomes more and more important. So in English teaching , Krashen’s Comprehensible Input plays a very important role and many people are willing to study it .

Chapter two is about the basic ideas of Krashen’s Input theories, the concept of comprehensible input, the development of input hypothesis and Krashen’s interpretation of input hypothesis and mainly talks about the three different ideas on input in English teaching and criticisms on this input hypothesis.

Chapter three carries on an investigation of language input in China's English teaching settings with an interview and a questionnaire for the students. The author designs an interview in order to get the information about the comprehensible input, and comprehensible input is important for the students in foreign language learning. The author gives a questionnaire to find whether the teachers can select the appropriate measure and give the students comprehensible input, what means the teachers use to facilitate the students' understanding, and whether the students can get more input out of the classroom.

Chapter four is about the results and the discussion . It illustrates the pretest and the posttest .And it also analyze the scores of the pretest and the posttest. It also states about the results of the tests and the questionnaire, and their relate discussion.

The last part is the conclusion, which says that we should notice that Krashen’s comprehensible input, the key point to the second language acquisition, gives some implications to our foreign language teaching.

Chapter Two Literature Review

In this chapter , I will mainly revise the theories of input and output in the field of second language acquisition .They will benefit that , in English teaching (SL) as a second language or foreign language (FL), to obtain a whole understanding of the input and output changes .

2.1Background

In the history of foreign language teaching, everyone knows that there are strong needs of the students' exposure to English. The input is the exposure to language learners. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics dictionary defines "input" as follows: (in language learning) What the learners heard or received, and they can learn languages from those what they heard and received. Some languages​​, (such as input )what the learners heard and received may be too fast or it is too difficult to understand for the learners, therefore, it can not be used in the study. Appropriately controlling the difficulty of the input is the most important for the learner. Ellis (1990) divided various input into three levels on the base of stress: the frequency hypothesis, input hypothesis, interaction hypothesis. Besides, comprehensible input means what can be understood and received by the learners (Krashen ,1982).

2.2 Krashen’s (1985) Five Hypotheses

In the research of SLA, Stephen D. Krashen’s acquisition theory, which contains five hypotheses ,have been made a lot of​​ great achievements . Of all the five hypotheses, the input hypotheses is the central. His input hypotheses also has some disadvantages. But it still has its implications for English teaching ,which can be drawn out through the analysis .

Because the five hypotheses are a complete unit and tell us what Krashen’s main claims in the SLA. I will also explain the four other hypotheses briefly and focus on the input hypothesis.

2.2.1 The Hypothesis of Acquisition and Learning

Of all the five hypotheses, this is the most fundamental one . According to this hypothesis, there are two distinct and independent ways to learn a second language (L2): acquisition and learning.

According to Krashen (1985), the acquisition is a process similar to the ability of children to develop their mother tongue. This is the "pick a language", that is, the development of language skills to use it in social situations. Language Acquisition (LA) is the "natural" way to develop language skills, is a subconscious process. Language acquisition is not conscious, their language, but only know the language they use to communicate.

In the fields of SLA ,Learning is a process of "knowing the rules", "being aware of the rules, and being able to talk about them" (Krashen, 1985:1). While the acquisition is subconscious, learning is conscious. The learners realize that they are learning a second language .They have to know the rules and be able to talk with them.

Krashen (1985) claimed that the acquisition system is usually the only typical sources of knowledge speakers,which can be used in the real communication. And they pay attention to the meaning of their participation, not the form; while the learning system is only used as a planner for the monitoring the output of acquisition system. The Acquisition - Learning Hypothesis holds that the acquisition is a very powerful process in adults and the adults can also acquire. The ability to "pick up" languages does not disappear at puberty. Adults can use the same "natural language acquisition device" what children use. And that error correction has little or no effect on subconscious acquisition, though it is thought to be useful for conscious learning.

2.2.2 The Hypothesis of Natural Order

It holds that the language ‘ rules what we acquire are in a predictable order. Some rules come early and some rules come late. In other words , in a second language, the acquisition of grammatical structures come along a predictable natural order, irrespective of age differences and language backgrounds of acquirers. This acquisition for second language order is not the same as the order of acquisition for the first language, but there are some similarities. The implication is that the syntax order is neither desirable nor necessary when our goal is the language acquisition. However, if our goal is conscious learning, sequencing is necessary and unavoidable. Krashen (1985) suggests that the rules should be learned . They are portable and not yet acquired.

2.2.3 The Hypothesis about Monitor

This means that the acquisition and learning are used in very specific ways. Under normal circumstances, in second language learning, acquisition "initiates" our utterances and is responsible for our fluency. The conscious learning has a very limited function in L2 performance of adults: it can only be used as a monitor. This hypothesis claims that when we produce an utterance in a second language, the utterance is "initiated" by the acquired system, and our conscious learning only comes into playing later. Therefore, we can use the monitor to make changes in the utterance only after the utterance has been generated by the acquired system.

In L2 performance , the Hypothesis about Monitor of Krashen (1985) implies that the official rules play only a limited role. In addition, L2 performers can use the rules of consciousness only when three conditions are met: a. Time (Need to have sufficient time to think about and use conscious rules effectively); b. Focus on form (Need to focuse on the form or thinking about correctness); c. Knowing the rules (qtd. in Larsen-Freeman and Long, 1991:240).

2.2.4 The Hypothesis of Affective Filter

The Hypothesis of Affective Filter tells us about how affective factors relate to the process of SLA. It assumes that acquirers change with respect to the intensity or level of their affective filters. The factors that determine its strength have to do with the learner's motivation, self-confidence, or anxiety state. So it is "affective" .It is said that the impaction of affect is "outside" the language acquire device, while in second language acquisition input plays a primary role. It holds that affective variables act to impede or facilitate the delivery of input to the language device. Krashen (1985)states that if performers with good attitudes have a lower affective filter, they will have good attitudes. It means that the performers are more "open" to the input and that the input strikes "deeper". So, it’s very important to have the right attitudes , which can encourage learners to try to get more input and to interact with speakers of the target language with confidence, and also to be more receptive to the input they get.

The Hypothesis of Affective Filter means that our teaching objectives should include the provision of comprehensible input and creating a situation which can encourages a low filter. The effective teacher is the one who can provide more input and help to make it comprehensible to the learners in a low anxiety situation.

2.2.5 The Hypothesis of Input

In the field of SLA , input may be one of the most important terms.The learners of second language want to learn a language,they have to get more and more input. Krashen states that the Hypothesis of Input maybe is the most important concept in the field of SLA theory. Because it tries to find the answer to this question .It’s"how can we acquire language". The hypothesis assumes that the acquisition is the central and the learning is peripheral, and our teaching goal is to encourage the learners to get more and more acquisition. Then This question becomes crucial, which is how we progress from one point to another point just through "natural" developmental sequence.

According to the hypothesis of input , if learners want to acquire a language ,the understanding of the input must be a little beyond our current levels of acquired competence. It states that, in the second language learning ,listening and reading comprehensions are very important, and the ability of speaking and writing will come on its own with time. Teachers can’t "teach" the fluency of speaking directly; rather than , if the learner has built up the competence through the comprehending input, it "emerges over time and on its own" (Krashen, 1985: 2). In this Hypothesis of Input , it states that ,in acquiring the target language ,if we want to let the acquirers progress to the next level, the learners have to understand the input language which contains some part of next level’s structure. Krashen (1985)claims that people accquire a language by comprehending the "comprehensible input", which is nessary to learn a second language. "Comprehensible input" which refers to the comprehensible language materials about listening or reading to the learners and its degree of difficulty must be a little beyond the current language level. The language materials which only consist of the learnt language points are totally the same as language learning. And if the degree of difficulty much higher than the current knowledge level of the students, they also cannot help the language learning. In short , the "comprehensible input" refers to the fact that not all the target language to which second language learners are exposed is understandable and only some of the language they read makes sense to them. Krashen (1985) calls the type of input which can promote learning "i+1", where the "I" refers to the acquirer's present level of competence, and the "+1" means the structures that are a little beyond learners’ current level of competence and they are challenging but not overwhelming to the learner. Only if the language materials exposed to the learners are at the level of "i+1", the comprehension is possible and the language development can be facilitated.

How can the learners do this? How to understand the language ,which consists structures that they have not acquired? The distance between the present language competence "i" and the next level "i+1" can be compensated by the related information provided by the language environment and the context. These include schematic information, our knowledge in the world and former acquired knowledge. Care takers provide the context by restricting their talk to "here and now", which means what is in the child’s domain at the moment. Second language teachers can add visual aids (pictures and objects), and use extra-linguistic context, or talk about the topics which they are familiar. Therefore, the Hypothesis of Input states that we use the meaning to help us to acquire the language. But the input needn’t be finely-tuned. In another words, the input is not formerly checked to the level of each learner, but tends to get more complex as the learner progresses. The NET or roughly-tuned input can be described like this: when someone talks to you in a language you have not yet acquired completely but you understand what he or she said, the speaker "casts a net" of the structures around your current level, your i. The net may include previously learned knowledge and the new knowledge. Figure 1 shows the difference between finely-tuned input that aims specifically at one structure at a time, and roughly-tuned input (the net) that aims at several structures around i.

Speaker

↓

Natural order 1 2 3 i i+ 1 i+2 i+3

(Finely-Tuned Input)

Speaker

↓

Natural order 1 2 3 i i+ 1 i+2 i+3

(Roughly-Tuned Input)

(Figure 1)

So Krashen’s (1985) Input Hypothesis points out that the teachers of the target language need not take great efforts to teach language structures in the process of language development, for if the learners can get sufficient "comprehensible input", they can acquire the target language structure automatically. So, the most important task for a teacher is to provide enough comprehensible input to the students as much as possible. To sum up, we may state the Input Hypothesis in the following parts:

(1) The Input Hypothesis relates to the acquisition, not to learning.

(2) If the language consists the language structure a little beyond our present stage of competence, i+1,So we can acquire by understanding this language which is received with the help of the information of the context or extra-linguistic information.

(3) When people succeed in communication, and when the input is understood by people and there is enough of it, i+1 will be provided automatically.

Krashen (1985:4-19) showed ten evidences to support his Input Hypothesis,:(1) caretaker speech, teacher talk and foreigner talk; (2) the silent period; (3) age differences; (4) the effect of instruction; (5) the effect of exposure; (6) lack of access to comprehensible input; (7) method comparison research; (8) immersion and sheltered language teaching; (9) the success of bilingual programs; (10) the reading hypothesis.

In short , from this Hypothesis of Input ,we can know that people can obtain the comprehensible input if their affective filters are low enough to allow the input "in",in this way , people can acquire second language. When the affective filter is "low" and there is enough comprehensible input, acquisition will happen, and they are the two requirements of language acquisition. Comprehensible input is the essential part of SLA and all other factors that can encourage or cause SLA work only base on that they contribute to comprehensible input and a low affective filter.

2.3The Evaluation of the Hypothesis of Input

2.3.1 The Critiques of Krashen’s (1985) Input Hypothesis

Some researchers don’t agree with Krashen about the Input Hypothesis . They mainly thinks that it is too simple and it can be tested, and it fails to define the concept of "comprehensible input"and overstates the importance of it, etc. (Zou Weicheng, 2000; Jing Zenglin, 1991). Psychologists like McLaughlin (1987) sharply criticizes Krashen’s Input Hypothesis and holds that what Krashen does in the Input Hypothesis does not provide evidence in any real sense of the term, but simply argue that certain phenomena can be viewed from the perspective of Krashen’s theory.

Some researchers also holds that Krashen does not directly tells us what is comprehensible input. Ioup (1984) points out, "it is very hard to define the levels and determine which structures constitute i+1 level and therefore people usually can’t test the hypothesis" (qtd.in McLaughlin, 1987: 39). Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991:247) also claim that the Input Hypothesis is hard to test and they hold that this hypothesis "contains vital constructs, i and i+1, which Krashen (1984) himself recognizes are can’t operate in our daily teaching , given the state of knowledge in interlanguage studies". Gass (1988) points out that the comprehended input is more important than the comprehensible input ,and is the most important (qtd. In Ellis, 1994: 278).

In the opinion of Mclaughlin (1987), the way of comprehensible input does not the only route to acquisition. Children do profit in their language development from interacting with native speakers whose language is well formed. Heath (1983) reports that black children in the working-class community in what she studied are ignored as conversation partners until they become information givers so she says, "Children learn to speak the language by taking in and imitating the sounds what they hear around them. Furthermore, the language what they heard is beyond their current level of competence. In many societies, parents and other caretakers do not use simpler language while talking to young children; simplification is viewed as an inappropriate speech behavior. These children seem to learn without simplified input and without comprehensible input." (qtd. In McLaughlin 1987: 44). White (1987) argues, "simplified input may in fact deprive the learner of information vital to acquisition, an argument anticipated by language teachers who advocate the use of authentic speech in the classroom to fill gaps in the normal edited classroom language" (qtd. in Cook 2000a: 61).

On the claim that comprehensible input is necessary for acquisition, White (1987) has argued that a considerable part of acquisition is `input-free'. And she (1987:102) proposes, "The driving force for grammar change is that input is incomprehensible, rather than comprehensible". White's idea is that failure to understand a sentence may force the learners to pay closer attention to its syntactical properties in order to obtain clues about its meaning (qtd. in Ellis, 1994: 279). But the author holds that the Krashen’s comprehensible input and White’s incomprehensible input only see input from different points of view. No matter from what point of view, the learners still progress continually from level i to level i+1 along a series of stages. As Ellis (1994: 279) sees it, these criticisms can be accommodated if the hypothesis is modified in this way, "Comprehensible input can facilitate acquisition but it (1) is not a necessary condition of acquisition, and (2) does not guarantee that acquisition will take place".

Speaking of method comparison research, Krashen claims that the comprehension-based teaching methods have advantages over traditional audiolingual methods. But McLaughlin (1987) believes that Krashen’s dismissal of grammar teaching is lacking of thinking and the role of grammar-based teaching still deserves empirical scrutiny. But the author does not think Krashen is against grammar teaching. Because he mentions, "note that the theory does not predict that comprehensible-input methods will be superior to grammar-oriented methods on all counts" (Krashen, 1985: 15). Krashen (1982) just holds that an approach which provides substantial quantities of comprehensible input will do much better than any of the older approaches. So he does not mean other methods ignore comprehensible input.

Krashen has argued that the part which the speaker’s output plays is providing a further source of comprehensible input. Swain's (1985) comprehensible output hypothesis claims that learners need the opportunity for meaningful use of their linguistic resources to achieve full grammatical competence. Comprehension of a message can take place with little syntactic analysis of input, production forces learners to pay attention to the means of expression. Other researchers such as Long (1985) stress the importance of "negotiating meaning" to ensure the language is modified to the level the speaker can manage (qtd. in Ellis, 1994: 273). Unless learners try out the language, they are unlikely to get the kind of feedback they need to analyze the structure of the language.

2.3.2 The Advantages of Krashen’s Input Hypothesis

It’s very obvious , which is the deficiency of Krashen’s theory. In the theory, his hypothesis does not have a strong research foundation and it cannot be regarded as a good theory without overall research support. After reading the criticisms, one might hold Krashen’s Input Hypothesis is not useful at all . But it still has some advantages in guiding foreign language teaching. In fact, theories can be divided into two categories. One comes from researches and facts. During the study of the facts, the theorists find the law and gradually perfect it by examining and modifying it for many times. The other is to present the hypothesis first and then the theorists try to find the supports and arguments in the researches and studies. And the hypothesis is proved or modified until being accepted as scientific. Krashen’s theory belongs to the second one. He puts forward his hypothesis first, and then tries to use his theory to interpret the phenomena in SLA. So his theory is criticized for lacking of research arguments. But the novel hypothesis can enlighten people to study further. The criticisms and discussions about Krashen’s theory will stimulate others to perfect the theory or develop better ones. And if a research can inspire a controversy, it surely will facilitate related studies and the improvement of the theory.

The Hypothesis of Input has received many attacks ,but it also attracts many people dealing with L2 learning, particularly teachers. Ellis (1990) talks of "the lucidity, simplicity, and explanatory power of Krashen’s theory" and Lightbown (1984) praises its combination of a "linguistic theory, social psychological theory, psychological learning theory, discourse analysis and sociolinguistic theory" (qtd. in Cook, 2000a: 66). Cook (2000a: 66) sees that older methods ignore comprehensible input are incorrect and she states, "Comprehensible input has been the core of many teaching methods, in spirit if not in name". Therefore the Input Hypothesis enjoys great popularity at its emergence and many researchers and language teachers accept it in no time. Brown (1994: 89) sees that although Krashen’s theories are oversimplified, "we owe a debt of gratitude to Krashen for his bold, if brash insights. They have spurred many a research to look very carefully at what we do know, what the research evidence is, and then in the process of refutation to propose plausible alternatives". Ellis (1994) holds the same opinion and sees that the Input Hypothesis has motivated a substantial amount of researches. Nunan (2004:76) states, "to this day they (Krashen’s hypotheses) remain popular, widely cited and infuential, particularly in North America". In fact, Krashen’s Input Hypothesis still has its strengths which are significant for the study of SLA and which have great implications for language teaching. We can see them from the following three aspects:

(1) Comprehensible input is of great significance to teaching. Krashen cites caretaker speech as evidence to support this idea and he (1985: 5) states, "...caretaker speech, while `simplified' in several ways, is intended for communication...The fact that caretaker speech tends to be limited to the `here and now' aids comprehension, supplying the extra-linguistic context that helps the child in decoding the message". As the child develops linguistically, caretaker speech tends to get more complex. The simplified speech will be helpful when it provides the acquirer with i+1 in a context that makes the message comprehensible. Nevertheless, children and adults have many differences in acquiring a second language. The children are generally superior in second language attainment in the long run, but adults acquire at a faster rate. In addition, older children acquire faster than young children do. Krashen’s (1985)explanation is that older acquirers progress quicker in early stages because they obtain more comprehensible input, while younger ones do better in the long run because of their affective filters. The older acquirers obtain more comprehensible input because of their greater experience and knowledge of the world, their strategy of falling back on first language syntactic rules and their superior skills in conversational management.

(2) Input is primary and output is secondary

Many researchers proved that when there is enough input, production ability can emerge without any output practice. It has often been noted that children acquiring a second language in a natural, informal linguistic environment may say very little for several months following their first exposure to the second language. The child is building up competence in the second language via listening and by understanding the language around him. Speaking ability emerges on its own after enough competence has been developed by listening and understanding. In China, many self-taught language learners often develop their language competence by reading a lot ; they can reach a higher level of writing without training in language class.

On the other hand, no evidence proves that language competence can be developed by production practice without further input. Suppose a group of six-year-old children would be sent to a desolate and uninhabited island to live for ten years and they are allowed to talk to each other. It is hard to imagine that they can develop to the same language competence as the adults without any input from the adults. Language competence can be developed by input even without production practice, but production practice itself cannot. So we can draw the conclusion that input is primary and output is secondary. This is what Krashen’s input hypothesis tries to tell us. Thus in second language class, more emphasis should be put on listening and reading. Only when there is enough comprehensible input, can output emerges and helps to develop language competence.

(3) The affective filter is an important factor that second language teachers should consider in teaching, because learners are different in level of affective filter. Those with a high or strong affective filter will accept less input because the input will not reach that part of the brain responsible for language acquisition. Those with a lower or weaker affective filter will be more open to the input. Sometimes the reason of why learners of about the same level, same age in the same English class will reach different levels of language competence lies in different levels of affective filter. So a successful language class should be one that provides situations encouraging a lower affective filter, a successful language teacher should be someone who can conduct such a class.

Input Hypothesis still has its values in SLA learning and teaching. Using it properly, we can achieve high learning efficiency.

2.4 Conclusion on the Importance of Input Hypothesis

Although the Input Hypothesis has received many critiques, it is still useful to guide our foreign language teaching and its values should not be ignored. A number of researches see comprehensible input as a major causative factor in second language acquisition. Strong proposals have been put forth about the role of input in SLA. For instance, Krashen (1982: 35) calls comprehensible input in the presence of a low affective filter "the only causal variable in SLA". Ellis (1994: 26) thinks, "it is self-evident that L2 acquisition can only take place when the learner has access to input in the L2". White (1989: 37) also believes that "L2 learners are faced with the problem of making sense of input data, of coming up with a system which will account for that data, and which will allow them to understand and produce structures of the L2". They concur that input is essential to SLA, which means that learners must be exposed to samples of language that are used to communicate information. Therefore, according to the above analyses, the conclusion can be drawn that the role of input is essential.

In China, some scholars like Hu Wenzhong (1984), Zhu Zhizhong (1988), Zhang Jianzhong (1990), Jing Zenglin (1991), Hu Zhuanglin (1994), etc. have shown their opinions about Krashen’s theory in foreign language teaching journals. Many researchers in foreign language teaching studies in China agree with Krashen on basic assumptions, such as the need to turn from grammar-based to communicatively oriented language instruction and to increasing the amount of foreign language input (Hu Wenzhong （1984）, Zhang Jianzhong （1990）, Wu Dinge （1990）, Cheng Enhong（ 1988）, Ding Guocheng（1993）, Zhu Zhizhong（1988）, Zhuang Enping and Zhuang Enzhong（1990). And the role of affective factors in language learning is also studied. Wang Dawei (1997) puts input theory into practice by conducting some experiments. Inspired by Wang's empirical success and his students' learning improvement, Wu Peng (2001), adapting Krashen’s input theory to the Chinese learning context, conducts a teaching experiment. His experimental class in this program outperforms the control class in comprehensive English ability greatly. Then the input theory begins to be combined flexibly with other theories on foreign/second language teaching. The typical combinations are those of input and output (You Qida, 1997)&(Deng Yongzhong, 2000), input and emotional barriers (Wu Dinge, 2000), input and constructivism ( Pengpeng, 2001), etc.

Though a certain number of studies about input have been undertaken in China, most of them are about the role of input in English learning, few studies are about how well students make use of the input available. This dissertation tries to investigate and analyze the situation of input in EFL classroom teaching in China. On the basis of Krashen' s Input Hypothesis, the dissertation gives out some suggestions on what to input and how to input in our current English class.

2.5 Output Hypothesis

Krashen highly emphasizes the importance of input and depreciates the role of output, while it is not quite agreed by some other linguists who view learners’ output as contributing to second language development. They hold that output is very important and indispensable in language acquisition. Merrill Swai’s Output Hypothesis is one of the most influential theories of this school. Swain is not quite satisfied with Kashen's Hypothesis and argued that comprehensible output is important for language acquisition. After many researches she generalized her ideas and Put forward the Output Hypothesis.

2.5.1 Swain's comprehensible Output Hypothesis

Steven Krashen emphasizes the contribution of comprehensible input to the success of second language acquisition, but denies the importance of comprehensible output in second language acquisition. Swain(1985) put forward the output hypothesis, as a complement to the comprehensible input hypothesis, in which she points out that for successful second language acquisition, comprehensible input may not be sufficient, opportunities comprehensible output are foreign language learners to produce necessary.

Comprehensible output hypothesis is based on Swain's immersion study on problems of Canadians who learning French in Toronto in the 1980's. Swain observed that learners get too few opportunities to use the target language (French). They spent too much time on listening to the teacher, but too little on reading, writing and speaking. What's more, there was an exceedingly high tolerance of errors in class, and teachers often failed to correct even the most glaring pronunciation and grammar errors of advanced pupils. Therefore, the immersion programs, although content-based and communicative, failed to produce successful second language users with target-like accuracy.

Swain formulated the comprehensible output hypothesis based on the observations. She claims that "comprehensible input", although invaluable to the language acquisition process, is not enough for language learners to fully develop their second language proficiency. It is should be pointed out that the comprehensible output hypothesis by no means negates the importance of comprehensible input hypothesis. She acknowledges the role of comprehensible input in second language acquisition, but argues that comprehensible output is also a necessary part that aids second language acquisition in many ways which cannot be replaced by input. The intention of the hypothesis is to complement and reinforce, rather than replace. She claims that both the two hypothesis are necessary for successful language acquisition. Swain emphasized specifically, that if language learners are to be both fluent and accurate in the target language, they need both obtaining comprehensible input and producing comprehensible output, and opportunities for meaningful product of their linguistic materials to achieve full grammatical competence are also needed. Comprehensible output hypothesis claims that production will aid acquisition only when the learner is pushed. To guarantee language acquisition, only providing learners with opportunities of speaking and communicating is not enough. According to Swain, in producing the target language, learners will become aware of a linguistic problem on occasion, either externally or internally attributable. It can push learners to modify their output. That is to say, activities of producing the target language may prompt second language learners to consciously recognize some of their own linguistic problems, bringing their attention to something that they need to discover about their target language. That means learners notice a problem and then they conduct an analysis leading to modified output, when learners cannot work out a solution, they may turn to input, with more focused attention, searching for relevant input datum, and latter, successful language acquisition may be received.

After the proposition of her comprehensible output hypothesis, Swain(1995) furthers her studies and has elaborated three functions of comprehensible output in second language acquisition which involves conscious cognitive process. The first function is the "noticing/triggering"function or what might be referred to as its consciousness-raising role.

Swain claims that when learners use their target language to achieve certain communicative goals, they will find that there are some linguistic problems that may hinder their output producing, even their communication. Thus, a linguistic gap comes into being. The second one is the "hypothesis-testing" function, which means that learners have formulated hypotheses about the target language and try to test them. The third one is the "meta-linguistic" function or what might be referred to as its reflective role, which is also referred to as "conscious reflection" by which it means the learners can use the target language to talk about or think about it. The three functions proposed by Swain can facilitate second language acquisition. She claims that output activity provides chances for the active employment of the learner's limited cognitive resources. Language production may not only result in consolidation of existing knowledge, but may also contribute to restructuring by pushing learners to test hypotheses about the second language in international and collaborative contexts. In the western second language acquisition literature, there are lots of researches conducted on language interaction and language production.

These researches provide ample evidence for the fact that learners do notice problems as they produce the target language, and they do try to do something to solve them. Several experimental studies have been done to test the functions of output. Swain and Lapkin(1995) investigated the noticing function of output. By studing language learners’think-aloud protocols; they looked at their composing topic-given essays. The study results supported the argument that learners would notice a linguistic problem on occasion through the think-aloud protocols process.

According to Swain and Lapkin, 40% of the language-related episodes focused on grammatical forms. In doing so, it helps learners to move from semantic to grammatical processing. Based on this research, Swain and Lapkin proved that output not only led to noticing of the gaps in interlanguage knowledge but also facilitated language acquisition by triggering various internal processes conductive to second language acquisition.

2.5.2 The Roles of Comprehensible Output

Krashen emphasizes that language can be acquired simply by comprehensible input and minimized the role of output in the acquisition (i.e., output is just a means for receiving more comprehensible input.) Krashen summarized his position as follows: "Comprehensible input is responsible for progress in language acquisition. Output is possible as a result of acquired competence. When performers speak, they encourage input (people speak to him).That is conversation."(Krashen, 1983:61)

However, the results of the studies conducted by Swain in Canadian (Swain, 1984, qtd inSwain&Lapkin, 1995:372; Swain, 1985) present us with strong counter evidence against the"acquisition-without-output" statement. The students in the program were educated in their second language-French from the very beginning of school, i.e. kindergarten; however, in the speaking and writing tests, these students can be easily identified as non-native speakers and writers by the end of the elementary school. Swain's interest in output arouses from this phenomenon, which has led her to the conclusion that besides comprehension, production has a significant role to play in one's second language learning. Swain(1985) advances the output hypothesis, proposing that through producing language, either spoken or written, language acquisition/learning may occur (Swain, 1985, 1993, 1995).

Here, by output, Swain refers to comprehensible output which means the need for a learner to be" pushed toward the delivery of a message that is not only conveyed, but that is conveyed precisely, coherently, and appropriately"(Swain,1985:249)Furthermore, as to in what way output works in SLA, Swain(1995)puts forward three functions of output:

1.The"noticing/triggering"function or what might be referred to as its consciousness-raising role

2. The "Hypothesis-testing"function 11

3 .The "meta-linguistic" function or what might be referred to as its reflective role.

2.5.3 Other Studies on output Hypothesis

Several qualitative studies have been conducted to support Swain' s Output Hypothesis since its proposition in 1985. Pica, Holliday, Levis，and Morgenthaler(1989)，for example，found that in response to requests for clarification or confirmation，learners tended to modify their output. According to the Output Hypothesis，such modifications contribute to the process of second language acquisition. Nobuyoshi and Ellis(1993) conducted an exploratory study involving six learners(three experimental and three under control)in a two-way information gap task, seeking to study whether clarification requests resulted in subsequent accuracy of learners，output and whether pushed out resulted in improved performance over time. Experimental subjects experienced "focused meaning negotiation" and received a clarification requests from the researcher each time they produced an utterance that contained a past tense error while the control subjects did not. As a result of the requests for clarification two of the three experimental subjects showed improvement in the accuracy of their use of the past tense and maintained this improvement one week later, while no improvement was shown by any of the control subject. This study found evidence which suggests that pushing learners to produce output leads to better acquisition and it may have a long-term effect, but not necessarily for all learners. It is possible that when learners produce output they are able to develop greater control over the features they have demonstrated in Nobuyoshi and Ellis’study. It is not clear whether pushed output can result in the acquisition of new linguistic features.

Swain and Lapkin(1995)，conducted a study involving 18 students from an eighth grade early French immersion class who were trained to think aloud while writing an article for a newspaper and found that, as they were encouraged to produce their second language, learners did recognize problems during production and notice gaps in their linguistic knowledge. They also found that recognition of problems often triggers cognitive processes that have been implicated in second language learning: processes that either generate linguistic knowledge that is new for the learners or consolidate their existing knowledge. Based on these findings, Swain and Lapkin argue that output not only leads to noticing of the gaps in second language knowledge, which plays a consciousness-raising function, but also facilitates language acquisition by triggering various internal cognitive processes conducive to second language acquisition.

Izumi(1999，2000) attempted to investigate the question of whether the awareness of Problems during Production can prompt learners to notice relevant features with more focused attention if input is subsequently provided to them. Learners were provided opportunities to receive relevant input to see whether they would notice and learn the targeted features in the input. In his study, Izumi compared two groups of ESL students regarding their learning of a grammatical structure in English. The experimental group produced written output: essay-writing tasks and text reconstruction tasks, and then was presented with relevant input in the form of short reading passages: The comparison group was exposed to the same input for the Purpose of comprehension only. The studies have three major findings as follows: First, the experimental group and the comparison group demonstrated increased noticing of the target form，as measured by participant's underlining as they read the input passages. Second, the significant rate of uptake of experimental group demonstrated a the target from in their production immediately following exposure to the input. Third, the experimental group made significantly larger gains on the production tests after the treatment than did the comparison group. These results lend some support to the noticing function of output in second language acquisition. Gass(1985) discussed the possible ways in which output may serve important language learning purposes:(a)testing hypothesis about the structures and feedback for meaning of the target languages,(b)receiving crucial the confirmation of these hypotheses,(c)developing automatically in learners’ interlingua system, and (d)forcing a shift from more meaning-based process of the L2to a syntactic mode.

In 1997, Susan M. Gass combined and further developed Klashen’s input Hypothesis and Swain’s Output Hypothesis in her study, thus deepened the understanding of the theory and also applied it to wider fields. According to Gass，there are five stages that account for the conversion of input to output :apperceived input, comprehended input, intake, integration, and output. Once the prior knowledge get apperceived, then it goes through the stages one by one till giving output after the integration stage，and gets tested and finishes one cycle. It is a dynamic learning system with each stage as an integral.

2.5.3 Researches on Output Hypothesis in China

Since Swain put forward the Output Hypothesis, some Chinese researchers and teachers are interested in it. They constantly publish articles to introduce this theory to China. The earlier studies are mostly introduction of this theory and the discussion of the roles of input and output and its inspiration to our foreign language teaching, such as ZhaoPing(2000), Lu Renshun(2002) and ZhaoPei(2004). ZhaoPing(2000)discusses the two roles of output(noticing and hypothesis- testing) in the process of writing. Lu Renshun(2002)introduces the researches done on the Output Hypothesis and the functions of output and put forward several implications of researches for China's English teaching. ZhaoPei(2004) thinks that undue emphasis on either input or output is not proper and only through the close combination of the two can improve learners' foreign language learning.

There are also some experimental studies on the influence of production-based instruction on learners, production abilities. WangYing(2003) addresses the functions of output entraining learners’ language intuitions. The study by FengJiyuan and HuangJiao(2004) closely followed the experimental procedure of the studies done by Izumi(2000), making only few modifications. The findings of this study consistent with those of Izumi et a1.(2000) proved the effectiveness of output practice in helping learners acquire linguistic forms. The research done by Wang Chuming(2000)shows that composition-writing can improve learners’ English production ability. WuFei(2005) testifies the positive effect of comprehensible output on the efficiency of language learning, which conforms to Wang Chuming’s proposal. Zhou Dandan(2006) conducted a research on the effects of different input and output frequencies. Li Hong(2002} put forward her doubt on the noticing function of the output hypothesis. In her opinion, both language meaning and form compete for learners’ limited cognitive resources，so the premise for output to play a role in language acquisition is that learners have enough cognitive resources. She thought that output hypothecs is neglected this problem.

2.6 Longs Interaction Hypothesis

According to Krashen, SLA depends completely on comprehensible input. However, evidence shows that "comprehensible input alone is insufficient, particularly with adults and if native-like proficiency is the goal" (Long, 1996). Based on the study of Krashen's. Input Hypothesis, Long proposed the Interaction Hypothesis in 1983.There are two main claims in the Interaction Hypothesis. One is the negotiation of meaning and the other is the interactive modification.

2.6.1 The Negotiation of Meaning

The "Interaction Hypothesis" not only highlights the importance of comprehensible input in language acquisition, but also emphasizes the importance of the negotiation of meaning in it. Long argues that input that has not been comprehended may become comprehensible through the process of negotiation. Strategies used by the speakers to avoid or overcome difficulties in interaction such as repetition, reformulation, confirmation check, comprehension check, clarification request and so on are called negotiation of meaning (Gass, 1997). Ellis defines negotiation of meaning as "the interactive work that takes place between speakers when some misunderstanding occurs". (Rod Ellis, 1997:141) Negotiation of meaning refers to the conversational exchanges that take place when interlocutors tryto avoid communicative impasse exchanges. It is a process of preventing and modifying the gap of understanding, which brings interactive comprehensible input. And at the same time, it offers opportunities for output. The negotiation of meaning has the following two results. First, it keeps the interaction going on and gets things done. Second, more importantly, it makes the learners not only pay attention to the language form of their own but that of their encounters'. By making a comparison between the language forms, learners will notice the gap between their interlanguage and the target language or the more target-like language. The following example may well illustrate the reasons why the negotiation of meaning can make the comprehensible input more effective.

Example 1:

Hiroko: A man is uh drinking c-coffee or tea with uh the