Anissa Khaldi is a teacher in Abou bekr Belkaid University, Algeria, and today she’s also a contributor to the World of Better Learning! Anissa is a TEFL and applied linguistics specialist and her current interests revolve around teacher training and educational technology. In this article, she discusses the importance of input in the ELT classroom.
Input in L2
L2 learners need massive amounts of input in the form of listening and reading. In second language acquisition research, input is said to provide opportunities for both incidental intentional learning (Ellis and Shintani, 2014).
“If learners do not receive exposure to the target language they cannot acquire it.” (Ellis, 2014, p.38)
The importance of input
Listening input provides learners with the different types of knowledge required for language learning: phonology, grammar, vocabulary, language use (Rost, 2005). Reading is another major source of input. Good readers, who have developed a sound knowledge, are also successful writers and speakers (Anderson, 2013).
“It is difficult to imagine an academically successful individual in the twenty-first century who is not an avid and effective reader.” (Anderson, 2013, p. 218)
How can learners benefit from input effectively?
It is crucial for learners to have access to quality and quantity input that they need for effective learning. Thus, a number of researchers proposed the following conditions (Ellis and Shintani, 2014; Nation, 2007):
- Learners’ motivation: Learners need to be interested in what they hear and read.
- The level of difficulty: Only a small amount of input should be unknown to learners.
- Quantity: Learners need to listen and read to large amounts of input.
- Attention: Learners need to pay attention to input. This can be done through enriching input (seeding input with specific structures and words), enhancing input (emphatic stress, colouring, underlining, etc.), and text elaboration (adding meanings of lexical items through glosses or paraphrases).
Sources of input
- Course books: Learners usually read and listen materials available in their course books. Yet, “it can be claimed with confidence that if the only input students receive is in the context of a limited number of weekly lessons based on some course book, they are unlikely to achieve high levels of L2 proficiency” (Ellis and Shintani, 2014, p.24).
- Teacher talk: When L2 is the object and medium of instruction, teachers often use simplifications and repetitions making, thus, input comprehensible to learners. Repetitions and paraphrasing also make some linguistic aspects salient, which may aid acquisition (Ellis and Shintani, 2014).
- Extensive input: Opportunities to receive input outside the classroom are available through extensive reading (Ellis, 2014) and extensive listening (Harmer,2007). Extensive reading and listening should involve learners in performing a number of tasks. For example, they can summarize what they heard, write comments about the listening texts, present oral reports without mentioning the end of the story, design posters, write reaction reports – for example about the characters they identify with and events they like.
References
Anderson, N. J. (2012). Reading instruction. In A. Burns & J. C. Richards (Eds.), The Cambridge guide to pedagogy and practice in second language teaching (pp. 218–225). Cambridge: Cambridge university press.
Ellis, R. (2014). Principles of instructed second language learning. In M. Celce-Murcia, D. Brinton and M. Snow (eds.), teaching English as a second or foreign language (4th ed.) (pp. 31–45). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Ellis, R. & Shintani, N. (2014). Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research. London: Routledge.
Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English language teaching. England: Longman.
Nation, P. (2007). The Four Strands. Innovation in language learning and teaching, 1,1, 1-12.
Rost, M. (2005). L2 listening. In Hinkel, E. (Ed.) Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 503-527). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
If you enjoyed this article and want to read posts from our other contributors, you’ll enjoy Louanne Piccolo’s piece about top tips for teaching teens in the EFL classroom.