Download - Input ESOL
What is Input?
• A variety of student and teacher characteristics– Intelligence– Sex– Personality– Learning style– Teaching style– Previous experience– Motivation– Attitudes
Features of Input
• Simplified, input is “general learning or teaching style”
• Students in other countries learning English:– Depend almost entirely on classroom to improve
English skills– Only hear “Teacher talk”
– Short, simple, grammatically correct sentences– General, high frequency vocabulary– Unreal, irrelevant questions– Teachers do most of the talking– Uninteresting topics
Optimal Input• Stephen Krashen• Said “optimal input” in
the classroom should:– Be comprehensible– Be interesting– Be in sufficient quantity– Be authentic
• If learner is exposed to these, language acquisition more likely to occur
“Be Comprehensible”
• Material should be reasonably paced
• Material should not be too demanding– If a student cannot keep
up with the rate of exposure, he will fail to comprehend and thus fail to acquire
“Be Interesting”
• Most textbooks available to Chinese ELLs are designed to cater solely to the needs of exams
• To prepare for these tests, students have little time to read more interesting materials
“Be In Sufficient Quantity”• Main concern of optimal
input hypothesis• Difference between
learning English in native vs. target language environment
• Students may only have textbook to rely on– Important to provide
material from which they can derive meaning rather than just grammatical concepts
“Be Authentic”
• ELLs in native country are not exposed to authentic speech patterns
• Must learn more than “textbook English”, which:– Simplifies material
lexically and syntactically– Loss of cultural meaning
Application in the Classroom
• Relevant/interesting topics within the classroom– Student life
• Clothing• Family• Likes/dislikes
– Immediate environment• Classroom
Application continued.• Language activities
establishing relationships between forms and meanings– Hands-on activities– Using spoken/written forms to
achieve a goal• Teaching both formal AND
informal English– Present a conversation in
formal English– With another English speaker,
“perform” the same dialogue informally
– Lead a discussion with the students pointing out the differences
In Conclusion• English language
teachers ought to provide students with optimal input
• Encourage students to explore optimal input outside of classroom
• If teachers could employ this strategy, they should find their teaching more effective
Source
• Wang, Xiaoru (2010). Features of Input of Second Language Acquisition. Journal
• Of Language Teaching And Research, 1(3). Retrieved July 5, 2010, from
• http://www.academypublisher.com/ojs/index.php/jltr/article/view/0103282284/1813