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Language development is comprehension based, not production based.
It makes
sense empirically as well as intuitively to emphasize comprehension over
production at least in the initial stages of L2 development. Comprehen-
sion, according to several scholars (see Krashen, 1982; Winitz, 1981, for ear-
lier reports; Gass, 1997; van Patten, 1996, for later reviews), has cognitive,
affective, and communicative advantages. Cognitively, they point out, it is
better to concentrate on one skill at a time. Affectively, a major handicap
for some learners is that speaking in public, using their still-developing L2,
embarrasses or frightens them; they should therefore have to speak only
when they feel ready to do so. Communicatively, listening is inherently in-
teractive in that the listeners try to work out a message from what they hear;
speaking can be, at least in the initial stages, no more than parrotlike repeti-
tions or manipulations of a cluster of phonological features.
Learning-centered pedagogists believe that comprehension helps learn-
ers firm up abstract linguistic structures needed for the establishment of
mental representations of the L2 system (see Section 2.4 on intake proc-
esses). Prabhu (1987, pp. 78–80), lists four factors to explain the impor-
tance of comprehension over production in L2 development:
·
Unlike production, which involves public display of language causing a
sense of insecurity or anxiety in the learner, comprehension involves
only a safe, private activity;
·
unlike production, which involves creating and supporting new lan-
guage samples on the part of the learner, comprehension involves lan-
guage features that are already present in the input addressed to the
learner;
·
unlike production, which demands some degree of verbal accuracy
and communicative appropriacy, comprehension allows the learner to
be imprecise, leaving future occasions to make greater precision possi-
ble;
·
unlike production, over which the learner may not have full control,
comprehension is controlled by the learner and is readily adjustable.
Prabhu also points out that learners can draw on extralinguistic resources,
such as knowledge of the world and contextual expectations, in order to
comprehend.
140
CHAPTER 7
Learning-centered pedagogists also believe that once comprehension is
achieved, the knowledge/ability to speak or write fluently will automatically
emerge. In accordance with this belief, they allow production to emerge
gradually in several stages. These stages typically consist of (a) response by
nonverbal communication; (b) response with single words such as
yes
,
no
,
there
,
OK
,
you
,
me
,
house
,
run
, and
come
; (c) combinations of two or three
words such as
paper on table, me no go
,
where book
, and
don’t go
; (d) phrases
such as I
want to stay
,
where you going
,
boy running
; (e) sentences; and finally
(f) more complex discourse (Krashen &Terrell, 1983).
Because of their emphasis on comprehension, learning-centered peda-
gogists minimize the importance of learner output. Krashen (1981) goes to
the extent of arguing that, in the context of subconscious language acquisi-
tion, “theoretically, speaking and writing are not essential to acquisition.
One can acquire ‘competence’ in a second language, or a first language,
without ever producing it” (pp. 107–108). In the context of conscious lan-
guage learning, he believes that “output can play a fairly direct role . . . al-
though even here it is not necessary” (1982, p. 61). He has further pointed
out that learner production “is too scarce to make a real contribution to lin-
guistic competence” (Krashen, 1998, p. 180). The emphasis learning-cen-
tered methods place on comprehension, however, ignores the role of
learner output in L2 development. We learned from Swain’s comprehensi-
ble output hypothesis and Schmidt’s auto-input hypothesis that learner
production, however meager it is, is an important link in the input–in-
take–output chain (see chap. 2 and chap. 3, this volume).
Language development is cyclical and parallel, not sequential and additive.
Learning-centered pedagogists believe that the development of L2 knowl-
edge/ability is not a linear, discrete, additive process but a cyclical, holistic
process consisting of several transitional and parallel systems—a view that
is, as we discussed in chapter 2, quite consistent with recent research in
SLA. Accordingly, they reject the notion of linearity and systematicity as
used in the language- and learner-centered pedagogies. According to them
linearity and systematicity involve two false assumptions: “an assumption
of isomorphism between the descriptive grammar used and the internal
system, and an assumption of correspondence between the grammatical
progression used in the teaching and the developmental sequence of the
internal system” (Prabhu, 1987, p. 73). These assumptions require, as
Widdowson (1990) observed, reliable information “about cognitive devel-
opment at different stages of maturation, about the conditions, psychologi-
cal and social, which attend the emergence in the mind of general prob-
lem-solving capabilities” (p. 147). Such information is not yet available.
In fact, the natural-order hypothesis proposed by Krashen as part of his
Monitor Model states that the acquisition of grammatical structures pro-
ceeds in a predictable order. Based on this claim, Krashen originally advo-
LEARNING-CENTERED METHODS
141
cated adherence to what he called
natural order sequence
, but has softened
his position saying that the natural order hypothesis “does not state that ev-
ery acquirer will acquire grammatical structures in the exact same order”
(Krashen & Terrell, 1983, p. 28). Learners may tend to develop certain
structures early and certain other structures late. In other words, learner
performance sequence need not be the same as language learning se-
quence, and the learning sequence may not be the same as teaching se-
quence. Therefore, any preplanned progression of instructional sequence
is bound to be counterproductive. In this respect, learning-centered peda-
gogists share the view expressed earlier by Newmark and Reibel (1968): “an
adult can effectively be taught by grammatically unordered materials” and
that such an approach is, indeed, “the only learning process which we know
for certain will produce mastery of the language at a native level” (p. 153).
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