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Output is anything that learners produce in the language that they’re learning. Output should be focused on communicating meaning, not filling in blanks to apply grammatical rules.
Output takes the form of speaking or writing (or in the case of signed languages, signing). In some cases (presentational speaking and writing), learners have time to prepare and may even be able to use outside tools such as dictionaries. Other output opportunities are more spontaneous and rely solely on what learners are able to produce in the moment (such as interpersonal speaking).
Q: Do memorized dialogues count as output?
A: No. Output needs to be language produced by the learner, not just “repeat after me” or memorized passages. While learners do use memorized words and phrases in their speech and writing, they use them in ways that communicate what they need to say, not an entire passage or dialogue,
Q: What if they say it wrong and learn it that way?
A: You can’t get fossilized by saying something wrong as you’re learning. Just as children replace babyish speech with successively more adultlike speech and don’t get fossilized with babylike speech, learners can keep improving through more interaction and output even after communicating in more rudimentary ways. (Watch for an upcoming blog post on fossilization to learn more!)
Q: It’s the teacher correcting them that helps, right?
A: Actually, it’s not! At a certain point, when their language system is more developed, some correction can help smooth out some things that for some reason they never quite sorted out from the input. But early on, when they’re learning to communicate, correcting every error does more harm than good. Their linguistic system hasn’t developed enough to be able to accept the correction yet, and they will just get more anxious about speaking.
See how output interacts with other components of language acquisition in the Science of Languages.
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