Swain Vs. Krashen

Krashen vs. Swain: Input Vs. Output

After reading my Funiber material thoroughly, together with independent and complementary research, I conclude that as of now it is not possible to reconcile the opposite views from the authors Septhen Krashen and Merrill Swain, as to what constitutes second language acquisition.

There have been many studies and a lot of research from many professionals from the linguistics and educational fields on how people do learn a second language. All of these theories have been tested on different types of learners, from different cultural backgrounds to different learning levels, but as of yet no one has found the perfect theory to describe how learning a second language is acquired. Since there is no such a thing as, "one size fits all" in language acquisition.

There are too many learner variables to develop such a theory. Through this paper I aim to explain on why some of the most studied and used theories, or hypothesis in this case, in second language acquisition such as "Comprehensible Output hypothesis" by Merrill Swain and "Input Hypothesis" by Stephen Krashen. Although they share a common objective which is to make the learner internalize and build up competences in a second language, together with a cognitive development that lets them engage in situations such as problem solving, memory tasks and deductions, they stand out in differences and totally divert from one another.

This essay will clear up the concepts of output and input and their roles in acquisition and learning of a second language and explain the how´s and why´s these two theories do not reconcile as of yet.

The Comprehensible Output Theory (CO) by Merrill Swain (1985), is part of the linguistic model areas, where the focus is on the language being learned. Taking into account that by Output we mean the language that the learner produces, earlier on seen as a form to practice knowledge the student already had but not a way to acquire new one.

In this theory she states that "learning takes place when encountering a "gap" in the linguistic knowledge of the L2." (Swain, 1985, as cited in Hockly, N. and Ball, P. (Eds) (2012) 2012:56). What she means is that we gain the understanding of a new language when we try to communicate a message but we don´t succeed so we try again until we find the correct way to express what we want to express and have the other person finally understand us, and that through this we gain a new form that we have solely produced.

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