An Empirical Research On The Noticing Function Of Oral Output

Although output has long been considered an important part of language teaching and learning, whether and how it contributes to language learning are not seriously contemplated prior to Swain's (1985) important paper, in which the Output Hypothesis was first proposed. According to Swain's Output Hypothesis, comprehensible input alone is not sufficient for learners to fully develop their language proficiency. In order to master a language, both comprehensible input and comprehensible output are needed. Output is also an important causal factor in language learning. It can enhance the fluency and accuracy of learners' language use. Among several functions of output specified in the Output Hypothesis, this thesis aims to explore the noticing function. The noticing function of output means that the activity of producing the target language can prompt language learners to recognize their problems in their interlanguage and bring to their attention what they need to discover about the target language. If the relevant input is immediately available to these learners, they may process it with more focused attention, thus facilitating language learning. Studies of various kinds have been conducted to explore this function of output, but most of these studies used written output task in their experiments. There is only a paucity of researches investigating the effect of oral output. The present experimental study tends to focus on this area and investigates whether the learner's oral output promote the learning of a grammatical form embedded in the aural input and whether learners of the output group outperform those of the non-output group, who only engage in comprehension activity in learning a grammatical form.The subjects of this study were sophomores of the Economic Department of a college in Jinan. Based on the scores they got in the pretest conducted two weeks before the experiment, they were randomly assigned to two groups: an experimental group and a control group. Each group consisted of ten students. The target form of this study was the past hypothetical conditional in English.In the treatment phases, the two groups were exposed to the same input material for the same amount of time. The major difference between them was the different tasks they were engaged in. The experimental group was engaged in picture description tasks, which aimed to elicit oral production from the subjects. The control group was only required to comprehend the input material by doing picture sequencing tasks.In order to assess learning outcomes of the subjects, an immediate posttest and a delayed posttest were conducted. SPSS (Statistic Package of Social Science) was employed to process the data collected.The results of this study demonstrated that giving learners an opportunity for oral output indeed had the facilitative effect on language learning. After engaging in the output activities, the experimental group made significant improvement in using the target form and this improvement maintained even after four weeks. Besides, in both of the posttests the experimental group outperformed the control group in using the target form.These results lend support to Swain's Output Hypothesis and have several important pedagogical implications. First, the traditional viewpoints on output should be changed. Output should be considered not only a sign of acquired knowledge, but also a sign of learning at work. English teachers should pay greater attention to the functions of output in language learning, provide students with more output activities and let them learn English by using it. Second, when designing an output task, teachers should take into consideration various factors, such as students' proficiency level, the task demand and the cognitive processes that the output activities are likely to involve. Only in this way can the potential noticing and learning function of output be maximized. Third, the backwash effect of the output test should be fully utilized.