Swain, M. (2000) The output hypothesis and beyond: mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue. In J. P. Lantolf (ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 97–114). New York: Oxford University Press.
As an attempt to broaden many of the postulates of the “traditional” SLA theories, Swain claims that output plays an important role in language acquisition. In addition, she believes that interaction provides learners with opportunities to more meaningfully use the target language, which would lead them to reflect upon the language and better acquire it. Swain’s main objective in this text is to demonstrate that student production of language through interaction has a significant role in language acquisition.
Swain reveals that her motivation to do research on the role of output on language learning comes from her observation of the written and spoken production of L2 French students. Despite over six years of comprehensible input, students’ speaking and writing productions included numerous grammatical and syntactic deviations from native-speaker usage. As a result, Swain points out that the low usage of French and limited interaction between students throughout the course prejudiced the level of acquisition.
In order to demonstrate the importance of speaking, Swain cites a series of experiments which focused on the role of language as a mediating tool to acquisition. She shows that when students verbalize their strategies of speaking while interacting they are more successful in using verbs accurately. These findings suggest that external speech mediates their language learning and helps them become aware of their problems, predict their linguistic needs and evaluate their performance. Swain also observes that interaction ameliorates language acquisition, facilitating the appropriation of both strategic processes and linguistic knowledge. The author concludes not only that studies on language acquisition based solely on input may be insufficient for the complexity of this process but also that an account of the role of output would be the missing factor in many of the investigations in the field.
The principles of the Output Hypothesis applied to the development of teaching materials bring important contributions to the process of language acquisition, mainly in regards to developing materials that are able to make students interact with one another and produce meaningful conversations in the target language. In addition to the production of language, materials developed on the output basis will encourage students to reflect upon their own learning and develop different strategies to understand and mediate their interaction with their peers. Although Swain’s investigations focused on the acquisition of grammatical aspects of the language, features of this hypothesis can be used to study the use of language for communicative purposes in which learners’ communication is more concerned with meaning rather than form, but more empirical studies are needed to foreground their usage.