Last week, I had a private lesson with one of my French students who had written a short passage for homework. When correcting her assignment together, I noticed my student had used a number of words and phrases that I didn’t think she knew, so I asked her if she remembered where she had come across them. She proceeded to explain that she had heard them used by a native speaker and that she decided to use them in her writing. I praised her for doing this and then felt inspired to write this short article about input and output.
Input Drives Output
Input refers to listening and reading. Output refers to speaking and writing. Many language learners don’t know that, in most cases, plenty of input (listening and reading) is a prerequisite to output (speaking and writing) for a number of reasons such as:
Input increases your vocabulary. This is particularly true for reading. Vocabulary is required to express yourself.
Input shows you examples of grammar rules being used in the real world. If you only learn grammar using rote methods, you are unlikely to be able to apply the grammar when speaking spontaneously.
Input gives you an opportunity to imitate a native speaker’s speech, accelerating the learning process and making you come across more naturally
The input you consume should be interesting and challenging to understand, but not so challenging that you get frustrated. If you don’t know what content to consume to get sufficient amounts of input for your target language, feel free to contact me by email or @polyglotazren on Instagram.
Output is Still Important
Even though input drives output, you cannot listen and read your way to a high degree of proficiency. At some point in your learning journey, you will need to incorporate output. You can hire a tutor, find a language exchange partner, attend events on Meetup.com, or even talk to yourself.
Thank you for taking the time to write this article. It resonates a lot with me as I try to get as much input as possible to better express myself later with my English speaking friends. I usually choose day-to-day vocabulary to come across more natural.