Problems with the Skill-Building Hypothesis

There are serious problems with the Skill-Building Hypothesis: The effects of deliberate, direct skill-based instruction are very weak and fragile. Studies claiming to show a positive effect for grammar study show only that grammar study makes a limited contribution to competence: Subjects in all of these studies have been experienced "grammar learners," are given extensive training, and make only modest progress on tests that focus them on the target form, which are usually given immediately after the treatment (Krashen, 2003; Truscott, 1998). In terms of theory, the conditions for Monitor use (Krashen, 1982) are met in these studies.

The systems involved (grammar, spelling, vocabulary, etc) are too complex to be consciously learned.

Numerous cases exist of "acquisition without learning," cases of people who have reached very high levels of competence without skill-based instruction. There are, however, no known cases of high levels of proficiency without comprehensible input.

The skill-building hypothesis is an "output" hypothesis, that is, it demands that students produce language in order to acquire it. Actual output, according to skill-builders, serves two functions: (1) it exposes our errors, which can then be corrected, and corrections are supposed to lead to better rules, and (2) repeated output is supposed to help us solidify or "automatize" our knowledge of rules. But the amount of output we produce, either in speech or writing, is far too small to account for more than a small fraction of what we eventually acquire. In addition, correction is infrequent and studies show that it has either no effect or a weak effect, with its impact only evident in studies in which students are able to focus on form on the posttest (Krashen, 2002; Truscott, 1996), that is, when the conditions for the use of conscious Monitor are met.

An alternative to both the Skill-Building and Comprehension Hypotheses is the Comprehensible Output Hypothesis, which claims that language is acquired when we produce it, fail to communicate our meaning, and then try again, eventually succeeding in communicating by using a form that is correct. This hypothesis suffers from findings showing that few instances of comprehensible output actually occur: There are few instances in which language acquirers fail to communicate and then re-formulate their message in a way that brings it closer to the correct target language form. Only one experimental study (Nobuyoshi & Ellis, 1993) has attempted to demonstrate that comprehensible output is effective: Despite the authors' claims, it did not. One of the three subjects in the study failed to make any gains, only one subject made a significant improvement, and it was quite possible that the "improvement" was due to increased Monitor use of a previously learned rule (see Krashen, 2003). The Comprehensible Output hypothesis was originally formulated as a supplement to comprehensible input (Swain, 1985), but there is no evidence that it plays even a small role in language acquisition.

"Balanced" Methods

Several combination approaches have been proposed. One "balanced" method insists that methods for beginners should be based on skill-building, and that communicative activities can be introduced after the beginning stage, in order to solidify or reinforce the skills that were learned. This is really a pure skill-building approach that denies the possibility of language acquisition and that assumes that all linguistic knowledge must result from skill-building instruction.

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