Output Hypothesis

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Using collaborative language

production tasks to promote
students’ language awareness
a a
Maria Kowal & Merrill Swain
a
Modern Language Centre , Ontario Institute for Studies
in Education , 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada , M5S 1V6
Published online: 26 Apr 2010.
To cite this article: Maria Kowal & Merrill Swain (1994) Using collaborative language
production tasks to promote students’ language awareness , Language Awareness, 3:2,
73-93, DOI: 10.1080/09658416.1994.9959845
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658416.1994.9959845
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USING COLLABORATIVE LANGUAGE
PRODUCTION TASKS TO PROMOTE
STUDENTS' LANGUAGE AWARENESS1
Maria Kowal and Merrill Swain
Modern Language Centre, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 1V6
Downloaded by [Carnegie Mellon University] at 11:07 01 February 2015
Abstract This paper presents data of 13 and 14 year old intermediate and
advanced learners of French working collaboratively to complete a text recon-
struction task. The task was designed to focus the students' attention and
discussion on the form of the message they were constructing. It was hypothe-
sised that this kind of opportunity to produce language would promote their
language learning by (1) making them aware of gaps in their existing knowledge
which they would subsequently seek to fill; (2) raising their awareness of the
links between the form, function and meaning of words as they worked to
construct their intended message; and (3) obtaining feedback that they would
receive from their peers and their teacher as they completed the task. The results
support the hypothesis and also provide rich insights for teachers, researchers
and curriculum planners into the language learning process in a collaborative
setting; the students' understandings of how language 'works'; and the effects
of certain grouping patterns on the ensuing student talk.
Introduction
Task-based learning and group work are important features of many second
language (L2) classrooms. However, there are still relatively few descriptive
accounts in the L2 research literature of participants' interactions as they carry
out an assigned task. What do participants do as they undertake a specific task
in small groups? Is there any evidence of learning, and if so, then what are they
learning? Does providing students with opportunities to use the target language
(TL) enhance fluency perhaps but not accuracy? In this paper, data are presented
of early adolescent, intermediate and advanced learners of French working
collaboratively to complete a form-focused, language production task. It is
suggested that providing students with opportunities to produce language can
enhance learning, and at the same time provide rich insights into the L2 learning
process for the researcher and the teacher.
The paper begins with a summary of research findings regarding group work
and second language learning. It is argued that for collaborative2 tasks to be used
effectively in the L2 classroom, researchers and teachers need to give careful
consideration to the choice of task and to pay close attention to how the
participants themselves interpret and complete it. To this end, a brief discussion
of the role of output in second language learning is provided as a rationale for
choosing the task presented in this paper. The participants and the task itself are
0965-8416/94/02 0073-21 $1.80/0 ©1994 M. Kowal & M. Swain
LANGUAGE AWARENESS Vol. 3, No. 2, 1994
73
74 LANGUAGE AWARENESS
next described, followed by representative examples of the kinds of interactions

which occurred during the completion of the task. The analysis of these examples
shows how providing students with opportunities to produce the TL can
promote second language learning but also requires teachers to be prepared to
negotiate (rather than to preselect) learning outcomes in response to their
students' needs. The consequences of certain grouping patterns are also
discussed. The paper ends with a discussion of implications of the research for
teachers, learners and researchers.
Group Work, Tasks and the Second Language Classroom

Much of the L2 research on group work has analysed the resulting discourse
in terms of certain features of learners' interactions, for example instances of

negotiation, corrective feedback, and turn taking (e.g. Long & Porter, 1985;
Varonis & Gass, 1985; Pica & Doughty, 1985; Duff, 1986; Pica et al, 1989; Olson
Flanigan, 1991; Pica, 1992). Such studies have shown (1) that learners have many
more opportunities to use the TL in group work than in teacher-fronted classes;
(2) that through the conversational modifications that occur in student-student
interactions, input is made more comprehensible, and (3) that as a result of
specific conversational features of interaction such as clarification requests,
learners modify their output both semantically and syntactically. This research
has been invaluable in demonstrating quantitatively what goes on when learners
and learners, or learners and teachers, interact. It provides numbers about how
many clarification requests, confirmation checks, repetitions, or output modifi-
cations, are made, allowing for comparisons among different tasks. However,
this research does little to inform the field about the substance of the interactions.
For instance, is there any evidence of the students understanding something
about the way language 'works', or of refining a hypothesis? There is certainly
evidence to the contrary which suggests that quantitative analyses of interac-
tional data can provide misleading impressions about the quality of the
interactions (Aston, 1986). In a study by Fotos & Ellis (1991) the quantitative
analysis of discourse collected during a grammar task elicited a large number of
interactional modifications but the qualitative analysis revealed that the nature
of the exchanges was mechanical and involved very little extended use of the TL.
The application of socio-cultural frameworks to the L2 context (e.g. Donato &
Adair-Hauck, 1992; Adair-Hauck & Donato, 1994; Donato, 1994; van Lier, 1994;
Aljaahfreh & Lantolf, 1994) provides us with a chance to observe the L2 learning
process; to see how task goals are internally constructed by the participants
(learners and teachers). We are beginning to increase our understanding of how
interaction and the co-construction of knowledge influence the L2 learning
process, and will be able to use this information in curriculum planning.
In view of the current interest in task-based approaches to language learning
(e.g. Nunan, 1989; Long & Crookes, 1992; Skehan, 1992; Crookes & Gass, 1993a,
1993b) it is important that L2 research continues to investigate the contributions
of group work to second language learning. For Long & Crookes (1993), one
important benefit of using tasks is to create comprehension and production
opportunities which can encourage the learner to notice new form-function
COLLABORATIVE LANGUAGE PRODUCTION TASKS 75
relationships (p. 39). In this respect, it is important that language teachers and
curriculum planners realise that some tasks may be more effective than others.
This point has been made by Crookes & Rulon (1988) and more recently by
Clennell (1994), whose video data show that because of the important role played
by non-verbal communication strategies in communication, some commonly
used activities (e.g. Spot the Difference) may not require much more than
minimal responses on the part of the learners, thereby prompting little reflection
on the links between form and function.
Results from immersion programmes (programmes which have much in
common with task-based approaches to language learning) also suggest that it
is not simply enough to provide students with opportunities for talking and
writing in French. Intermediate and advanced students have developed high

levels of strategic competence (Canale & Swain, 1980; Tarone, 1981) and as a
result, their interlanguage growth slows down unless deliberate attempts are
made to draw students' attention to how they are expressing their intended
meaning (Swain, 1988,1993; Lyster 1994).
The Output Hypothesis and the Second Language Classroom

Within the context of collaborative learning, two functions of output are
hypothesised to be important in enhancing L2 acquisition by helping students
move from the predominantly semantic type of processing required in compre-
hension to a more syntactic form of processing needed for production (Swain,
1985). First, it is hypothesised that when producing the TL, learners will
sometimes come to know what they do not know. That is to say, in attempting
to produce what they want to say, they may 'notice the gap' (Schmidt & Frota,
1986) between what they want to say and what they are able to say. This gap may
not be noticed in comprehension, because, as Krashen (1982) has suggested: 'In
many cases, we do not utilise syntax in understanding — we often get the
message with a combination of vocabulary, or lexical information plus extra-
linguistic information' (p 66).
The 'gap' noticed while producing the TL may be an unknown lexical item or
it is equally possible that it might be a particular grammatical feature that is
needed to convey precisely the learners' intended meaning. One part of the
output hypothesis proposes therefore, that, as a result of attempting to produce
language which sometimes results in 'noticing a gap', learners will turn to others,
or to their own linguistic resources and work out a solution; or they will be
primed to notice it in future input (Swain & Lapkin, 1994). This is discussed
further in the data presented below.
Second, it is hypothesised that through talk in collaborative tasks, conscious-
ness is raised. Vygotsky (1979) claims that it is through the mediation of another
that consciousness is created and raised. That is, if a task can be devised to have
learners talk about the language they are producing, their talk may well serve
the function of raising their awareness of forms, rules and their relationship to
the meaning they are trying to express. It may also give the learners control over
their learning by providing content to be reflected on, understood and controlled
(Swain, 1994).
Much of the current literature on the teaching of grammar in L2 classrooms is

reflected in a recent article by Nobuyoshi & Ellis (1993), in which they define
communicative tasks. Among their criteria, they state, 'there must be a focus on
message rather than linguistic code'. To present message and linguistic code in
such a dichotomous relationship, is, we believe, to ignore the fundamental
communicative function of many grammatical features, for example verb tenses.
Moreover, there is no reason why a communicative task cannot be one in which
learners communicate about grammar, in the context of trying to produce
something they want to say in the TL.
This point appears to have been recognised by Ellis & Fotos in other studies
(Fotos & Ellis, 1991; Fotos, 1993) in which mention is made of designing tasks
which will promote communication about grammar. This research suggests that
talking about grammar raises the learners' consciousness, such that they 'notice
the gap'. Indeed it is shown that 'a number of learners who developed knowledge
about grammar structures went on to notice those structures in communicative
input after their consciousness had been raised' (1993: 385). In spite of the
limitations of the grammar task used in the 1991 study referred to above, Fotos
& Ellis remain convinced that for intermediate and advanced learners, grammar
is an important topic to be made the subject of group work. Research conducted
by Lightbown & Spada (1990) also suggests that raising learners' consciousness
of grammatical features can promote interlanguage development.
To summarise, with tasks which result in extended student output, three
things may occur:
(1) The learner may learn something through feedback — implicit or explicit —
which s/he receives while interacting in the group.
(2) While attempting to produce an utterance, learners may come to know what
they don't know as reflected in their (in)ability to express the meaning they
wish to convey. This may lead them to search in input to find ways to express
it, or they may turn to external sources such as people and dictionaries, or
they may search their own linguistic resources to fill their knowledge gap.
(3) If the task involves producing language accurately, talk about how to do so
should help the learners to reflect on the grammar of their TL as a way of
expressing their meanings. Doing so may help them to gain control of their
own language production abilities. Finally, learners' talk provides a window
into their current understanding and insights about the TL, neither of which
can afford to be ignored by teachers or researchers.
The Study and the Students

The data presented here are part of a larger study which was designed to gain
an understanding of Grade 8 immersion students' conceptions of French
grammar and the implications of these findings for programme planning (Kowal,
in preparation).The study was designed to focus on the learners' process of
acquiring the second language. Four aspects of the process were of particular
interest:
(1) What sort of understanding of the French language do early immersion
students have after eight years in what is generally considered to be a highly

experiential second language learning environment?
(2) What happens if part of the language programme is devised deliberately to
encourage students to talk with one another about form in relation to a
meaning they wish to convey?
(3) How do students relate to each other during task completion and what effect
if any does this relationship have on the quality of the interactions?
(4) Does peer interaction produce accurate feedback about the use of particular
forms or does it rather encourage misunderstandings about the form-
function relationship in the L2?
The participants were 19 students from an intact, mixed-ability Grade 8 French
immersion class of 21 students in Toronto. The 19 students were those whose

parents had signed permission forms allowing their children to participate in the
study. The students in the class were from a lower middle to middle class
socio-economic background. Their average age was thirteen and their dominant
language was English.
The students' educational backgrounds were generally similar. All but one of
the students had participated in an early French immersion programme since
kindergarten. The exception had transferred from a mid-immersion programme
which had started in Grade 4. In Canada, immersion teachers are encouraged to
use approaches that are similar to those being used by their English counterparts.
In Ontario, where this study was conducted, these approaches reflect a
provincially recommended, learner-centred philosophy of education and a
whole-language approach to language teaching with a generally process oriented
approach to the teaching of writing. In the early grades (until Grade 3), the
students were instructed entirely in French. In later grades, instruction in English
was introduced. By Grade 8,50% of the students' programme was delivered in
English. The students were taking histoire, géographie, mathématiques and français
in French.
In spite of the overall experiential nature of L2 learning in immersion
classrooms, formal grammar is often an important feature of the French
immersion classroom (Harley et ah, 1990). It is therefore highly likely that as these
students entered their Grade 8 year, they would have been exposed to an eclectic
second language teaching approach consisting of learner-centred activities
fortified with a regular dose of traditional prescriptive grammar activities. In
completing their work, the students had probably had little cause to verbalise
why they wrote things in a particular way. Their hypotheses (explicitly or
implicitly known to them) about the way in which the French language system
operates would only be challenged when they discussed their writing during
conferences with the teacher or a peer, or when the teacher graded a paper. As
we have shown elsewhere (Kowal & Swain, forthcoming) the students had
developed many misconceptions and misunderstandings of the way in which
the French language 'works' which added to the number of errors they made in
their L2 production.
Given this situation, what might a teacher do to move the students beyond
their current interlanguage, and to encourage the development of autonomous
learners who can function independently and yet accurately? It was hypothesised
that activities incorporated into the teaching of grammar which promoted
student output and led them to reflect on the source of their output, would
encourage grammatical analysis of the TL, thereby supporting greater accuracy
in their output. The task used was a modification of the dictogloss technique as
described by Wajnryb (1990).
The Task
Dictogloss is a procedure which encourages students to reflect on their own
output. In this procedure, a short, dense text is read to the learners at normal
speed; while it is being read, students jot down familiar words and phrases; the
learners work together in small groups to reconstruct the text from their shared
resources; and the various versions are then analysed and compared in a whole
class setting. The initial text is constructed to provide practice in the use of
particular grammatical constructions. Wajnryb suggests that, "Through active
learner involvement students come to confront their own strengths and
weaknesses. In so doing, they find out what they need to know' (p 10).
The grammatical element of this task makes it different from many of the types
of tasks discussed earlier. Its use in this study was determined by its potential
for encouraging participants to focus their attention on both creating meaning
and paying attention to the way in which their meaning is expressed.
Procedure
For the study from which these data are taken, four dictoglosses were given
to the Grade 8 class over a two-month time period at bi-weekly intervals. The
interaction occurring in pair work during the third dictogloss was audio-taped
as was the subsequent teacher-fronted whole group discussion. It was thought
that, by this stage, the students would be familiar with the procedure and that
the data collected would be representative of the students' overall abilities to
reflect on their output. The students had been completing a unit on 'L'environne-
ment', a theme which complemented many of the issues they were learning about
in their geography classes. Included in the unit were discussions around the
theme, assigned reading texts and related comprehension activities, and
extended written activities. Grammatical points that had been discussed
included a review of the formation of the present tense and adjectival agreements,
as well as other incidental topics resulting from the students' writing.
In devising the dictogloss (Figure 1) the teacher (the first author of this paper)
was careful to draw on specific items of vocabulary which the students had
encountered during the course of the unit. The previous two dictoglosses had
also been based on the same theme. The present tense had been most recently
reviewed with the students, so the dictogloss was designed to provide practice
in using this feature.
Where possible, students were grouped in pairs. Duff (1986) and Doughty &
Pica (1986) have suggested that dyads provide the most appropriate grouping
for the L2 classroom. In terms of student participation, the teacher also believed
1. En ce qui concerne l'environnement, il y a beaucoup de problèmes qui nous

tracassent. As far as the environment is concerned, we are faced with many
worrying problems.
2. On essaie de trouver des solutions écologiques mais elles produisent de
nouveaux problèmes imprévus. We try to find ecological solutions but these
produce new, unforeseen problems.
3. Par exemple, les plastiques biodégradables se décomposent, mais, à la fois,
ils produisent des percolats toxiques. For example, biodegradable plastics
decompose but, in so doing, they produce new toxic waste.
4. L'eau de source n'est quelquefois que de l'eau du robinet. Spring water is
sometimes just tap water.
5. Bien sûr, on a fait beaucoup de progrès pendant les années quatre-vingt

mais il nous reste encore beaucoup à faire et à repenser. Of course we made
a lot of progress during the nineteen eighties but there still remains much for us to
do and rethink.
Figure 1 Dictogloss
that dyads would be more effective than larger groups. In groups of more than
two, it would be possible for the task to be completed with some students
assuming only a minor role in the discussion. There was one group of three
students. For the most part, the pairs were self-selected which gave rise to both
heterogeneous and homogeneous groupings. It was the teacher's belief that, at
this age level, and in view of the cooperation and openness of discussion required
by the task, self-selected groups would provide the best learning conditions for
the students.
The students knew that they had a certain amount of freedom in the way they
chose to reconstruct the passage. In order to be correct, the original sense of each
sentence needed to be present and the reconstructed sentences had to be as
grammatically accurate as the students could manage but the words and phrases
used did not have to be the same as the original ones. The amount of rephrasing
that occurred in the reconstruction of the sentences depended on individual
pairs. Most pairs chose to change parts of the text. One pair in particular found
the activity more of a challenge and more interesting to complete if they rewrote
the passage in their own words.
After taking notes individually, students were given approximately twenty
minutes to work together on reconstructing the passage. At the end of this time,
they were given another ten minutes to write their reconstructed sentences onto
an acetate for consideration by the whole class. At the end of this period, a
selection of acetates was chosen at random by the teacher for the whole class to
discuss. The discussion lasted about twenty-five minutes.
Analysis of the Data

All the data from all the groups were transcribed. For the purposes of coding
the data, critical language-related episodes (CLREs), based on the studies by
Samuda & Rounds (1993) and Swain & Lapkin (1994) were identified and
categorised. A CLRE was defined as an episode in which language was the focus
of the discussion (either meaning-based, as in how to say something in French

(Example 1), or relating to issues of accuracy, (grammatical or orthographic in
nature) (Example 2)). A CLRE began with the identification of a grammatical
point to be discussed or a sentence or phrase which needed to be reconstructed
and finished once the discussion was completed. It was possible for one episode
to be embedded within another (Example 3). 224 critical episodes were identified
and analysed from the group work and 53 from the subsequent teacher-fronted
session.
Example 1: Meaning-based
054: Lee:3 OK, pour numéro trois, OK. Um, pour un exemple, non, par
exemple, on, comment xxx, Est-ce qu'on peut utiÛser un autre

mot pour 'par exemple'?
055: Roman: Um, um.
056: Lee: Un cas c'est, les plastiques.. .les plastiques, um biodégradables.
Dans un cas, oui, in one case.
057: Roman: OK. Dans un cas, uh les plastiques biodégradables...
Example 2: Grammatical episode
041: Martin: Im-pré-vus. Im-pré-vus. Oh, j'ai déjà imprévu. Im-pré-vu.

042: Andrew: OK.
043: Martin: Avec un e-s (F) à la fin.
Example 3: Embedded
016: Andrew: Beaucoup des problèmes?
017: Martin: Beaucoup de problèmes (reading from notes). Oui, (checking to
see what Andrew has written) tu as problèmes avec un 's'?
018: Andrew: De problèmes ou des problèmes?
019: Martin: De problèmes.
The results from the analysis of the group work are shown in Table 1. The task
engendered much discussion. In all of the discussions, there were examples of
meaning-based, orthographic and grammatical CRLEs. 70% of the CLREs
focused on accuracy and precision in the production of the TL, 42% of which were
focused on grammatical issues. All of the CLREs analysed from the teacher-
fronted discussion dealt with issues of accuracy. This is because all of the
students' work which was discussed during this session successfully conveyed
the original meaning of the sentences the students had heard.
The teacher's intention in using this task was to promote discussion about the
use of the present tense, but as the data presented below show, the teacher's
specific goals were redefined by the students as they worked through the task.
There were many more topics which they needed to discuss in order to complete
the task. Nevertheless, the data illustrate how this production task encouraged
students to think about the form of the message they were constructing, and how
they collaborated with one another to construct meaningful, grammatically
correct messages, thereby consolidating and refining their knowledge of the
Table 1 Quantitative description of critical language-related episodes (group

work)
Meaning-based Episodes Grammatical Episodes Orthographic Episodes
Reconstructing the 45 Verbs 36 Spelling 47

meaning of the
original sentence in
own words
Finding synonyms for 10 Partitives 12 Accents 13
a word or a phrase
Checking to see if a 8 Adjectival agreements 11 Homophones 2
particular word exists

in French
Checking the meaning 4 Noun plurals 11
of a word
Word play 2 Pronouns 5
Prepositions 4
Word Order 3
Verb + preposition 3
Noun gender 3
Ies/des 2
le/les 2
Beaucoup de 1
Total 69 Total 93 Total 62
Percentage of total 31 42 28
episodes*
The total for this row is more than 100% due to rounding inaccuracies.
French grammatical system. The conclusion made by Brooks & Donato (1994)
about their data is valid here too:
tasks can not be externally defined or classified on the basis of specific
external task features...Rather tasks are in fact internally constructed
through the moment to moment verbal interactions of the learners during
actual task performance (p. 12).
Filling the gap

As they worked on reconstructing the sentences, students did become aware
of apparent gaps in their knowledge and points of uncertainty as predicted by
the output hypothesis. Some of these (less than 20%) were concerned with present
tense verb endings as the teacher had intended. Sentence one was particularly
successful in this respect. Upon realising that tracassent was preceded by nous,
many students wrongly assumed that nous was the subject of the verb. If this
were the case, the verb ending on the stem tracass would have to be 'ons'. When
they reread their notes taken during the dictogloss, students realised that this
was not what the teacher had said. Faced with an apparent discrepancy, they
were forced to look at the sentence more closely. We believe that in many
instances, the subsequent discussion resulted in students deepening their
understanding of certain form/function relationships (Episode 1). Such mo-
ments may represent the beginnings of the restructuring process which
McLaughlin (1990) and Skehan (1992) believe to be an important part of second
language learning.
Episode 1
(Keith's notes tell him that the word he needs is 'tracasse', but when he
refers to his verb reference book he realises that the present tense, 1st person
plural form is 'tracassons'. Unable to solve the problem alone, he seeks the
teacher's help.)
066: Keith: N'est-ce pas que tracasse, ce n'est pas nous tracasse, c'est nous
tracassons?
067: Teacher: Ce sont des problèmes qui nous tracassent (deliberately not
directly giving the answer).
068: Keith: Nous tracassons.
069: George: Qh. (beginning to realise what is happening).
070: Keith: Oui? (so what?)
071: George: Les problèmes qui nous tracassent. Like the (pause) c'est les
problèmes (pause) like, that concerns us.
072: Keith: Oui, mais tracasse n'est-ce pas que c'est <o-n-s> (F)?
073: George: Tracasse c'est pas un. c'est pas un, (pause), oui I dunno (unable
to articulate what he has discovered).
074: Keith: OK, ça dit, les problèmes qui nous tracassent. Donc, est-ce que
tracasse est un verbe? Qu'on, qu'on doit conjuger?
075: Teacher: Uh huh.
076: Keith: Donc est-ce que c'est tracassons?
077: Teacher: Ce sont les problèmes qui nous tracassent.
078: George: Nous, c'est, c'est pas, c'est pas, oui, c'est les problèmes, c'est pas,
c'est pas nous.
079: Keith: AhLEind (F), OK, OK.
It becomes clear to Keith at turn 66 that something is wrong. He is perhaps
aware of the fact that he cannot work the problem out on his own for he
immediately asks the teacher for help. The teacher (turn 67) deliberately does not
provide the correct answer but provides hints which she hopes will be sufficient
to help the students to work out the correct answer for themselves. This type of
teaching practice has been described as 'proleptic' (Donato & Adair-Hauck, 1992;
Stone, 1993) and is often associated with practice which attempts to encourage
students to construct and understand the 'expert's' position. George, at turn 69,
seems to be beginning to understand how the words are related to one another.
As the conversation continues, we can see that he lacks the necessary metalan-
guage to articulate his thoughts, and at the end of the episode, although Keith is
able to provide the correct verb ending, George is still unable to express what he
has realised in words. The teacher felt that it was perhaps unfortunate that she
did not pick up on this difficulty and explain the problem in metalinguistic terms
for this might have completed the learning experience for the students by for
example, providing George with the language necessary to articulate his
thoughts.
In Episode 2, a similar problem arises but this time Kristin assumes the role of
teacher and helps Ann to understand what is happening. In doing so, Kristin also
corrects her original answer (given at turn 69) because the response from Ann,
(turn 70), appears to make her aware of prior false reasoning. Kristin's teaching
style is much more transmissive than the teacher's in the previous example. She
tells Ann what the answer should be (turns 71,74). In both exchanges—between
the teacher and Keith and George; and between Ann and Kristin, it is clear that
learning opportunities were provided.
Episode 2
(The students' first attempt at this sentence is 'On a beaucoup de problèmes
dans l'environnement qui nous tracassent'.)
69: Kristin: Tracassons parce que c'est pluriel.
70: Ann: Ah oui, c'est, <vrai> et c'est nous.
71: Kristin: OK? Non, tracassent coz c'est les problèmes qui nous tracassent.
Alors c'est pluriel.
72: Ann: Ils, pluriel? (Ann is making a distinction here between the 3rd
person singular 'il' and the 3rd person plural 'ils' which both
sound the same.)
(Writing)
73: Ann: OK, alors tracasse, avec un e-s à la fin (Possibly influenced by
the formation of noun plurals.)
74: Kristin: (decisively) e-n-t (F).
75: Ann: Ah oui, e-n-t (F).
76: Kristin: Parce que c'est pluriel. OK, um phrase deux.
Sofie and Rachel (Episode 3) made rephrasing the dictogloss a main feature
of their work. For them, two comparatively proficient students, this was a
self-chosen means of making the activity more challenging. As this episode
shows, one result of this approach was to increase the scope of grammatical
features discussed by the students. The students realise that they lack specific
knowledge necessary to complete their sentence correctly and work together to
find the answer to their problem with neither of the students assuming the role
of teacher.
Episode 3
(The students have just begun to work on the second sentence.)
07: Rachel: Même les, les

08: Sofie: OK, oui, même les so-lu-tions é-col-logiques (pause) um (pause)
um, posent quelquefois ...des, there's an 's' on écologiques I
remember that.
09: Rachel: Oooh look at that! (congratulating her friend on her knowledge).
10: Sofie: Stud-ley, (i.e. Great!) OK, causent, e-n-t (spelling out the silent
ending in French).
11: Rachel: Caus-ah -ent (she pronounces the normally unheard ending).
12: Sofie: Studs (Great!) again! Quelquefois des
13: Rachel: Causent des nouvelles problèmes .pour nos
14: Sofie: Des nouveaux
15: Rachel: Cher <chez> nou<veaux>, des nouveaux menaces.

16: Sofie: Good one! (congratulating her friend on finding a synonym)
17: Rachel: Yeah nouveaux, des nouveaux, de nouveaux. Is it des nouveaux
or de nouveaux?
18: Sofie: (Saying the phrases over to herself) De nouveaux or des
nouvelles?
19: Rachel: Nou<veaux>, des nous<veaux>, de <nouveaux>.
20: Sofie: It's menace, un menace, une menace, un menace, menace ay ay
ay! (exasperated)
21: Rachel: Je vais le pauser (tape-recorder).
22: Sofie: (Having looked it up in the dictionary) C'est des nouvelles!
(triumphantly)
23: Rachel: C'est féminin; des nouvelles menaces.
Later on into the session their challenge leads them to discover how the present
participle is formed in French and how the past participle of a verb can also be
used as an adjective in a phrase such as 'bottled water' (The students eventually
settle on l'eau qui est embouteillée). They play with language as they rewrite the
sentences, for instance, taking a relatively new word 'tracasser' (a verb) and
creating the noun 'tracasseur' which they eventually decide is not suitable in their
context (Episode 4).
Episode 4
164: Sofie: OK l'homme ne...
165: Rachel: ...n'est pas, n'est pas la tracass. No, Notre planète...frag-
ile .. .n'est pas la tracasseur. Um Madame, (calling to teacher who
then arrives). Urn est-ce qu'il y a un mot comme tracasseur?
The dictogloss has been a successful vehicle for encouraging students to
create meaning and process language grammatically, in this case using prior
knowledge to generate new words. Thus, in general, this task encourages the
students to hypothesise about language, to apply prior knowledge, to use the
tools at their disposal (e.g. dictionaries, verb reference books) and to ask the
teacher for help as needed to encode their messages. Moreover, it has also
prompted students to go beyond the assigned grammatical feature and to
follow their own agenda.
There are of course mistakes which go unnoticed or which are avoided by the
students. At turn 17 Rachel is concerned with whether they should write des or
de. Sofie however, is more concerned over whether the adjective should be
written in its feminine or masculine form and it is on this point that the students
end up concentrating. In other instances, students' final decisions were incorrect.
This happened frequently in the case of the phrase de nouveaux problèmes, where
students often debated whether they should use de or des, and usually decided
on the latter incorrect version. However, all mistakes in the students' final
versions would either be taken up by the teacher and the rest of the class in the
follow-up whole-group discussion or when the teacher corrected the students'
work.
Interpersonal aspects
Prior to beginning the study the teacher had been very interested in grouping.
Heterogeneous groupings are often recommended for peer work. In terms of
learning theory, Vygotsky's zone of proximal development has provided us with
an influential metaphor; an adult, the 'expert' provides assistance to the learner
to enable the latter to appropriate new knowledge. By extension, it is perhaps
assumed that the more able peer will provide the same sort of assistance to the
less able peer. Yet, as Hatano (1993) has pointed out, the expert-novice pairing
does not automatically give rise to co-constructive learning environments in
which the novice appropriates new knowledge, it can also lead to transmissive
teaching practices. From her own experiences, the teacher knew that she had
needed to work consciously at providing proleptic feedback, rather than just
telling her students the answers, and she wondered if in highly heterogeneous
groupings the 'expert' students would be able to provide this sort of proleptic
assistance or whether they would simply 'tell' their friends the answer.
In highly heterogeneous groupings (e.g. upper-middle — low4), there was a
tendency for the abler student to do most of the hypothesising, either because
the weaker student was quite willing for the more advanced student to do the
work, too intimidated perhaps to say anything, or, as Episode 5 shows, not
allowed to do any of the work even if he had a valid point to put across:
Episode 5
001: Keith: En ce qui con-cerne l'environnement (writing).

002: George: Peut-être on peut mettre en ce qui nous concerne?
003: Keith: Non c'est déjà, c'est que, uh elle a dit (Le I've written down just
what the teacher said).
004: George: Mais peut-être on peut le changer.
005: Keith: Non parce que on a copié ce qu'elle a dit, donc c'est bien.
006: George: OK fine. (Begins writing the sentence as dictated by Keith).
It is possible that with the highly heterogeneous groups, there was too much
of a discrepancy in the students' French competence for them to be able to work
successfully with one another, for neither student's needs were within the zone
of proximal development of the other's (Vygotsky, 1987). Personality traits may

also be an issue here.
In the more homogeneous pairs, the initial analysis of the data suggests that
the contributions of members were more balanced. Both members contributed
to the discussion. The role of 'teacher' alternated between students, both
highlighted points for discussion and both assumed the responsibility for finding
the answer to their questions. Students alternately built on each other's
comments to refine the intended message and to improve the accuracy of how
they were going to say it. The following grouping was composed of two high
proficiency students and one upper-middle proficiency student.
Episode 6
106: Ruth: Non. Quelquefois ça produit um, de nouveaux problèmes.

107: Sarah: Ça produise de problèmes imprévus.
108: Ruth: De nouveaux problèmes imprévus.
109: Sarah: De nouveaux problèmes imprévus.
110: Gaby: Mais, comment est-ce qu'on écrit ça? S-a? (F)
111: Sarah: S-a, (F) No. Hold on! Attendez!
112: Ruth: Non avec un c (F)
113: Sarah: C-a, (F) elle a, c'est vrai.
114: Ruth: N'oublie pas la cédille.
The same phenomenon was also observed in low proficiency groups.
Episode 7
051: John: Par exemple
052: Tim: OK.. .j'ai écrit, par exemple, plastiques...
053: John: bio-dégréables (mispronounced)
054: Tim: en se décompos
055: John: se décomposent
056: Tim: se décomposent mais ils fait des <perquilats> (mispronounced)
toxiques, où quelque chose comme ça.
057: John: J'ai eu, par exemple, le plastique biodégréable (mispronounced)
se décompose mais quand il fait ça, il produit des percolats
toxiques...
058: Tim: xxx OK, OK.
Stone (1993) believes that for the collaborative learning process to succeed, the
participants 'must share some minimal set of presuppositions of the situation at
hand, and the two participants must respect each others' perspectives' (p.178).
For this respect to occur, participants need to trust one another's opinions and
all participants need to be considered as playing a legitimate role in the learning
process, in Episode 5, Keith's intonation suggested that he did not respect
George's contributions. However, there were heterogeneous groups in which the
collaboration was successful. Episode 2, between Ann (lower-middle) and
Kristin (upper-middle) illustrates this point. Perhaps what needs to be avoided
are extreme degrees of heterogeneity. It would also seem, judging from the data
from low-low groups, that some degree of heterogeneity might have been more
beneficial for these students.
Discussion
The data show evidence of learners 'noticing the gap' between what they want
to say and what they are able to say. As predicted by the output hypothesis, this
happens as the students try to produce the target language. Secondly, and equally
as important, this triggered a search for a solution. Students worked together to
solve their linguistic difficulties, making form the focus of their discussions. The
students formed hypotheses and tested them out against the dictionary, the
Bescherelle, the teacher and each other. Vocabulary, morphology and complex
syntactic structures each became the focus of their attention, and in turn their
attention became focused by talking about the problem. Verbalisation of the
problem allowed them the opportunity to reflect on it and better understand it.
In the data there are examples of students creating forms which are new to them,
as well as refining and consolidating existing knowledge of the French
grammatical system and its vocabulary. The next challenge is to demonstrate that
learning has occurred as a result of this focus on form in collaborative tasks,
stimulated by the need to produce the target language accurately (LaPierre,
1994).
Thirdly, in spite of the teacher's teaching and intentions with respect to this
task, the specific goals of the activity were redefined by the students. Neverthe-
less, the activity still encouraged students to pay attention to accuracy and
form/function links and, through the whole group discussion the teacher was
able to provide corrective feedback based on the students' needs. Control of the
task goals and the learning outcomes was thus negotiated by the students and
the teacher. Different learners at different ages and different levels of proficiency
might have identified and dealt with an entirely different set of linguistic
problems and issues. What 'gaps' learners notice and how they deal with them
is surely an area for further research. It cannot be assumed that a group of learners
involved in a collaborative task will behave in the way that the designer of the
task intended. Teachers need to listen to what their students are saying and to
act accordingly.
The dictogloss, as used, was a deeply contextualised activity. The relationship
between meaning, form and function is closely intertwined. It is possible that
continued practice with this type of activity might make students more aware of
how specific grammatical problems continually arise in the process of producing
text. It may result in a much more context sensitive knowledge of rules and ability
to apply them than other less deeply contextualised tasks.
Finally, for this task and in this class at least, groupings which were not highly
heterogeneous appeared to lead to more productive discussion for all students,
not just those who were already confident about their French language skills. In
terms of the quality of the student interaction, the data show that students can
provide useful feedback to one another, and that this task does encourage
students to move from the semantic processing dominant in comprehension to
the grammatical processing needed for production, an important aspect of the
output hypothesis. Researchers and teachers might therefore reconsider the

importance of including opportunities for students to produce extended output
in collaborative circumstances, even if this does entail the teacher giving up a
degree of control over the language used and discussed in the L2 classroom.
Notes
1. This research was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada (#410-93-0050) to Merrill Swain to conduct empirically based
research based on the Output Hypothesis, and a doctoral fellowship (#752-93-0788) to
Maria Kowal.
2. We have used the term 'collaborative' rather than 'cooperative' in this paper as a
general term to refer to group work situations where participants learn from the expert
knowledge of their peers and in turn, provide assistance to the group. Ideally, the
interaction which occurs is similar to that described by Vygotsky (1978) in reference
to teaching and learning within the zone of proximal development. We do not claim
there is a hard and fast distinction between the terms 'collaborative' and 'cooperative',
we simply wish to avoid confusion with other specific approaches to group work
commonly referred to by the term 'cooperative'.
3. The following notations have been used in the transcriptions: ( ) indicates editorial
comments added by the authors; <...> indicates text added by the transcriber to aid
comprehension;......indicates utterances made simultaneously; xxx indicates a word
which the transcriber could not understand; '...' indicates that students are reading
text. (F) said in French. A translation of the transcripts is given in the Appendix.
4. For the purposes of analysis, the students were grouped according to French profi-
ciency as follows: high, upper-middle, lower-middle, low. These groupings were made
according to student performance from the previous year and at the end of Grade 8.
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Appendix
Example 1: Meaning-based
054: Lee: OK, for number three, OK...Urn, for an example, no, for
example, we, How xxx, Can we use another word for 'for
example'?
055: Roman: Urn, urn.

056: Lee: One case, one case is plastic...urn, biodegradable plastic. Dans
un cas, yeh, in one case.
057: Roman: OK. In one case, uh, biodegradable plastic.
Example 2: Grammatical
041: Martin: Un-fore-seen. Un-fore-seen. Oh, I already have unforeseen
(written down). Un-fore-seen.
042: Andrew: OK.
043: Martin: With e-s at the end.
Example 3: Embedded
016: Andrew: Many problems, with de or des in front?

017: Martin: Many problems (reading from notes). Yes, (checking to see what
Andrew has written) Do you have an 's' on the end of
'problems'?
018: Andrew: De problems or des problems?
019: Martin: De problems.
Episode 1
066: Keith: (Keith's notes tell him that the word he needs is'tracasse', but
when he refers to his verb reference book he realises that the
present tense, 1st person plural form is 'tracassons'. Unable to
solve the problem alone, he seeks the teacher's help.) You don't
say nous tracasse do you? Shouldn't it be nous tracassons?
067: Teacher: It's the problems that are worrying us (deliberately not directly
giving the answer).
068: Keith: Nous tracassons.
069: George: Oh (beginning to realise what is happening).
070: Keith: Yeh? (So what?).
071: George: The problems which are worrying us. Like the (pause). It's the
problems (pause) like, that concern us.
072: Keith: Yes, but tracasse shouldn't it be <o-n-s>?
073: George: Tracasse. It's not a, it's not a (pause), yeh, I dunno (unable to
articulate what he has discovered).
074: Keith: OK, it says problems which worry us. Therefore, is tracasse a verb
that you have to conjugate?
075: Teacher: Uhhuh.
076: Keith: So is it tracassons?
077: Teacher: It's the problems which are worrying us.
078: George: Us, it's, it's not, yeh, it's the problems, it's not, it's not us.
079: Keith: Ah! H-n-t (3rd person plural ending) OK, OK.
Episode 2
69: Kristin: Tracassons because it's plural.
70: Ann: Ah yes, that's true and it's nous.
71: Kristin: OK? No, tracassent cause it's the problèmes which concern us. So
it's plural.
72: Ann: 3rd person plural?
(Writing)
73: Ann: OK, then tracasse, with an 'e-s' at the end (Possibly influenced by
the formation of noun plurals).
74: Kristin: (Decisively) e-n-t.
75: Ann: Ah yes, e-n-t.
76: Kristin: Because it's plural. OK urn sentence two.
Episode 3
07: Rachel: Even the, the,

08: Sofie: OK, yes, even ecological solutions,.(pause), um, (pause), urn,
sometimes present, there's an's'on écologiques I remember that.
09: Rachel: Oooh look at that! (congratulating her friend on her knowledge).
10: Sofie: Stud-ley, (i.e. Great!) OK, cause, e-n-t (spelling out the silent
third person plural verb ending in French).
11: Rachel: Cause-ah -'ent' (she pronounces the normally unheard third
person plural verb ending).
12: Sofie: Studs (Great!) again! Sometimes,
13: Rachel: Cause new problems for our
14: Sofie: New
15: Rachel: Look up the spelling of new, as in new threats.
16: Sofie: Good one! (congratulating her friend on finding a synonym for
'problem')
17: Rachel: Yeah new, des new, de new (which partitive form to use). Is it des
new or de new?
18: Sofie: (Saying the phrases over to herself) De nouveaux (masculine
plural form of the adjective new) or des nouvelles (feminine plural
form of the adjective new)?
19: Rachel: New, des new, de new.
20: Sofie: It's threats, is 'threat' masculine or plural? (exasperated)
21: Rachel: I'm going to put it on pause (tape-recorder).
22: Sofie: (Having looked it up in the dictionary) It's the feminine form of
new! (triumphantly)
23: Rachel: It's feminine; new threats.
Episode 4
164: Sofie: OK man is...
165: Rachel: .. .is not, is not.. .Our, our delicate planet... isn't.. .the TDotherer'.
Urn Madame, (calling to teacher who then arrives). Urn is there
a word 'botherer'?
Episode 5
001: Keith: As far as the environment is concerned (writing).
002: George: Perhaps we could put, as far as we are concerned...
003: Keith: No it's already, it's what uh she said (i.e. I've written down just
what the teacher said).
004: George: But perhaps we could change it.
005: Keith: No because we copied what she said so it's good.
006: George: OK fine. (Begins to write what Keith is dictating).
Episode 6
106: Ruth: No. Sometimes that causes.. .urn.. .new problems.
107: Sarah: That causes unforeseen problems.
108: Ruth: New, unforeseen problems.
109: Sarah: New, unforeseen problems.
110: Gaby: But, how do you write 'that'(ça) ? S-a?
I l l : Sarah: S-a, No. Hold on! Wait!

112: Ruth: No. with a 'c'.
113: Sarah: C-a, she's, that's right.
114: Ruth: Don't forget the cedilla.
Episode 7
051: John: For example
052: Tim: OK.. .I've written, for example, plastic
053: John: Biogradable (mispronounced)
054: Tim: In decomposing
055: John: Decomposes
056: Tim: Decomposes, but it produces toxic run off (mispronounced), or
something like that.
057: John: I had, for example biogradable (mispronounced) plastic decom-
poses but as it does so it produces toxic run off.
058: Tim: xxx OK, OK.

Output Hypothesis

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This article was downloaded by: [Carnegie Mellon University]

On: 01 February 2015, At: 11:07

Using collaborative language

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658416.1994.9959845

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

next described, followed by representative examples of the kinds of interactions

Group Work, Tasks and the Second Language Classroom

in terms of certain features of learners' interactions, for example instances of

writing in French. Intermediate and advanced students have developed high

The Output Hypothesis and the Second Language Classroom

Much of the current literature on the teaching of grammar in L2 classrooms is

The Study and the Students

students have after eight years in what is generally considered to be a highly

immersion class of 21 students in Toronto. The 19 students were those whose

1. En ce qui concerne l'environnement, il y a beaucoup de problèmes qui nous

5. Bien sûr, on a fait beaucoup de progrès pendant les années quatre-vingt

Analysis of the Data

of the discussion (either meaning-based, as in how to say something in French

exemple, on, comment xxx, Est-ce qu'on peut utiÛser un autre

041: Martin: Im-pré-vus. Im-pré-vus. Oh, j'ai déjà imprévu. Im-pré-vu.

Table 1 Quantitative description of critical language-related episodes (group

Reconstructing the 45 Verbs 36 Spelling 47

particular word exists

Filling the gap

07: Rachel: Même les, les

15: Rachel: Cher <chez> nou<veaux>, des nouveaux menaces.

001: Keith: En ce qui con-cerne l'environnement (writing).

of proximal development of the other's (Vygotsky, 1987). Personality traits may

106: Ruth: Non. Quelquefois ça produit um, de nouveaux problèmes.

output hypothesis. Researchers and teachers might therefore reconsider the

outcome of linguistic demands on the learner. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11

055: Roman: Urn, urn.

016: Andrew: Many problems, with de or des in front?

07: Rachel: Even the, the,

I l l : Sarah: S-a, No. Hold on! Wait!

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