Comprehension and Production Comprehension and production are skills both at the roots of learning and at the ends. They are both at the very heart of language learning, yet they are also the product. If someone can neither comprehend nor produce a language can they be said to really know that language at all? Likewise, can someone successfully learn a language without any opportunities to practice comprehension and production? We all know that it is impossible to learn a language just from reading about its features in a textbook. Learners need ample practice with speaking, reading, listening, and writing to ever become competent in their target language. Comprehension covers the receptive skills - reading and listening. Often it is equated with them directly though this would be an oversimplification. Technically, reading and listening are actions that involve comprehension. If a person is reading and successfully grasping the meaning of what she is reading then we can say she is comprehending what she reads. Therefore, it is not exactly the same as reading. Comprehension would be the act of decoding what one reads or hears and perceiving its meaning in one’s mind. Thus, comprehension is the action of getting the meaning out of what one reads or hears. Production covers the other two skills - speaking and writing, but does not necessarily imply that the speaker or writer actually knows the meaning of what she is producing. Often in language classes, learners are required to repeat utterances of which they do not know the meaning. Sometimes they are forced to simply practice target language sounds out of context. I’ve heard many language learners on the subway listening to language learning tapes and repeating what they hear without any comprehension, just repeating a sound "/ar/…/ar/…/ar/…". Likewise I’ve seen far too many language teachers who spend a great deal of class time having their students read some text out loud without making any effort to help them comprehend the text (except perhaps to translate some). In the real world however, we can assume that speakers or writers know the meaning of their own production otherwise they would not be producing it. In other words, people usually comprehend what they are producing unless they are mimicking something they have heard or simply babbling. Thus, production can be defined as the action of making the sounds, words, expressions, or utterances of a language, but ideally could be the action of turning the meaning, ideas, or thoughts in one’s mind into verbal expression. A common mistake made among people discussing comprehension is that it is virtually the same as competence. This mistake is expected since the actual act of comprehension is done in the mind of the learner and is not directly observable. Comprehension is, however, still just performance, not competence. Comprehension is an action. Reading and listening are actions just like speaking and writing. Like all performance actions it is affected by variables, changing from one moment to the next. For example, if one is tired then their comprehension can go way down. If you get sleepy you may continue trying to read this text but if asked to recall what you read later you might realize that you comprehended nothing. People have to make some effort to comprehend. They must pay attention and try to figure out what they are hearing. Like all performance actions it is the product of some unseen store of knowledge within the learner. Humans use their competence to both comprehend and produce languages. It can however be safely argued that each skill (e.g. reading, listening, speaking, writing) uses a different kind of competence since people can often comprehend much more that they can produce. This phenomenon has led many language researchers to conclude that language learning is led by or pulled forward by comprehension. According to this notion, learning begins when someone hears some new form, expression, or word and comprehends its meaning. If this happens often enough then they may eventually try to use those forms, expressions, or words in their own production. Thus, comprehension always precedes production. After repeated meaningful use, these new items would become more deeply ingrained in the learner’s competence. This explanation may relate to the notion that some language knowledge is only accessible for reception and not yet available for production. We have all experienced hearing words that we could comprehend when hearing but not remember when we needed them for speaking. Actual production practice may however, be necessary for making receptive knowledge into productive knowledge. Thus, production practice builds production competence. Comprehension and production are very important parts of language learning. They are both believed to help learners build competence. Both may be necessary for a learner trying to discover the rules of a target language. There is some debate however over which one is the most important for language learning. Cognitivists generally agree that comprehension is the most important of the two. While most believe production is also vital, they also generally agree that such production must be comprehensible to the learner or else it is worthless. In other words, producing incomprehensible output may be of little value to a language learner. Some cognitivists have even taken an extreme view that only comprehension is important, and that production is unnecessary. Although few still agree with this extreme notion today, input-based (i.e. comprehension based) models of language learning are common in both FLA theory and SLA theory. Chomsky’s notion of an LAD (language acquisition device) is one of these. In this theory it is believed that children can learn a language merely by being exposed to input. The LAD helps children figure out the meaning of what they are hearing. While children merely focus on the meaning of the input, the LAD works automatically to decode the grammar system and give them competence. Another view however, states that the input must first be made comprehensible by others in order for the child to learn. It is believed that caregivers such as mothers or fathers help the child understand the meaning of the input (i.e. comprehend it) by changing the way they speak and interact. Therefore, comprehensible input is seen as the main source of learning for children. Likewise, second language learners also seem to need comprehensible input in order to succeed. Second language learners who receive a lot of comprehensible input tend to be much more successful than those who don’t. Likewise, learners who receive incomprehensible input are likely to be learning nothing. Even adults can learn a language without explicit instruction or explanation if they receive comprehensible input. If they hear samples of a language and can figure out the meaning with the help of extra-linguistic context, then they can often induce the rules. In other words, visual aids, pictures, objects, gestures, expressions can make new forms, or expressions comprehensible. Look at the following example of inductive learning with an imaginary language and try it yourself:
(The speaker points to a flower and says…) Ro deeno noha.
(The speaker smells the flower and says…) Smu nu noha.
Can you guess what the word for flower is in this imaginary language? Try some more examples:
(The speaker points to a table and says…) Ro deeno tablu.
(The speaker points to a computer and says…) Ro deeno computer.
(The speaker eats a sandwich and says…) Gomp nu sandwich.
Can you figure out how to say, "This is a sandwich." in this imaginary language? Did you figure out the syntax too? What word order does this language use?
As you can see from this example of inductive learning, adults also have the ability to learn languages inductively but it seems to take some effort on their part. First they must make some effort to comprehend what they are hearing based on contextual clues. Then they must use that meaning to figure out the rules. This all gets to be a little like linguistic detective work. The learner must have a special sense of logic and reasoning for problem solving. Extremely young children however, do not normally have much problem solving ability. A two-year old child is a master of language learning, yet cannot even solve some very simple puzzles. From this we may conclude that children are getting some sort of help from some force within them. The help of caregivers who try to make the input more comprehensible for them could not be enough alone. Children must have some special innate ability to figure out the meaning of what they hear and then use that meaning to form hypotheses about the target language. Nonetheless, comprehension still seems to be a prerequisite to this process. Many modern language researchers believe that comprehension-based models alone are not adequate for explaining the language acquisition process; they feel that production also plays many vital roles. Perhaps the most obvious of these roles is that of practice. Cognitivists generally believe that meaningful practice is necessary for building fluency. There is a great deal of difficulty when learners try to use any new word, expression, or form. If any of you have ever tried to learn a second language, you have probably experienced this stressful feeling of wrestling a new form out of your mouth. Ron Schwartz of the University of Maryland once humorously referred to this as "vomiting up new language", and all present knew exactly what he meant. On the other hand, if learners get enough opportunities to use those new forms, words, or expressions in real communication, then they will begin to come out more freely and easily. Over time the stress goes away and the new form comes out quickly, almost without thinking. This is what behaviorists referred to as habit formation but cognitivists refer to as automatization. Automatization is the process by which a new form or expression becomes more fluently useable through constant meaningful practice. In other words, production practice is necessary for developing fluency. It is apparent however, that the learner must actually comprehend the meaning of what she is practicing and that the practice must take place in a context that bares some similarity to real language using situations (i.e. communication). Thus even production practice seems to require some degree of comprehension and authenticity in order to be effective. Yet another role of production in the language learning process might be in testing hypotheses. Seventy years ago, the cognitive psychologist Jean Piaget observed that children seem to discover the rules of their first language in much the same way they discover every other part of their world – through play. Any one who has ever had a young child has surely seen this. Children want to touch, taste, and smell everything. The world is their toy. Yet this childish behavior is at times similar to a scientist doing experiments. Upon seeing a VCR any young child will proceed to press every button just to see what happens. Interactionists believe language learning is a similar process to this "play" and that children learn languages through social interaction. During interaction children play with the language and discover its features. Production is vital to this process. During interaction children get ideas about how to use the language to say what they want to say. Interactionists call these ideas "hypotheses". Children cannot be sure of whether they are correct or not unless they test these hypotheses. For example, in that previous inductive learning activity, how can you be sure that you have induced the right rules unless you try to apply those rules to create a new sentence? Some of you might have assumed the sentence structure of that imaginary language is Subject-Verb-Object. If you had such a hypothesis then you might have tested it by making your own sentence and then found the teacher either giggling at your error or looking confused. If you had tried using that imaginary language incorrectly you would not have successfully interacted and you would have gotten some feedback. The teacher might have given you more examples and extra-linguistic competence to help you. The teacher might do the following:
(Speaker points to herself and says…) nu
(Speaker pretends to eat and says…) gomp gomp nu
(Speaker begins eating a sandwich and says…) Gomp nu sandwich
(The speaker gives you the sandwich and points to you as you eat saying…) Gomp ga sandwich
(The speaker points to you and repeats…) ga, ga, ga…
The word order of this imaginary language is Verb-Subject-Object As you can see, without producing the language it is hard to get the rules straight. Without the opportunity to test hypotheses it would be easy to misunderstand the rules of the target language and not be able to learn them correctly. Therefore we can conclude that production is necessary for language learning. During production the learner can…
Which one is more important, comprehension or production? I conclude that we need not pick a side in this debate. They are both important and they are both necessary.
Which of these aforementioned processes best describes language learning? They all do. Language learning is far too complex to be described by any one theoretical model. Furthermore, language learners vary a great deal. Different language learners may employ different processes. It is probable that successful language learning involves using all these processes and many more.
How does this relate to EFL teaching? Comprehension and production are at the heart of language learning. They are not just a by-product of competence that naturally emerges afterwards. They both pull competence forward, even though they are performance. Without ample opportunities to communicatively practice comprehension and production, learners will never learn to do either. The ability to comprehend is acquired through comprehension practice and the ability to produce is acquired through production practice. EFL teachers need to keep this in mind whenever they plan their lessons.
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