Second Language Acquisition Theories: Krashen Vs.

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SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORIES: KRASHEN vs. SWAIN’S THEORIES There have been many years of research on how people learn a second language, and it has been a matter of discussion between the most important linguists through the time; all of them with their own theories and hypothesis, tested on different groups of learners and in different learning levels, but none of them have found the “right” position or theory that can perfectly describe the process of acquiring a second language. The aim of this essay, is to expose two of the most important and controversial theories in second language acquisition, the Comprehensible Output Hypothesis and the Input Hypothesis; to stand out the differences and similarities between input and output and the point in which the theory and the practice of each one of these agree. The Comprehensible Output theory (CO) was developed by Merrill Swain in 1985 after a research with a French immersion in which the group of students were not proficient in the target language in spite of the amount of input given for a number of years; according to this fact, she claimed that input is necessary but not sufficient for successful L2 learning. She argued that learners engaged in negotiating meaningful and comprehensible output as part of language learning experiences which foster language learner’s cognitive and linguistic growth by means of processes of reflective and collaborative producing the target language… triggers cognitive processes, ones in which learners generate linguistic knowledge which is new for them, or which consolidate their current existing knowledge.” (Swain and Lapkin, 1995). The CO hypothesis states that we acquire the language when we try to transmit a message but we fail and have to try again, until we find the correct form of our utterance and finally the receptor understands, in this way we acquire the

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