The Output Hypothesis: Just Speaking and Writing Aren't Enough

Abstract

As a person who has been actively involved in research in French immersion education for approximately two decades, I am frequently told "immersion anecdotes" which often serve to provide a possible explanation for our research results. I wish now that I had kept a file of those anecdotes: They have been rich in description and detail, and are unique for the insights they contribute into the second language learning process. These anecdotes have come from parents, teachers and learners. It has been especially the anecdotes of the immersion learners themselves which have provided much of the stimulus for my own thinking about "the output hypothesis." This brief paper outlines some of that thinking and some of the implications it has for immersion pedagogy in particular, and second language learning in general.