Productive Skills
Improve your Speaking and Writing: Fresh Foundations Day 9.
This post is part 9 of the series Fresh Foundations which is about helping you create a sustainable and joyful language learning routine. If you subscribe, you’ll get access to the previous posts and receive a new one every weekday in January.
If that sounds like something you’re ready for, let’s get into today’s activity about improving your productive skills.
Improving Your Productive Skills
Last week, we looked at how comprehensible input—material that is just a little more advanced than your current level—can help you understand more and improve your skills. This idea is called the Input Hypothesis. This week, we will focus on how output, speaking and writing, fits into this process. We will also talk about how interaction, automaticity, fluency, and accuracy help you become a more confident language user.
Today’s post is all about theory, so there isn’t a practical task to complete. By understanding the basics of how we learn languages, I hope you feel more prepared to make choices about the tasks and activities you include in your routine.
Input, Output, and Interaction in Language Acquisition
Some people might say that speaking is the most important skill in language learning. After all, most of us learn a language to use it in conversations!
Interestingly, practicing speaking and writing does more than just share your ideas. It also helps you expand your language range and improve your accuracy. This happens through two key ideas: the Interaction Hypothesis and the Output Hypothesis.
The Interaction Hypothesis, developed by Michael Long, highlights the importance of conversations. When you talk to others, you can get feedback and correct mistakes. This process of asking questions, clarifying, and learning from others helps you improve faster. Your speaking partner might also be a source of comprehensible input. If you don’t understand something and they rephrase it for you or explain it to you another way, you get to learn something new!
The Output Hypothesis, developed by Merrill Swain, explains that speaking and writing help you notice what you do not know. For example, if you try to explain something and realize you don’t know how to say a word, you’ve found a gap in your knowledge. That means producing language helps you identify what to work on next.
Here is a quick summary:
Input gives you the information you need to learn.
Interaction provides feedback and modified input to help you improve.
Output lets you use and test what you’ve learned.
Improving Fluency through Automaticity
What’s the difference between someone who speaks slowly and hesitantly, searching for words, and someone who speaks fluently and naturally?
The answer is automaticity. This is the ability to use language without thinking about every word or rule. For intermediate learners, developing automaticity is essential to move from slow, careful speech to confident, natural communication.
Achieving automaticity requires regular practice. Every time you use your language, you strengthen the neural pathways that allow you to recall words and structures more easily. Over time, this repeated use reduces the effort you need to use. That’s how you get faster and more fluent.
The process of building automaticity isn’t instant, but it’s worth the effort. Later this week, we’ll explore some simple to practice that will help you get closer to automaticity. For now, remember that every moment spent using your language brings you closer to speaking and writing with ease.
Fluency or Accuracy?
That brings us to a common question: “Should I focus on fluency or accuracy?”
The answer depends on your goals, but usually, a balance is best. You need to speak fluently enough to keep your listener’s interest but accurately enough to be understood.
Problems arise when one is always prioritized over the other. For example:
If you wait to speak until you can do it perfectly, you might avoid speaking altogether.
If you focus only on fluency and speak carelessly, you might seem unprepared or even inconsiderate by putting a heavy burden for understanding on your speaking partner.
How Can You Improve Both?
The key is to notice your mistakes and gaps in your knowledge. This idea is part of the Noticing Hypothesis, which says you improve when you pay attention to:
Your Mistakes: After speaking or writing, think about what you said. Did you use the correct grammar? Were your sentences clear? Correcting yourself helps you improve accuracy.
What You Don’t Know: During a conversation, you might realize you don’t know a word or phrase. This shows you what to practice next.
In Summary
To improve your speaking and writing, you need regular practice and a mix of activities. Remember:
Input + Output + Interaction creates a complete learning process.
Automaticity helps you use the language naturally. Practice, practice, practice!
Fluency and Accuracy both matter, and noticing your mistakes helps you improve both.
Now that you have a better understanding of the theory behind productive skills, I’d love to hear from you: Tell me about your experience with speaking and writing.
Later this week, I’ll share practical suggestions for developing your speaking and writing skills so you can build a repertoire of effective strategies to choose from. Happy Language Learning! 🤍
Sometimes I've heard people say they're worried about 'learning mistakes' or picking up bad habits from talking to other learners, but what I've found is that it's a progression. As you start to understand more, you start to understand your own mistakes. If anything, it's kind of helpful to be exposed to other people's mistakes as your accuracy improves because you find yourself making a mental note, reinforcing that you know whatever the grammar or missing word is in the sentence.