Input

How it is used

A key concept in SLA. Krashen's input hypothesis says learners acquire language through comprehensible input slightly above their current level (i + 1). Teachers talk about rich, authentic and graded input.

Example sentences

1. Extensive reading gives learners a large amount of comprehensible input.

2. Children receive thousands of hours of input before they produce full sentences.

Common collocations

• comprehensible input
• input hypothesis
• rich input
• authentic input
• input and output

Related terms

• second language acquisitionThe process of learning another language after the first one, and the research field that studies how this happens; usually shortened to SLA.
• language acquisitionThe process by which people come to know and use a language, especially the natural way young children pick up their first language from the speech around them.
• interlanguageA learner's developing language system, which has its own rules and is neither the first language nor the target language; the term was introduced by Larry Selinker in 1972.
• critical period hypothesisThe idea that there is a limited time in childhood, ending around puberty, when a language can be acquired fully and naturally; after it, native-like mastery becomes much harder.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

• input · Business English

More terms: Language Acquisition

• first language
• fossilization
• universal grammar
• overgeneralization
• language transfer