About fine-tuning and rough-tuning of input

 I'm not sure who first coined the terms fine-tuning and rough-tuning of input, but they have certainly become associated with the work of Stephen Krashen. In this post, I'll explain what the terms refer to and what they might mean for language teacher practice.

We all know that a prequisite for first and additional language acquisition is input students can understand (comprehensible input, to use Krashen's familar term). Krashen used the formula i + 1 to describe input which is at or just above the learner's current level. This would imply giving students aural and written texts, dialogues, etc, which contain a large majority of vocabulary students already know (Paul Nation and others write about 95-98% knowledge), using grammatical constructions which students are already familiar with.

This is where the distinction between fine-tuning and rough-tuning of input comes in. There is no precise definition of this, but essentially if you finely tune the input you go out of your way as a teacher to keep supplying language students can already handle. For instance, if you are working on the perfect tense, you'll choose texts which pretty much only contain perfect tense verbs. If you have been focuing on vocabulary to do with family and friends, you'll supply lots of language on that topic to the exclusion on others. If you want students to pick up adjective agreement you'll focus on exercises to build that skill. You can immediately see that fine-tuning of input seems to correspond to the step-by-step, skill acuqisition model of language learning where the syllabus is probably led by choice of grammar constructions and vocabulary, going from simple to harder. This is sometimes called a synthetic syllabus (David Wilkins).

Roughly-tuned input is much less strict about the selection of vocabulary and grammatical constructions. You should still keep language broadly comprehensible (i + 1?), but not fret about only selecting the 'structure of the day' of this week's vocabulary. using roughly tuned input aligns more with a comprehension approach to language acquisition rather than the skill acquisition model. In this view, we do not acquire a language step-by-step as if we were building a lego model. We hear, read and use language we understand and the brain gets on with doing what it does naturally (language learning). This also assumes that we cannot learn grammatical constructions in a fixed order decided on by the teacher or the curriculum — there is plenty of evidence to support this view and teacher experience bears it out.

So, fine-tuning and rough-tuning of input reflect the well-known dichotomy of two ways of learning a language — skill building and natural acquisition. You probably know already that Krashen favoured the second over the first. In school setting I think the two can work, slightly uncomfortably, in hamony.

What might this mean for everyday teaching practice?

My take on this is as follows:

With beginners it makes sense to fine-tune input to a large degree — choose the vocabulary carefully, focusing mainly on high frequency words and phrases, but also on words and phrases that reflect the interests of the learners in question. For example, animal vocabulary is not high-frequency, but younger beginners may well like talking about pets and animals so why not teach this vocabulary? Start small and gradually, to use teacher/blogger Vincent Everett's analogy, build the snowball. Similarly with garmmar, in the early stages stick largely to present tense to avoid confusion. This rather reflects the skill acquisition view, but through repeated exposure to and use of simple language 'natural' acqusisition is also occuring.

As students gain knowledge, skill and confidence, it makes sense to tune input more roughly. This gives the teacher more freedom in choice of texts and allows students to hear and read about a wider range of topics or narratives. By the time students reach more advanced levels (B1 and beyond) they have a big enough stock of language to cope with much more roughly-tuned input, including short stories, news artciles, films and novels.

Graded readers can allow students to progress from finely to roughly-tuned input. If these are lacking, teachers can write their own materials, perhaps with the help of AI to get the level of input needed.

Some teachers and theorists argue that we can give very roughly-tuned input to beginners. This might be the view of proponents of Project-Based Learning (PBL) of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning. In this case, the content carries as much importance, if not more, than the language. With lots of scaffolding and suitable tasks, roughly-tuned input can be made useful. These approaches allow for the use of much more interesting texts than traditional textbook fare, but arguably at the expense of linguistic progress. The FLEUR project from the University of Reading in  England found that novice students benefitted from being exposed to more challenging texts.

Keep in mind that in every class (all classes are 'mixed ability' or 'mixed prior attainment') the input will be perceived and processed differently by individul students, so you can never precisely match the input to the needs of every student. In the classroom, however, my strong feeling was that you had to match the input carefully to the class in front of you as far as possible, challenging the most gifted, supporting those who struggle more. (One reason why I support grouping by ability or prior attainment in some contexts — yes, this is a can of worms!). As soon as language is not understood, attention and interest wane, confidence is lost. Remember that we often overestimate what students understand, especially when listening.

The latest version of GCSE in England leans heavily towards finely-tuned input, with its stress on a relatively narrow diet high-frequency words and selective use of grammatical constructions. Paradoxically, perhaps, input at A-level is much more roughly tuned — think of the films and novels students read, for example. Nor is there a set list of words to be learned. But there is some sense to this, the more advanced you get, the more roughly-tuned input can be, as we have seen.

In sum, teachers need to weigh up carefully the level and type of input language students receive and use. Keep it comprehensible by whatever means (pictures, gestures, translation, vocab glosses, sentence builders, parallel texts). Keep it interesting and fun  — stories and games can help a lot in this respect. If you use roughly-tuned input, scaffold it appropriately and choose tasks which make the texts approachable. Always bear in mind the needs of the class, for example high-flying classes may quickly tire of mundane, finely-tuned texts. Lastly, don't assume that textbooks get this right. They tend to fine-tune input to go with the vocabulary and grammar of the current unit. But is it finely-tuned enough? Or is it actually finely tuned to the extent of being too dull and artificial?

Is the distinction between fine-tuning and rough-tuning of input actually useful?  I think so, especially if we use it as a reminder of the weaknesses of the synthetic, step-by-step syllabus I described earlier and which textbooks and teachers still cling on to. We may fine-tune the input too much on average.  I believe Krashen was right to argue that we don't learn a language like building lego. It's messy, we don't acquire grammar in the order it is taught and as long as we get language we understand the brain does its job at the pace it can manage.