I for Intake

בס"ד

What do we mean when we say Intake?

Many researchers claim that input is the key to learning a language.
Is that really so? Is Input enough? What guarantees that the learners soak in the input? Who says it is meaningful to them?

Well, many wondered about the gap between putting out information and the ability of learners to absorb it. Therefore, a new term was created to define that gap, called "Intake". The first one to coin the term was S. P. Corder in 1967. He realized that not all information that students are exposed to is actually taken in. Thus, there must be a distinction between the message we send across, the Input, and what the learners get from it, the Intake (Corder, 1967; Van Patten, Benati, 2010). Input, is the written and spoken language that learners are exposed to, while Intake is Input that has been noticed by the learner (Thornbury, 2006); Meaning that, not all Input eventually translates into Intake. That's why we, as teachers, must check and see what part of what we taught was taken in by the students, and what was left out.  Only that way we can take a step in the direction of meaningful learning.

It is important to mention that there have been two main claims regarding the form that the term Intake takes.
The first one, leaded by Corder (1967) and Chaudron (1985), suggests that Intake is a long, complex process, which includes a lot of decoding and encoding. They claimed that Intake is not just one simple action, but a sequence of acts that leads to noticing, then to an analysis of the Input, and lastly to storing the information.
The second approach says that Intake is a product or an object rather than a process. Meaning, Input is noticed by the learner and then being stored in their memory as is, turning by that into Intake, without being processed at all. (Sato, Jacobs, 1992; Van Patten, Benati, 2010).

From Input to Intake

So, if transforming Input into Intake is that significant to the learners' learning process, how can we help students to translate Input into Intake?

According to Sato and Jacobs (1992), the key is selective attention. The two linguistics claim that learning a language requires an access to relevant Input; this only can be accomplished by focusing the learners' attention on that specific input, thus, using selective attention.

If we could focus our students' attention on the main point we are trying to convey, most chances are that they will be able to assimilate it better and turn the Input into Intake easier and faster. Therefore, our goal, as teachers, should be to encourage our students to pay attention to the meaningful Input we are sending across by reducing irrelevant stimulations and background noises in our classrooms.

Bibliography:

          Chaudron, C. (1985). Intake: On models and methods for discovering learners' processing of input. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 7.  1-14.

          Corder, S. P. (1967). The significance of learners' errors. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 5. 161-170.

          Sato, E., Jacobs, B. (1992). From Input to Intake: Towards a Brain-Based Perspective of Selective Attention. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 3(2).

          Thornbury, S. (2006). An A-Z of ELT: A Dictionary of Terms and Concepts Used in English Language Teaching. Oxford, UK. : Macmillan Education. p.105-106

          VanPatten, B., Benati, A. G. (2010). Key Terms in Second Language Acquisition. London SE1 7NX, New York NY 10038.: Continuum International Publishing Group. p.98-99,