Here in Colorado many houses sit on clay foundations and, over the years, lose their stability. Houses built on clay won’t hold up over time out here.
The same thing occurs when a child’s second language foundation is made of clay. The pedagogical discussion around this point is simple – what constitutes clay? What is the best foundation for studying a second language so that the house will remain true and steady?
It begs the point (it’s already been done) to argue for early output in the form of writing/grammar/left brain analysis of language. It also begs the point to argue for forced speaking too early, before the language has been sufficiently (thousands of hours) heard and read.
Both have been tried for a hundred years now, and, not only are the houses built on early output shaky, for most kids they were never even completed (96% opt out of high school programs before completing them).
It is therefore reasonable to assume, from the track record, that output too early has a way of destroying confidence in language learners and makes only a small percentage of them feel that they can learn a language.
If the failed track record of teachers who have asked students to learn by output and analysis of language is not enough, we can look as well to Dr. Krashen. His work indicates that comprehension always precedes production in what is a very natural way, a way that mirrors the silent period, lasting years, before production occurs in small children.
This kind of input, hearing the language all the time in ways that make sense and are interesting to the learner, doing so in such a way that the learner is unaware of the fact that she is even learning the language because her entire focus is directed on the meaning of the message instead of the medium used to deliver it, these things will assure that the foundation of the language learner’s house is solid. It will assure confidence.
Yes, let them output when they want, but let them do so because they want to, because it makes them feel good, but not as a means of instructing them, but rather, as a means of celebration.
As stated, the position of language instructors who support early forced output in the form of too much writing and forced early speech has been seriously compromised by decades of houses that never got built, or are, at best, shaky (“I took four years of Spanish and I can’t say a word.”)