In communicative output, the learners' main purpose is to complete a task, such as
obtaining information, developing a travel plan, or creating a video. To complete the task, they
may use the language that the instructor has just presented, but they also may draw on any other
vocabulary, grammar, and communication strategies that they know. In communicative output
activities, the criterion of success is whether the learner gets the message across. Accuracy is not
a consideration unless the lack of it interferes with the message.
In everyday communication, spoken exchanges take place because there is some sort of
information gap between the participants. Communicative output activities involve a similar real
information gap. In order to complete the task, students must reduce or eliminate the information
gap. In these activities, language is a tool, not an end in itself. In a balanced activities approach,
the teacher uses a variety of activities from these different categories of input and output.
Learners at all proficiency levels, including beginners, benefit from this variety; it is more
motivating, and it is also more likely to result in effective language learning. Students often think
that the ability to speak a language is the product of language learning, but speaking is also a
crucial part of the language learning process. Effective instructors teach students speaking
strategies -- using minimal responses, recognizing scripts, and using language to talk about
language -- which they can use to help themselves expand their knowledge of the language and
their confidence in using it. These instructors’ help students learn to speak so that the students
can use speaking to learn.