International Journal of Innovation in English Language Teaching…
ISSN: 2156-5716
Volume 1, Number 2© 2012 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

APPLYING THE FOUR STRANDS TO LANGUAGELEARNING
Paul Nation1  and Azusa Yamamoto2
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand1 and Temple University Japan2

ABSTRACTThe principle of the four strands says that a well balanced language course should havefour equal strands of meaning focused input, meaning focused output, language focusedlearning, and fluency development. By applying this principle, it is possible to answer
questions like How can I teach vocabulary? What should a well balanced listening course
contain? How much extensive reading should we do? Is it worthwhile doing grammartranslation? and How can I find out if I have a well balanced conversation course? The article
describes the rationale behind such answers. The four strands principle is primarily a way ofproviding a balance of learning opportunities, and the article shows how this can be done inself regulated foreign language learning without a teacher.
Keywords: Fluency learning, four strands, language focused learning, meaning focused input,
meaning focused output.

INTRODUCTION
The principle of the four strands (Nation, 2007) states that a well balanced language
course should consist of four equal strands – meaning focused input, meaning focused output,
language focused learning, and fluency development. Each strand should receive a roughly
equal amount of time in a course.
The meaning focused input strand involves learning through listening and reading. This islargely incidental learning because the learners’ attention should be focused oncomprehending what is being read or listened to. The meaning focused output strand involves
learning through speaking and writing and in common with the meaning focused input strand
involves largely incidental learning. The language focused learning strand involves deliberateattention to language features, including spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, multiword units,
grammar, and discourse. In second language acquisition research, the strand is often referred
to as form focused instruction, but this terminology is a little misleading as it not only focusesE-mail: Paul.Nation@vuw.ac.nz

168Paul Nation and Azusa Yamamotoon form but also on meaning and use, and it need not be instruction but may be learning
initiated by language learners. The fourth strand of a well balanced course is a fluency
development strand, which aims at helping the learners make the best use of what is alreadyknown. The definition of fluency used in the fluency development strand simply relates tobeing able to receive and produce language at a reasonable rate. Like the meaning focused
input and meaning focused output strands of a course, the fluency development strand is alsostrongly message focused. Thus, the four strands consist of three message focused orcommunicative strands, and one language focused strand.
Nation (2007) presents some of the evidence supporting the idea of the strands. Nation
and Newton (2009) and Nation (2009) show how the strands can be applied to the four skillsof listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Perhaps, the major principle supporting the ideaof the four strands is the time-on-task principle. The time-on-task principle says that the moretime you spend doing something, the better you will be at doing it. So, if you wish to learn towrite, you should do lots of writing. If you wish to read well, you should do lots of reading.
The time-on-task principle is a somewhat crude quantity based principle, but there is plenty ofevidence that it works. The three message focused strands put this principle into practice.
The purpose of the present article is to show how the principle of the four strands can beapplied. The effect of applying this principle is to show that it makes more sense to have arange of ways of helping the learning of certain language features and skills than to rely on
only one way. Let us look briefly at the learning of collocations to illustrate this point. “Howshould collocations be taught?” This is not a good question because it assumes that teachingis the only way to deal with collocations. A better version of the question would be “Howshould collocations be learnt?” If we apply the four strands principle to the learning of
collocations, we need to answer the following questions.
1. How can collocations be learned through meaning focused input?
2. How can collocations be learned through meaning focused output?
3. What language focused learning activities are most suitable for the learning of
collocations?
4. How can fluency development help the learning of collocations?
There is research evidence (Kurnia, 2003) that collocations can be picked up incidentally
through reading. We should, thus, expect that the extensive reading course and theopportunities for reading and listening in the classroom will make a contribution to thelearning of collocations. Similarly, we can expect that speaking and writing activities willcontribute to the productive learning of collocations. It may be that one of the greatest
contributions to the learning of collocations will come through the fluency development
strand of a course. This is because when fluency develops, the size of the language unit thatlearners work with changes. Thus, when learners become more fluent at reading, they movefrom reading at the word level to making use of phrasal knowledge while reading. The
fluency development strand of a course needs to focus separately on fluency in listening,
fluency in speaking, fluency in reading, and fluency in writing. Thus, the fluency
development strand of a course can develop both receptive and productive knowledge of
collocations. Because fluency development involves dealing with large quantities of material,
this can help to provide the amount of repetition needed to support such learning.

Applying the Four Strands to Language Learning169

The deliberate learning of collocations should not make up more than one quarter of thetime assigned to the learning of collocations. There are numerous activities that have beensuggested for learning collocations (Brown, 1974; Lewis, 2000), and there is also thepossibility of using word cards (Steinel, Hulstijn, and Steinel, 2007) for such learning.
Because there are many possibilities, it is important to critically assess the effectiveness ofthese different deliberate activities so that the most effective ones are used. When comparing
learning activities, it is much more important to compare the effectiveness of activities withina strand than to compare activities between strands. Activities within a strand compete witheach other for time in a course. Comparing a meaning focused input activity with a language
focused learning activity may have some usefulness for comparing quantities of learning, but
generally trying to see whether a meaning focused input activity, for example, works better
than a particular language focused learning activity is not a very useful comparison because
both meaning focused input activities and language focused learning activities are necessary
within a well balanced program.

APPLYING FOUR STRANDS
The four strands principle can be a useful basis for answering questions, including:
1. How can I teach vocabulary? (We could replace vocabulary in that question withpronunciation, grammar, listening, speaking, reading, or writing). The question isbetter phrased as “How can I help the learning of vocabulary?”
2. What should a well balanced listening course contain? (We could replace
listening in that question with speaking, reading, writing, extensive reading,
vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, or spelling)
3. How much extensive reading should we do? (We could replace extensive readingin that question with grammar teaching, spelling practice, work on vocabularystrategies, for example)
4. Is it worthwhile doing grammar translation? (We could replace grammartranslation in that question with reading aloud, rote learning of vocabulary, or
dictogloss, for example)
5. How can I find out if I have a well balanced conversation course?
When we looked at collocation earlier in this article, we answered the question which issimilar to number 1 in the above list. In general, the way to answer such a question is to lookat the role of each of the four strands in the learning of that particular aspect of language or
language use. Let us now look at the other four questions to see how the principle of the four
strands can guide the answers to such questions. After looking at these questions, we will
look at how the principle of the four strands can guide an individual learner learning alanguage without a teacher.

What Should a Well Balanced Listening Course Contain?
When answering such a question, we need to consider what other opportunities forlanguage learning the learners have. Typically, a listening course is part of a program that

170Paul Nation and Azusa Yamamotoprovides opportunities for practicing the other skills as well as providing opportunities for the
deliberate learning of language items. Clearly, the meaning focused input strand is going to bevery important in a listening course and should probably make up at least 50% of the time
given to the listening course because listening involves meaning focused input. However, we
also need to consider what role reading input might play in a listening course. This reading
input could be part of the listening course, for example, reading while listening and readingsummaries of material before listening to it. The reading input, however, could also beoutside the listening course and could be a result of relating the listening activities to workthat is going on in the reading course or in other parts of the language program.
Listening fluency development should make up about one quarter of the listening course
time, and could involve easy extensive listening, speeded listening using a digital taperecorder, or listening to very familiar material. The language focused learning strand of alistening course could involve activities such as dictation, the study of discourse featurescommon in spoken material, or spoken phrase recognition activities. The language focusedlearning strand should make up about 25% of the listening course time. Meaning focused
output also has a role to play in the listening course because a substantial amount of input thatthe learners get in such a course can come from their classmates. This is best calculated
within the 50% of a course devoted to meaning focused input. Table 1 presents the strands ofa listening course in the form of a table.
Meaning focused input (50%)
This can include some reading and some meaning focused output
Language focused learning (25%)
Fluency development (25%
Table 1. The Strands of a Well Balanced Listening Course.

How much Extensive Reading Should We Do?
When looking at the design of the listening course when answering the previous question,
we tried to work out the proportions of each strand within that particular course. It is possible
to do the same kind of calculation with a particular activity. The most important initialquestion when doing this is to work out what strand that activity fits into. As we shall see
with extensive reading, an activity may fit into more than one strand. There should be two
major strands in an extensive reading course – the meaning focused input strand wherelearners read at a roughly 98% coverage level so that that there is some new vocabulary tolearn, and the fluency development strand where learners read material containing little or no
unfamiliar vocabulary and read it quickly.
In the meaning focused input strand of a course, extensive reading has to share the timewith meaning focused listening, and other reading activities that are not a part of extensive
reading. Very roughly, this would mean that extensive reading as part of the meaning focused
input strand would make up a little under one eighth of the total course time. In the fluency
development strand of a course, reading fluency development should make up one quarter ofthat strand. However, extensive reading for fluency development has to share that time withthe learners working through a speed reading course, repeated reading, and perhaps skimming

Applying the Four Strands to Language Learning

171

and scanning activities. Ideally, extensive reading for fluency development would make up
well over half of the reading fluency development time, giving it around one sixteenth of thetotal course time. Language focused learning and meaning focused output have a role to playin extensive reading. In the language focused learning strand of an extensive reading course,
we might expect to see activities designed to motivate the learners, to train them in selecting
texts to read and in recording their reading, and to link the extensive reading with other partsof the language course. In the meaning focused output strand of an extensive reading course,
we could expect to see learners talking and writing about what they have read. This meaning
focused output activity, however, might not be calculated as part of the extensive reading
program. In total, extensive reading could make up somewhere just under one quarter of thetotal course time.
In Table 2, the total proportion of time given to extensive reading is 7/32s of the course
time. This is approaching one quarter of the course time, but it must be remembered that areasonable proportion of this time would be spent on reading outside of class. It is possible todo this kind of calculation for other activities although it is likely that extensive reading is theactivity which would receive the second greatest amount of time in a course after spoken
communicative activities.
Meaning focused input
Reading would make up half of the meaning focused input time, andextensive reading would make up a large proportion of that half, which
would be just under one eighth of the total course time.
Meaning focused output
Learners should talk and write about what they have read, but this might
not be counted as part of the extensive reading program.
Language focused learningThis should occupy only a small amount of the time in an extensive
reading program, but it is important as a way of motivating learners toread and in organizing and running the extensive reading program.
Fluency development
Fluency development in reading should make up one quarter of a fluency
development program, and a good proportion of this should be easy
extensive reading.
Total proportion of the course given to extensive reading

1/8

0

1/32

Less
than
1/16
7/32

Table 2. The Time Devoted to Extensive Reading across the Four Strands of a Course.

Is It Worthwhile Doing Grammar Translation?
In answering the previous question about extensive reading, we assumed that the activity
was worth doing. There is plenty of research evidence to show the value of extensive reading.
However, there are many language learning activities that might not be worth doing.
Grammar translation is one that comes in for a lot of criticism. If we apply the principle of thefour strands to evaluating the worth of an activity, we need to work out what strand that
activity fits into and what other activities it is competing with for time within this strand.

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Paul Nation and Azusa Yamamoto

Grammar translation is clearly part of the language focused learning strand. Although it
involves the reading of a text, the main focus is on the language items within the text and theamount of true reading involved is rather minimal. However, this is not to say that it is aworthless activity, but simply that it fits into the language focused learning strand. We, now,need to work out what other activities would be done if we did not do grammar translation.
To work this out, we need to decide on the learning goals of grammar translation and to see
what other activities would reach the same learning goals. As a result of a grammartranslation activity, we would expect learners to learn new vocabulary, to gain anunderstanding of some of the grammatical aspects of a text, and to see how the sentences of
the text fit together to convey a message. It is likely in such an activity that these goals will belargely achieved because there is a deliberate focus on the items to be learned. Because thefocus is largely done through the learners’ first language, the teaching is likely to be wellunderstood. Grammar translation may, thus, be preferred over some other language focusedlearning activities like blank filling, sentence manipulation activities, or dictogloss.

How Can I Find out if I Have Got a Well Balanced Conversation Course?
The principle of the four strands primarily involves making sure that there is a balance oflearning opportunities in a language course. The most direct way of making sure if a course
provides a balance of opportunities is to keep a record of the activities done over a reasonable
period of time, such as a week in a full time course or a month or two in a part time course.
The amount of time spent on each activity needs to be noted. Then, each activity should beclassified into the appropriate strand and the time added up to see if there is a roughly equalbalance of time for the four strands. The slight complication with this in a conversation courseis that while some learners are speaking, others are listening. In other words, while some are
involved in meaning focused output, others are involved in meaning focused input.
A faster and slightly less reliable and valid way is simply to reflect on previous lessons or
to classify the material in the course book to see if there is a balance of the four strands. Whenlooking to see if there is a balance of opportunities for learning, it is necessary to take thewidest possible view of the course. This includes looking at what happens during class time
and the opportunities for learning outside of class time both through homework and throughthe normal activities of daily life. The strands of meaning focused input and meaning focused
output, and to some degree, the strand of fluency development, can result in a wide range ofdifferent kinds of knowledge through incidental learning. Thus, the most important
application of the principle of the four strands is across the course as a whole, rather than in
one particular section of the course.
In a particular section of the wider course, such as the part focusing on conversation, it isimportant that the time-on-task principle is applied. That is, a conversation course should
involve a lot of conversation just as a reading course should involve a lot of reading, and awriting course should involve a lot of writing. Thus, in a conversation course around 50% of
the time should involve speaking as meaning focused output (which also necessarily includes
meaning focused input for the listeners), and another 25% should involve speaking fluency
activities.
It is also important that the different parts of a course take account of each other,
particularly in ensuring a balance of activities across the four strands over the whole course,Applying the Four Strands to Language Learning173

but in also making sure that meaning focused input, for example, in one part is also achieving
learning goals and providing preparation that will be very useful in another part of the course.
For example, in a conversation course, speaking activities can be designed so that they
provide favorable opportunities for vocabulary learning (Joe, 1998; Joe, Nation, and Newton,
1996). This vocabulary learning can, then, be reinforced by deliberate learning and reading inother parts of the course.

APPLYING THE FOUR STRANDS TO AUTONOMOUS LEARNING
So far, we have looked at the application of the four strands principle in courses
involving teachers. The four strands principle can also usefully be applied when learners takecontrol of their own learning and decide to learn a language without the help of a teacher. The
following example describes the way that the four strands principle was applied when thesecond author of this article decided to learn Spanish. The choice of the activities was donewith the principle of the four strands in mind. Table 3 is a list of the activities used that havebeen classified into the four strands. Note that a few activities appear in more than one strand.
This is because the activity can provide opportunities for both meaning focused input andmeaning focused output because it involves interaction, and because an activity done under
different conditions can fit into a different strand of a course. The most common example ofthis is where a meaning focused input or a meaning focused output activity is now so familiarthat it provides an opportunity for fluency development. In Table 3, this happens with theactivity of exchanging emails with language exchange partners.
Strands
Meaning focused Input

Meaning focused Output
Language focused
Learning

Fluency Development

Activities
Reading graded readers containing some unfamiliar
words
Listening to a recorded story
Listening to lessons on podcasts
Exchanging emails with language exchange partners
Browsing the Internet in the target language
Keeping a diary and doing free writing
Exchanging emails with language exchange partners
Learning from a language textbook
Using a grammar reference book
Consulting a dictionary
Consulting a phrase book
Studying using a workbook
Doing dictation of a recorded story or a movie scene
Memorizing words using word cards
Using iPhone applications for pronunciation
Speaking and writing using a phrase book
Doing repetitive exercises in a workbook
Reading an easy graded reader
Listening to a recorded story
Shadowing or repeating a recorded story or a movie174

Paul Nation and Azusa Yamamoto
scene
Keeping a diary or doing free writing
Watching familiar movies
Browsing websites in the target language
Looking at online video sharing websites
Exchanging emails with language exchange partners
Table 3. Applying the Four Strands to Autonomous Learning.

Let us look briefly at some of these activities, this time organized under the kinds ofresources drawn on. These include books, cards and notebooks, technology, movies and TV
series, songs, and the internet. The thinking behind the choices is described in the first person
to most readily reflect what happened.

Books
At first, I considered using a language textbook but did not see the necessity of following
the sequence of units and activities in the course although for many learners this may be an
attractive feature. Instead, I used a grammar reference book to deal with grammatical points,
which were difficult to understand, a bilingual dictionary (which also helped to some degreewith the grammar), and a phrase book that allowed me to make a very early start on speaking
and writing. I could not find any graded readers in Spanish and ended up buying a book called
Easy Spanish Reader (Tardy, 2004). The book came with a CD, which was useful to practicelistening, dictation, and shadowing. Another possibility would be to use children's books, andwhile these are typically much easier than books written for adults, they bring their own
difficulties with them such as the need to learn the vocabulary of fairy tales. Learners of
Spanish have a much much smaller range of written resources available to them than learnersof English, but there are greater resources for Spanish than there are for less commonly
learned languages.

Cards and Notebooks
Learning words and phrases on word cards is often frowned upon by teachers but isextremely effective (Elgort, 2011; Nation, 2001, pp. 296-316). Learning from word cards canalso contribute to fluency development, particularly when the cards contain phrases and they
are gone through quickly. Because of the lack of opportunities to produce the target language,
I tried keeping a diary and doing free writing.

Technologies
Having an iPhone helped my learning of Spanish. There are various applications in theApple Store that can be downloaded free. For example, “eFlash Spanish”(http://eflashapps.com/eflash-spanish.html) provides words (numbers, letters, animals, colors,
furniture, body parts and musical instruments) with pictures and sounds. Althoughintroducing related words together can be confusing, this application helped me to become
familiar with quite a lot of new words. Another useful application I used was “iTranslate”

Applying the Four Strands to Language Learning

175(http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/itranslate-free-translator/id288113403?mt=8)
where
the
learner can choose from which language and to which language they want to translate.
Although it is a computerized translation application and is not always accurate, it was usefulin checking the basic idea of some input when I had difficulties understanding. There areflash card programs (Nakata, 2011), which are well designed to help the learning and revisionof vocabulary.
There are also digital media files, podcasts, which are available for language learning,
including audio and video podcasts. For Spanish, I found a video podcast called “Lingus.TV;
learn Spanish watching TV” (http://www.lingus.tv/videos). Each podcast is approximately
two minutes long with Spanish captions. A new episode is released every week, and is gradedfrom beginner to advanced. Each podcast has its own website where the transcription of theskit, and the translation of the skit into English can be downloaded. In addition, each skit
includes a lesson, which focuses on a few grammatical features or commonly used phrases.
These podcasts are well worth using for meaning focused input, language focused learningand fluency development. Other podcasts that simply contain the news or stories in the target
language turned out to be too difficult at my elementary stage.

Movies and TV Series
Movies need to be chosen carefully so that the language spoken by the charactersmatches the needs of the learner and the complexity of the language, and the vocabulary is ata suitable level (Webb and Rodgers, 2009). Since I did not own any Spanish speaking
movies, I decided to try with an English movie Free Willy (Wincer, 1993), which was on a
DVD that included both Spanish subtitles and dubbed Spanish audio settings. I had seen themovie many times before, and I had a clear idea of what was happening in the movie. First, I
watched it dubbed in Spanish. To my surprise, I caught some phrases after only four days of
studying Spanish such as “Disculpe (excuse me),” “Muchas gracias (thank you very much),”“¡Ahora! (Now!),” “Puedo (I can),” “Sí, sí, por favor (yes, yes, please).” These phrases werepreviously learned from various sources such as the phrase book or messaging with mylanguage exchange partners. If the learner can find scenes with such basic phrases, movies
can be an effective opportunity to see how learned language items are used incommunication.
Secondly, I watched another scene in dubbed Spanish with the Spanish subtitles on.
Although the subtitle is often shorter than the spoken language, the main idea is usuallyspelled out. I found it helpful to have the subtitles to check what was heard. In the first try
with only the Spanish audio on, I caught some phrases, but in the second run through with
subtitles as well, I noticed sentences such as “No soy tu hijo (I am not your son),” “¿Puedes
saludar? (Can you say hello?).” I understood the sentences based on the vocabularypreviously learned. In this respect, I tended to look at the subtitles and ignore the sounds, so
the subtitles distracted me from the listening practice, but was certainly effective for meeting
newly learned phrases and words in context.
Lastly, I watched a few scenes with English dialog and Spanish subtitles. It was theeasiest of the three tries because I only focused on the written subtitles while the English
audio naturally floated into my ears. Like the second try, though not listening practice, it was
useful to see how the words and phrase are used.

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Paul Nation and Azusa Yamamoto

I started watching a Mexican TV series. This provided a lot of repetition. Commonlyused words and phrases could be understood based on the context cues after several
encounters. I found that using a dictionary while watching was helpful. I found that I had topersist with watching the TV series to make it a worthwhile learning activity.

Songs
Like movies, the choice of the song was the key to good language learning. One of mylanguage exchange partners recommended some songs popular in Latin America, and she
mentioned that they were easy for beginners. However, when I looked at the lyrics, I only
understood a few words. By saying “easy,” she seemed to mean the speed of the songs was
slow. Mastering these songs may be well worth it for pronunciation practice. On the other
hand, practicing “meaningless” songs does not concentrate on the message which is the main
focus of three strands. Browsing through an online video sharing website, I came across asong where the chorus consisted of familiar words. The song had verb conjugation patterns I
previously learned in the workbook. For example, “quiero (I want),” and “quires (you want).”

The Internet
There are various ways to take advantage of the internet. First, there are many language
teaching websites. By simply typing in the search engine “How old are you? Spanish,” forexample, learners can be directed to the translation.
Browsing websites in the target language can be a part of fluency development. When I
was studying English using the TV series Full House, I often searched for web pages about
the actors and actresses. It was enjoyable and furthermore I learned new vocabulary using
context (particularly the layout of the webpage or the pictures) such as “enter,” “enlarge (thepictures),” “biography,” or “quit.” The video sharing website YouTube has video clips withthe potential to be language learning materials. The clips are posted from all over the world,
and there were many clips where the Mexican actors I knew were interviewed; however, they
were too difficult for me. I found clips of a popular children’s cartoon from Spain. Each
episode is approximately six minutes long and the ones uploaded on YouTube had Spanish
captions with an English translation underneath. The storyline and the animation wereenjoyable while the dialog was simple and mostly in the present tense. These short clips canbe easily watched repeatedly, and the captions can also be used in dictation, or searching for
unknown words. Each clip on YouTube has comments from the viewers. The comments areoften simple and related to the clip, so the comments provide interesting meaning focused
input
as
well
(The
Englishlearning
website,EnglishCentral[http://www.englishcentral.com/], has tremendous facilities for using such short clips forlearning English).
The three options described above take advantage of the Internet for gathering a wide
variety of information. The Internet is also a place to connect with people from all over theworld. Having language exchange partners on the Internet has been one of the best ways tolearn Spanish so far. Even though I had been using social network websites to keep in touchwith my friends overseas, I had never talked to somebody I had not met face-to-face. When I
started studying Spanish, I thought having language exchange partners could be one way toApplying the Four Strands to Language Learning

177

compensate for the lack of contact with Spanish speaking people in my environment. I listed
my nickname, and I am a native speaker of Japanese learning Spanish on one of the language
exchange websites. I received many messages from native speakers of Spanish, from theUnited States, Mexico, Spain, Chile, Brazil, Peru, and Japan. There are six people who I keep
in touch with regularly. Exchanging emails creates many opportunities for language learning.
One thing that stands out for me is hypothesis testing function of output as described in
Swain’s (2005) output hypothesis. The hypothesis testing function emphasizes the importanceof interaction for language learning as the learner checks or modifies their output based on the
feedback of the interlocutor. I frequently wrote sentences relying on my limited knowledge of
Spanish and decided if the sentences were correct or not based on the response I received. For
example, after guessing that “qué (what),”“te gusta (you like),” and “hacer (to do –baseform),” would make the sentence “¿Qué te gusta hacer?” thinking it would mean “what do
you like to do?” The response I got was “Me gusta (I like) correr (to run –base form).” Thisassured me that the question I composed was correct, and I also understood that it isgrammatical to put the verb base form after “te gusta (you like).”Secondly, exchanging emails creates opportunities for focus on form. According to Long
(1997), focus on form “involves briefly drawing students’ attention to linguistic elements(words, collocations, grammatical structures, pragmatic patterns), in context, as they arise
incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on meaning, or communication” (Long,
1997, para. # 1). When I wrote or read emails, I often stopped and looked up a word orgrammar point, shifting the focus from the message to the language item. The written form of
the email makes it easy to do so.
Exchanging emails fits into the meaning focused input and meaning focused output
strands. The main goal is to convey and receive messages. The content of the emails wasusually about daily life, and when writing emails, I could choose the topic to write about. In
addition, the language exchange partner’s previous email was a source of language items
when writing the response. For example, “¿Conoces a Def Tech? (Do you know Def Tech?)”was composed based on a message I previously received saying “¿Conoces a Los Kalibres?
(Do you know Los Kalibres?).” By adapting the phrases used by my language partner, I could
make up for what I did not know.
Lastly, I also realized that having more than one language exchange partner can set up theconditions for fluency development. In the beginning, for example, I introduced myself manytimes to different partners and within no time, I was able to write about myself in a fluent
way.
Having language exchange partners is indeed a great way to use the target language;
however, there are two drawbacks. Firstly, it is difficult to find the “right” language exchange
partners. Even though I received many messages, the number of the exchangers decreased
after messaging each other several times. Some people simply wanted to meet somebody ofthe opposite sex. Others write “incorrectly” without punctuation and with a lot of slang,which made it hard to understand especially for a beginner like myself. There were also
people who switched to English after finding how poor my Spanish was, which lost the pointof having a language exchange partner. Secondly, exchanging emails is never the same as
talking to people in the target language. There are some who suggested contacting each otherthrough video chat online, for example through Skype, but I cannot bring myself to do video
chatting with somebody I do not know in real life. Nevertheless, language exchange is one of

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Paul Nation and Azusa Yamamoto

the ways to use the language in an environment without people who speak the target
language.
The above example shows that the four strands can act as a useful guideline by anautonomous learner when deciding what kinds of activities to include in a program of study inorder to learn a language without the help of a teacher. An important prerequisite for this,however, is not just understanding the need for balance in the program, but also
understanding the conditions that need to occur in order for a strand to exist. Input, forexample, is not meaning focused input if it is too difficult or far too easy for the learner.

IMPLICATIONS AND ISSUES
The four strands principle has several important implications for course design andpedagogy. Firstly, it sees the teacher's most important role as being a planner not a teacher.
This planning role involves deciding what are the most important language items for thelearner to be focusing on at a particular stage, and providing a range of learning opportunities
across the four strands so that this material will be learned. This planning role relates to thesecond most important implication, namely that teaching should play a rather reduced role ina language program. By teaching, we mean the direct presentation and explanation of
language features. Typically, this involves the teaching of spelling, pronunciation,
vocabulary, collocations, grammatical features and patterns, and discourse features. There isquite a lot of evidence to show that direct teaching is not greatly effective. For instance, theresearch carried out on the involvement load hypothesis (Folse, 2006; Hulstijn and Laufer,2001; Keating, 2008) shows that learners typically retain around 30 to 40% of the words thatthey meet in a direct teaching activity when retention is measured using an immediate test of
receptive knowledge. We can view such a percentage either positively or negatively. Viewed
positively, it is better than nothing. Viewed negatively, over half of the words in the activity
on average were not learned. This is not to say that we should not use such activities, but that
we should see them only as a part of one of the four strands of a well balanced course, andmay not want to give them as much time as the more effective deliberate learning from wordcards.
It may seem that the role of the teacher is much more demanding in the strand of
language focused learning than in the three remaining meaning focused strands. However, theteacher has important things to do in the strands. These involve the following:
1. Making sure that the meaning focused strands truly exist in the course by ensuringthat the input and output is at the right level for the student.
2. Setting up the important conditions of repetition, retrieval, creative use, and dual
coding through the choice and design of the tasks (See Joe, Nation, and Newton,
1996; Nation, 2008, pp. 41-56) for detailed advice and examples of how to do this).
3. Making sure that the meaning focused strands are given appropriate amounts of timein the course.
The teacher's role is not so obvious in the meaning focused strands because the learning
involved is largely incidental to the meaning focused nature of the tasks. Let us look briefly atsome examples of setting up the conditions for the meaning focused strands.

Applying the Four Strands to Language Learning
Repetition

Retrieval

Creative use

Dual coding

179

To encourage repetition the teacher can design linked skill activities where
the same content is dealt with in three different ways, for example, readabout it, talk about it, and write about. Tasks may also be repeated or
involve reprocessing the same material as in pyramid activities (Jordan,
1990) and the expert groups/family groups procedure.
Retrieval involves having to recall previously met language features.
Tasks involving several steps, like linked skills tasks and procedures, canbe designed so that the later steps are done with a reliance on retrieval.
Information transfer activities (Palmer, 1982) can be designed so that
retrieval is necessary.
Creative use involves meeting or producing language features in ways inwhich they have not been met before. Graded readers typically involve theuse of new vocabulary at a particular level reoccurring in varied contexts.
Activities which include role play, retelling for a different purpose,reporting back, and linked skill activities involving time delay are likely toinclude creative use.
Dual coding (Paivio, 1986) involves processing items both pictorially andlinguistically. Information transfer activities are ideal for this. Drama
activities, projects, and film and movie activities are also likely to result indual coding.

Table 4. Examples of Setting up the Conditions for the Meaning Focused Strands.

Thus, the teacher's role in the meaning focused strands is largely one of planning anddesign.
Another implication of the four strands principle is that simplified and graded material isessential for language learning if learners are to experience meaning focused input andreceptive fluency development from the early stages of language learning. Learners ofEnglish as a foreign or second language have a marvelous resource of thousands of graded
readers written within various vocabulary levels to help their learning. These readers are ideal
sources of meaning focused input and fluency development. Teachers need to overcome any
prejudices they feel against controlled language material and make use of this rich resource.
The principle of the four strands also has implications for research. When comparing theeffectiveness of activities for language learning, the most important comparisons are between
activities which fit into the same strand of a course. These activities are truly in competition
with each other because they compete for the limited amount of time available in each strand.
Comparison of activities from different strands is not such a useful comparison because all
four strands need to exist within a well balanced course. Thus, comparing guessing fromcontext with looking up a word in the dictionary is in effect comparing learning frommeaning focused input with language focused learning. A much more interesting comparison
would be comparing hardcopy dictionary lookup with consulting an electronic dictionary.
The four strands principle is not just a principle for teachers and course designers.
Autonomous learners can make very good use of this principle. Thus, training inunderstanding the principle and its applications is a useful step towards language learning
autonomy.

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Paul Nation and Azusa Yamamoto

CONCLUSION
In this article, we have looked at the four strands as a way of getting a good balance of
language learning opportunities within a course. The weakness of this may be that some
activities may require, at least, a certain minimum amount of time in order to be effective. If
this minimum amount of time was larger than the proportion of time that they would get in aparticular course, the principle of the four strands would not be being effectively applied. For
example, Nation and Wang's (1999) study of graded readers suggested that learners need toread, at least, one graded reader every week if they are to get the best conditions forvocabulary learning from such reading. If they read less than this, they will not get theamount and spacing of repetitions that they need to help learning. In this particular case, aminimum amount of time is more important than a particular proportion of the total course.
This is probably not an isolated example of such an issue, particularly with regards tovocabulary learning.
The general idea that lies behind the four strands principle is that there is no one easyanswer to language learning. Learning from input alone is not enough. Intensive deliberatelearning by itself is not enough. There needs to be a balance of well proven learning activities
across the four strands.

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