Why Productive Failure Falls Short in English Oral Learning: Ill-Structuredness, L1 Transfer, and Implications for Instructional Redesign

Abstract

Productive Failure (PF), as a learning model where learners try to solve problems first before receiving instruction, has been shown by numerous studies in subjects like mathematics and physics to help students build a deeper understanding of concepts. However, when this model is transferred to second language acquisition, especially the field of oral English expression, its effect shows significant instability. Some studies suggest that PF can have an impact on language areas with more stable formal structures, like grammar and writing. However, it is often challenging to activate the learning process of “failure-cognitive conflict-structural reorganization” in real-time oral expression. This review argues that the key reason why PF is ineffective in oral English is not insufficient implementation by teachers or lack of ability on the part of learners, but rather the inherent ill-structuredness of language itself and the default role of L1 transfer in oral production. Oral expression often allows output that is formally incorrect but semantically understandable, making faults no longer possess the “diagnosability” that PF relies on, thus blocking cognitive conflict and the reorganization of expression structures. Based on this, this paper proposes two feasible reconstruction pathways for PF in oral English teaching: first, by designing tasks to reduce the solution space of oral expression, making different expressions comparable; second, establishing a development-based evaluation system, supported by long-term, multi-round tracking of expression rather than relying solely on one-time language accuracy as a criterion. This review aims to provide a new interpretive framework for the theoretical application of PF in the field of language learning and offer implementable teaching strategy references for oral teaching.