[Megabyte117]

Recently I had been talking to my Spanish teacher about good methods to use when learning a foreign language. She had commented that output and input are equally important for a beginner in a language. However, in my Spanish class I had observed that most of the students had horrible pronunciation and often had difficulty discerning words from one another. Perhaps this is because few of them were heavily exposed to another language, but it reaffirms my belief that input, for a beginner in another language, is more important than output.

Therefore, I pose the question to those fluent or incredibly proficient in Japanese: For a beginner in Japanese, is input more important than output?

Because I have been applying the AJATT method, yet I have had people tell me that I should be speaking more of the target language instead of simply concentrating on exposure. Just wanted to get your thoughts on this.