writing to console

[tomthedude]

hello,
i want to writer my own comments to console when some tests are running.
i have tried the following methods:
$this->log("a"), $this->warn("a"), $this->debug("a")
i only see this when i chose -vvv in mode
but then i get alot of junk output.
i am running under -vv mode and want to output some text to console.
also tried:
echo, print, sprinf

how can i write to console and / or to result file.
thank you.