DEFINING LANGUAGE, LEARNING AND

TEACHING.

HOW LANGUAGES ARE LEARNT.

LEARNING A SECOND LANGUAGE
a long and complex undertaking
whole person affected (a new language, a
new culture, a new way of thinking,
feeling and acting)
many variables involved in the acquisition
process
 TEACHING PROCESS

facilitation of learning
1. CURRENT ISSUES IN SECOND
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (SLA)
 1.1. WHO?

Who does the learning and teaching?

LEARNERS:
Where do they come from?
What are their native languages?
What are their: levels of education?
socioeconomic levels?
Who are their parents?
What are their intellectual capacities?
What sorts of personalities do they have?
= affect their success in SLA
 1.1. WHO?

TEACHERS:

What is the teachers:

- native language?
- experience? training?
- knowledge of the second language and its culture?
- philosophy of education?
- personality characteristics?

How do the teacher and the student interact with each

other?
 1.2. WHAT?
the nature of the subject matter
what the learner must learn?
what the teacher must teach?
what is communication?
what is language?
what does it mean to know a language?
what are the linguistic differences between L1 and L2?

TEACHER= speaks and understands the language+ has technical

knowledge required to explain the system of that language
 1.3. HOW?

How does learning take place?

How can a person ensure succes in
language learning?
What cognitive processes are utilized in
second language learning?
What kind of strategies does the learner
use?
 1.4. WHEN?
When does second language learning take
place?
Children/adults- does the age of learning
make a difference? (cognitive/emotional
changes)
the amount of time one should spend
learning the second language (e.g. how
many hours a week)
 1.5. WHERE?
attempting to acquire the second
language:
- in a second language situation
- in an artificial environment
 1.6. WHY?
What are the learners purposes?
affective, emotional, personal, intellectual
reasons
motivation

THE SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHER NEEDS TO FORM

AN INTEGRATED UNDERSTANDING OF THE MANY
ASPECTS OF THE PROCESS OF SLA.
 2. LANGUAGE
a world without language= individuals
unable to communicate anything other
than the most rudimentary matters to
each other + a world without complex
thought
 2. LANGUAGE
example definition:
Language is a system o arbitrary
conventionalized vocal, written, or gestural
symbols that enable members of a given
community to communicate intelligibly
with one another
 2. LANGUAGE
A consolidation of a number of possible definitions (Brown,
2000):

1. Language is systematic.
2. Language is a set of arbitrary symbols.
3. Those symbols are primarily vocal, but may also be visual.
4. The symbols have conventionalized meanings to which they
refer.
5. Language is used for communication.
6. Language operates in a speech community or culture.
7. Language is essentially human, although possibly not limited to
humans.
8. Language is acquired by all people in much the same way;
language and language learning both have universal
characteristics.

= A DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE (linguistic research underlying each

concept)
 2. LANGUAGE- the beginnings
BABBLING- pre-speech stage, occurs
spontaneously, between the fourth and sixth
months of life
babies start producing a wide range of delightful
sounds (the sounds combine vowels and
consonants, but have nothing to do with the
sounds they hear around whatever the country
of their birth they babble in very much the same
way)
in most cases a childs speech develops out of
his or her early experiments with sound- (social
reinforcement + innate tendency)
 2. LANGUAGE- the beginnings
DROPPING SOUNDS FROM THE REPERTOIRE about 10 months
words= sounds that we use to represent objects and events in the
world around us
babies become aware that some of the sounds they make during
babbling correspond to the sounds other people are making
next they come to retain and repeat these sounds, dropping from
their repertoire any sounds they do not hear around them
once they have dropped sounds it becomes difficult to pick up these
sounds again
if we want a child to learn a foreign language containing the sounds
unlikely to re-acquire them perfectly= difficulties pronouncing the
new language without traces of the native tongue
deaf children
 2. LANGUAGE- the beginnings
ADDING SOUNDS TO REPERTOIRE
during the babbling stage, babies usually ad
sounds to their repertoire in a fixed sequence:
baba- meme- dada- nana
(no coincidence that these sounds have been built
into the most familiar English words: baby, ma,
dad, nan)
as the baby produces these sounds- is rewarded
by the delight of parents
 2. LANGUAGE- the beginnings
ABILITY TO COPY SOUNDS
probably: spontaneously the baby produces
sounds which resemble words- is rewardedby
parental approval- through operant conditioning
goes on to use the sounds increasingly and to
associate them with specific people and objects
also: children appear to have an innate ability to
imitate others (copy the faces we pull at them,
gestures, innately know how to produce the
sounds we make)
 2. LANGUAGE- the beginnings
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE AND
LANGUAGE- MAKING CAPACITY
having begun to copy out words and to
associate them with the things they represent
children proceed to build these words into short
sentences (beyond copying)
they make grammatical errors which they do not
hear other people make (e.g. tooked, eated)
Chomsky (1980) suggested that children are
genetically equipped to acquire language in a
particular way
 2. LANGUAGE- the beginnings
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE AND
LANGUAGE- MAKING CAPACITY
the innate ability= language acquisition
device LAD- enables children to develop
language
certainly they would not learn to talk if
they did not hear others use speech, but
an innate structured predisposition for
language is there in the first place
 2. LANGUAGE- the beginnings
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE AND
LANGUAGE- MAKING CAPACITY
A three-step process in language development:
1. innate language making capacity (provides the
child with initial rules for attending and
processing language)
2. input (provides the child with experiences of
how others use language)
3. rule-creation (during which the child changes
the initial rules in response to input)
 2. LANGUAGE- the beginnings
PASSIVE AND ACTIVE VOCABULARIES
passive= the number of understood,
active= the number of words that can
actually be used
passive is larger
 2. LANGUAGE- the beginnings
ACTIVE VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT
13 months- first recognizable word
17 months- ten words
18 months- 40-50 words
2 years 300 words. 2-3 word sentences
6 years- 14,000. Adult-length sentences.
+ wide variations (which do not tell us a great deal
about a childs future progress)
 2. LANGUAGE- the beginnings
COMMAND OF THE VARIOUS PARTS OF THE
SPEECH
- nouns
- verbs
- 2-2,5 year simple pronouns (me, I, you) +
what? and who? questions
- during the 3rd year- adjectives and adverbs +
where? and why? questions + plurals + simple
prepositions+ ability to repeat short rhymes
and songs by heart
 2. LANGUAGE- the beginnings
- the more others speak to children the more
they will try to use language
- home/school in which language is fluently and
flexibly used= growth of vocabulary
- increased opportunities for using words in the
development of thinking + further linguistic
development
- emotional development enhanced if parents
and teachers encourage them to use language
to express feelings
 2. LANGUAGE- GOLDEN RULES
Acc. to characteristics noted in mothers who have verbally
advanced children:
1. embed any new verbal structure in structures that are
already familiar to the children
2. answer childrens questions about language with
relevant, accurate replies that go beyond what is
barely necessary
3. provide children with helpful and appropriate feedback
on whether thay are expressing themselves correctly
or not (remember not to discourage)
4. maintain linguistic themes where possible over several
utterances (keep the theme of a particular
conversation going by prompting and responding not
short replies that close the discussion)
 2. LANGUAGE- TYPES OF
LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE
1. GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE- which allows meaning to be
expressed in an accurate, clear and ultimately socially approved
way.

2. SOCIO-LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE- which enables the child to

converse in a way appropriate to the status and understanding of
the person being addressed, and in accordance with the norms
and conventions of the social context.

3. DISCOURSE COMPETENCE- which manifests itself in the ability to

string linguistic utterances together in a way that shows
continuity and progression, that avoids contradictions and
irrevelances, and that conveys meaning in a clear and fluent
manner.

4. STRATEGIC COMPETENCE- which permits the correct use of devices

such as metaphor, simile, intonation, pitch and so on.
3. LEARNING AND TEACHING
 3.1. LEARNING
some dictionary definitions:

LEARNING= acquiring or getting of

knowledge of a subject or a skill by study,
experience, or instruction.

= is a relatively permanent change in a

behavioral tendency and is the result of
reinforced practice
 3.1. LEARNING
LEARNING= a relatively persistent
change in an individuals potential
behaviour due to experience.
1. must change the individual in some way
2. this change comes about as a result of
experience
3. a change in his or her potential
behaviour
 3.1. LEARNING
Domains of research and inquiry:
1. Learning is acquisition or getting.
2. Learning is retention of information or skill.
3. Retention implies storage systems, memory, cognitive
organisation.
4. Learning involves active, conscious focus on and acting
upon events outside or inside the organism.
5. Learning is relatively permanent but subject to
forgetting.
6. Learning involves some form of practice, perhaps
reinforced practice.
7. Learning is a change in behaviour.
 3.1. LEARNING

How does learning come

about?
 3.2. TEACHING
TEACHING=
- showing or helping someone to learn how to do
something,
- giving instructions,
- guiding in the study of something,
- providing with knowledge,
- causing to know or understand.

= difficulty of defining!
 3.2. TEACHING
Teaching cannot be defined apart form learning.
Teaching is guiding and facilitating learning,
enabling the learner to learn, setting the
conditions for learning.
The understanding of how the learner learns will
determine the teachers philosophy of education
(teaching style, approach, methods, classroom
techniques).
 4. SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT IN SLA

Trends and fashions in the study of SLA

Three different schools of thought:

4.1. STRUCTURALISM/BEHAVIOURISM
4.2. RATIONALISM AND COGNITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY
4.3. CONSTRUCTIVISM
4.1. STRUCTURALISM/BEHAVIOURISM
the 1940s and 1950s
structural or descriptive school of LINGUISTICS
Leonard Bloomfield, Edward Sapir, Charles
Hockett, Charles Fries
rigorous application of the scientific principle of
observation
subject of investigation= publicly observable
responses, the study of observable behaviour
4.1. STRUCTURALISM/BEHAVIOURISM

responses made by the individual and

upon the conditions under which they
occur

the linguists were to decribe human

languages and to identify the structural
characteristics of those languages
4.1. STRUCTURALISM/BEHAVIOURISM
languages can differ from each other without
limit
no preconceptions could apply to the field
the structural linguist examined only the overtly
observable data
language can be dismantled into small pieces or
units, these units can be described scientifically,
contrasted, and added up again to form a whole
the grammars of exotic languages
4.1. STRUCTURALISM/BEHAVIOURISM

BEHAVIOURISM in psychology
focused on publicly observable responses
responses that can be objectively:
perceived, recorded and measured
the scientific method
4.1. STRUCTURALISM/BEHAVIOURISM
observation of: consciousness, thinking, acquisition of
knowledge- impossible to examine, the study of
observable behaviour
e.g. typical behaviouristic model: rote verbal learning
empirical approaches to studying human behaviour
learning= connections between a stimulus provided by
the environment and a response or reward provided by
the individual or between the response and
reinforcement
structure the environment correctly and learning would
usually follow
4.1. STRUCTURALISM/BEHAVIOURISM
EXPERIMENTS:
Pavlovs dog

= ORGANISMS CAN BE CONDITIONED TO RESPOND IN DESIRED

WAYS, given the correct degree and scheduling of reinforcement
 4.1.
STRUCTURALISM/BEHAVIOURISM
EXPERIMENTS:
Skinners boxes
4.2. RATIONALISM AND COGNITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY
the 1960s
LINGUISTICS- Generative- Transformational
school
Noam Chomsky
human language cannot be scrutinized simply in
terms of observable stimuli and responses
the generative linguist was interested not only in
describing language but also in arriving at an
explanatory level of adequacy in the study of
language
 4.2. RATIONALISM AND COGNITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY
Ferdinand de Saussure (1916)
- parole: what Skinner observes and what
Chomsky called performance
- langue: akin to the concept of competence, or
an underlying and observable language ability
- generative linguists broke with the descriptivists
preoccupation with performance (outward
manifestation of language)
4.2. RATIONALISM AND COGNITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY
distinction between:
the overtly observable aspects of language
+ the hidden levels of meaning and
thought (that give birth to and generate
observable linguistic performance)
 4.2. RATIONALISM AND COGNITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGISTS
- meaning, understanding and knowing=
significant data for study
- David Ausubel
- tried to discover psychological principles of
organization and functioning (not just
stimulus- response connections)
4.2. RATIONALISM AND COGNITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY
sought to discover underlying motivations
and deeper structures of human behaviour
by using a rational approach
employed the tools of logic, reason,
extrapolation, and inference in order to
derive explanations for human behaviour
 4.1 + 4.2.
structural linguist + generative linguist +
behavioural cognitive psychologist
psychologist

- interested in description - interested in the what question

- in answering what questions - but even more in why

about human behaviour
- what underlying reasons,
- objective measurement of genetic and environmental
behaviour in controlled factors, and circuimstances
circuimstances caused a particular event
 4.3. CONSTRUCTIVISM
1980s, 1990s & early 2000
Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky
all human beings construct their own
version of reality
multiple contrasting ways of knowing and
describing are equally legitimate
emphasis on the primacy of each
individuals construction of reality
 4.3. CONSTRUCTIVISM
Piaget (1972) stressed the importance of
individual cognitive development as a
relatively solitary act, stages of
development, social interaction was
claimed only to trigger development at the
right moment
 4.3. CONSTRUCTIVISM
Vygotsky (1978) social constructivist
maintained that social interaction was
important in cognitive development
 4.3. CONSTRUCTIVISM
studies of conversational discourse,
sociocultural factors in learning, and
interactionist theories
a natural succesor of cognitivist studies of
universal grammar, information
processing, memory, artificial intelligence
4.4. SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT IN SLA-
summary
Time Frame Schools of Thought Typical Themes
Early 1900s & 1940s & 1950s Structuralism & Behaviourism - description
- observable performance
- scientific method
- empiricism
- surface structure
- conditioning, reinforcement
1960s & 1970s Rationalism & Cognitive - generative linguistics
psycholgy - acquisition, innateness
- interlanguage, systemacity
- universal grammar
- competence
- deep structure

1980s, 1990s & early 2000 Constructivism - interactive discourse

- sociocultural variables
- cooperative group learning
- interlanguage variability
- interactionist hypotheses
 5. THEORIES OF LEARNING
what actually happens when learning
takes place
descriptions of learning- the kinds of
activity carried out by both pupil and
teacher that appear to lead to enhanced
levels of learning
5.1. Operant conditioning
5.2. Instrumental conceptualism
 5.1. OPERANT CONDITIONING
American psychologist- Skinner (1904-1990)
the learning act involves three stages:
1. stimulus/situation (S)
2. behaviour (B)
3. reinforcement (R) (positive R+; negative R-)
a positive one increases the likelihood of the
learner producing the same piece of behaviour
 5.1. OPERANT CONDITIONING
acc. to Skinner: the relative inefficiency
of much school- based learning stems
from a basic failure to grasp both the
S-B-R model itself and its main
implications
 5.1. OPERANT CONDITIONING
for the teacher one of the most useful
applications of the operant conditioning
model is that it draws attention to the
need for a careful analysis of what actually
influences a childs behaviour
what may seem to be R- , may be R+
 5.2. INSTRUMENTAL
CONCEPTUALISM
one of the most coherent and consistent
cognitive descriptions of learning (Bruner)
learning= not a passive unit of behaviour elicited
by a stimulus and strengthened or weakened by
reinforcement
but an active process in which the learner infers
principles and rules and tests them out
learning is not simply something that happens to
individuals but something they themselves make
happen
 5.2. INSTRUMENTAL
CONCEPTUALISM
Bruner : not denying the S-B-R paradigm,
considered that Skinner pays insufficient
attention to the element that comes in
between S and R= learners own
knowledge and behaviour (B)
 5.2. INSTRUMENTAL
CONCEPTUALISM
Behaviour- a highly complex activity
which involves three major cognitive
processes:
1. ACQUISITION of information
2. TRANSFORMATION or MANIPULATION of
this information into a form suitable for
dealing with the task in hand
3. TESTING and checking the adequacy of
this transformation
 5.2. INSTRUMENTAL
CONCEPTUALISM
the learner achieves transformation by
fitting it into the categories he or she
already has for understanding the world
 5.2. INSTRUMENTAL
CONCEPTUALISM
whereas Skinner sees the stimulus (S) as:
- a relatively discrete unit
- an objective event distinct from the
learner
- and evoking a fundamentally mechanistic
response
 5.2. INSTRUMENTAL
CONCEPTUALISM
Bruner sees (S) as :
- something identified and recognized by the learner
- in his or her own individual and subjective way
- the stimulus becomes a personal thing which individuals
interpret and transform in their own way dependent on
their previous experiences, thoughts, aspirations
- a stimulus can be ignored if it is regarded as
inappropriate or used to help construct internal
hypotheses
* Bruners description of learning- of more practical help
when dealing with the problems of facilitating pupils
abstract learning
 5.2. INSTRUMENTAL
CONCEPTUALISM
transformation of incoming information linked to three methods of
representation:

1. ENACTIVE- a highly manipulative mode, using neither imagery

nor words, operates through action, motor skills which we learn
by doing
2. ICONIC- more developed, uses imagery, does not employ
language, represents a concept without fully defining it
3. SYMBOLIC- goes beyond action and imagery, employs
representation through language, such representation leads to
thought and learning of a much more abstract and flexible kind

Bruner considers that Skinners operant conditioning model may be an

adequate account of the way learning takes place when the
learner is operating in the enactive mode
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fontana, David.1995. Psychology for
Teachers. New York: Palgrave.
Brown, H. Douglas. 2000. Principles of
Language Learning and Teaching. New
Jersey: Prentice Hall.