Theories of language

learning and acquisition

Scientific fields related to learning
and language learning (1/2)
 Psychology: a diverse area of study which
involves, amongst other things, the study of how
humans learn and how they make sense of the
world.
 Psycholinguistics: involves the study of a) the
mental processes that a person uses in
producing and understanding language and b)
how humans learn language (the study of
speech perception, the role of memory,
concepts and other processes of language use).
Scientific fields related to learning
and language learning (2/2)
 First language acquisition is an area of
psycholinguistics which focuses on how children
learn their mother tongue.
 Second language acquisition is an area of
applied linguistics and studies the processes by
which people develop proficiency in a second or
foreign language. These processes are
investigated with the expectation that this
information may be of use to language teaching.
Behaviorism
Watson’s ‘Little Albert’ experiment
 American psychologist John B.
Watson and his graduate student,
Rosalie Rayner first used CC to
elicit an emotional response.
 Aim to test the notion that fears
can be acquired through CC.
 The research participant was
Albert B. (Little Albert), the 11
moth old son of a woman who
worked at the same clinic as
Watson.
How was Little Albert conditioned to
hate the rat?
 They placed him on a  For the next 17 days
mattress in a room where a Watson and Rayner began a
white lab rat (CS) was series of fear-conditioning
within reaching distance. experiments.
 Albert showed no initial  They also conducted tests
fear of it and played with it. to find out if Albert’s fear
 They then struck a hammer response could be
on a steel bar behind Albert generalised.
(loud noise, UCS) and  Albert also seemed to fear
Albert began to cry. a white rabbit, a dog and a
seal skin coat.
During Conditioning (Association
& Acquisition)

CS

Is associated with

Which automatically
leads to the

UCS UCR
 After Conditioning

Leads to a
conditioned
CS
response
CR
 Edward Thorndike (1874-1949)

 Author of the law of effect

 Behaviors with favorable consequences
will occur more frequently.
 Behaviors with unfavorable
consequences will occur less frequently.
 Created puzzle boxes for research on cats
Thorndike’s Puzzle Box
 Early Operant Conditioning
 E. L. Thorndike(1898)
 Puzzle boxes and cats

First Trial Scratch at bars After Many Scratch at bars

in Box Trials in Box
Push at ceiling Push at ceiling
Situation: Situation:
Dig at floor Dig at floor
stimuli stimuli
inside of Howl inside of Howl
puzzle box Etc. puzzle box Etc.
Etc. Etc.
Press lever Press lever
 B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)
 Believed that internal factors like thoughts,
emotions, and beliefs could not be used to
explain behavior. Instead said that new
behaviors were actively chosen by the organism
 Looked at “Operants” or active behaviors that
are used on the environment to generate
consequences
 Developed the fundamental principles and
techniques of operant conditioning and
devised ways to apply them in the real world
 Designed the Skinner Box, or operant chamber
The Skinner Box
 Reinforcement

 Reinforcement - Any consequence that

increases the likelihood of the behavior it
follows
◦ Reinforcement is ALWAYS GOOD!!!
Positive Reinforcement
Negative Reinforcement
 Strengthens a response by reducing or removing
an aversive (disliked) stimulus
 Anything that increases the likelihood of a
behavior by following it with the removal of an
undesirable event or state
 Something the subject doesn’t like is removed
(subtracted)
 Will strengthen the behavior
 Neg. Rein. Allows you to either:
◦ Escape something you don’t like that is already present
(Neg. Rein. By Escape)
◦ Avoid something before it occurs (Neg. Rein. By
Avoidance)
Punishment
 Punishment - Any consequence that
decreases the likelihood of the behavior it
follows
 The subject determines if a consequence
is reinforcing or punishing

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 Types of Punishment

 An undesirable event following a

behavior
 Behavior ends a desirable event or
state
 Its effect is opposite that of
reinforcement – it decreases the
frequency of behavior
Positive Punishment
(Punishment by Application)
 Something is added to the environment
you do NOT like.
 A verbal reprimand or something painful
like a spanking
 Negative Punishment
(Punishment by Removal)

 Something is taken away that you DO LIKE.

 Lose a privilege.
Reinforcement vs. Punishment
Reinforcing/Desirable Aversive/UnDesirable
Stimulus Stimulus

Stimulus is presented or
added to animal’s
environment…
Positive (+) Positive (+)
Reinforcement Punishment
Add something you DO LIKE. Add something you DO NOT
Behavior Increases LIKE.
Behavior Decreases

Stimulus is removed or
taken away from animal’s
environment…
Negative (-) Negative (-)
Punishment Reinforcement
TAKES AWAY something you TAKES AWAY something you
DO LIKE. DO NOT LIKE.
Behavior Decreases Behavior Increases
Behaviourism: Main Principles (1/3)
 Main protagonists: Ivan Pavlov, John
Watson, Edward Thorndike, B.F. Skinner.
 Learning happens when a correct
response is demonstrated following the
presentation of a specific environmental
stimulus.
 Learning is changed behaviour.
Behaviourism: Main Principles (3/3)
 Importance of environment: Learning is
a result of environmental rather than genetic
factors. The child is born as a clean slate and
the environment writes its messages on this
clean slate.
Behaviourism and foreign language
teaching (2/4)
 Based on rewards and punishments.
 Responsibility for student learning rests
squarely with the teacher.
 Lecture-based, highly structured.
 Primacy of speech: considers speech as
primary partly because it is the first medium
that the child masters. Skills are taught in a
specific order: Listening and speaking then
reading/writing.
Behaviourism and foreign language
teaching (4/4)
 Inductive learning: Because learning is a
question of habit formation rather than
problem solving, any type of explanation is
consistently avoided. It is a last resort and
always occurs in the final stage, when the
language item has been well practiced and the
appropriate habit acquired.
Mentalism and Chomsky (1/3)
 Mentalism is the belief that the mind is
important for determining human behaviour.
 Chomsky argued that what was missing from
the behaviourist concept of learning was a
theory of mind - a mentalist perspective, in
other words. The mind was seen to possess a
set of deep-seated ways of processing language
data that lead to the unconscious discovery of
the grammar of the language - learning as a
rule-governed activity.
Mentalism and Chomsky (3/3)
 Children’s minds are not blank slates to be filled
in by imitating the language they hear from the
environment. Children are born with an innate
capacity for language learning which allows
them to discover for themselves the rules
underlying the language.
 This innate ability is called language
acquisition device (LAD) or black box; later
on Chomsky referred to this as innate
knowledge of the principles of Universal
Grammar (UG).
How does the language acquisition
device work?
 The language acquisition device contains all the
principles which are universal to all languages.
 For language acquisition device to work the
child needs samples of natural language which
activate the device.
 Once activated, the child is able to discover the
structure of the language by matching the innate
knowledge of grammatical principles with the
structures of the particular language.
Language Acquisition Device = Universal
Grammar
The critical period hypothesis
Animals and humans are genetically
programmed to acquire knowledge and
skills at a specific time in life.
 Difficut to apply this hypothesis for
language acquisition because nearly all
children are exposed to language at early
age You will never speak like
natives

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Limitation of Chomsky’s theory
 It takes no consideration of the
interaction between kids and their carers,
why to speak, function of language..
 The study of Jim, the hearing son of deaf
parents
 Without interaction, exposure to
language alone can not do much better.

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 Cognitivism (1/2)
 Cognitive psychology in contrast to behaviourism is
interested in the way the human mind thinks and
learns. It is interested in the cognitive processes that
are involved in learning and how the learner is
involved in the process of learning.

 The learner is seen as an active participant in the

learning process using various kinds of mental
strategies in order to sort out the system of the
language being learnt.
 Cognitivism (2/2)
 Cognitive theories look beyond behavior to explain
brain-based learning.
 Information processing model:
◦ Learning happens as a result of brain processes where
knowledge is transferred from short to long term memory.
◦ In order for this to happen, new information must be linked to
old information and information and concepts must be
logically organised.
 The role of the teacher is to help learners organize new
information for later recall.
35
Cognitivism is also about:
Jean Piaget’s intellectual development stages

36
 Cognitivism and implications for
learning
 Learning is an active process in which learners
construct new ideas or concepts based upon their
current/past knowledge.
 The learner selects and transforms information,
constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on
a cognitive structure to do so.
 Cognitive structure (i.e., schema, mental models)
provides meaning and organization to experiences and
allows the individual to "go beyond the information
given".
 Cognitivism and implications for
teaching (1/2)
 As far as instruction is concerned, the instructor
should try and encourage students to discover
principles by themselves.
 The instructor and student should engage in an
active dialog (i.e., Socratic learning).
 The task of the instructor is to translate information
to be learned into a format appropriate to the
learner's current state of understanding.
 Cognitivism and implications for
teaching (2/2)
• Curriculum should be organized in a spiral
manner so that the student continually builds
upon what they have already learned.

• Inquiry-oriented projects.
• Opportunities for the testing of hypotheses.
 Constructivism (1/2)
 Based on the work of Jean Piaget and Jerome
Bruner, Lev Vygotsky.
 Constructivism views learning as a process in
which the learner actively constructs or builds
new ideas or concepts. We don’t only remember.
 If you just remember you can also forget, and
you will not make mistakes
 It is about the creation of knowledge from
experience; learning by doing
41
Constructivism (2/2)
We can distinguish between:
 cognitive constructivism which is
about how the individual learner
understands things, in terms of
developmental stages and learning styles,
 social constructivism, which
emphasises how meanings and
understandings grow out of social
encounters.
Cognitive Constructivism - Piaget
 From the moment we are born we are
actively involved in the process of learning.
 We learn things as a direct result of our
experiences but we make sense of those
experiences at different stages of our lives.
 Piaget believed that cognitive development
occurs through a sequence of successive
qualitative changes in cognitive structures.
Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive
Development (1/2)
 Sensorimotor Stage (birth - 2
years):
◦ actions become more intentional and
integrated into patterns, there is an
increased awareness of self and
surroundings.
 Preoperational Thought Stage (2 - 7
years):
◦ development of language and conceptual
thought occurs.
Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive
Development (2/2)
 Concrete Operations Stage (7 - 11
years):
◦ increased ability to apply logical thought
to concrete problems, thinking is still
primarily related to immediate
experience.
 Formal Operations Stage (11 years
on):
◦ ability to apply logic to a variety of
problems; higher order thinking occurs.
Implications for teaching (1/2)
 Learning should be whole, authentic, and
"real": Piaget helps us to understand that meaning
is constructed as children interact in meaningful
ways with the world around them.
Implications for teaching (2/2)
 The richer the experience, the more
elaborate the cognitive structure
development.
 Materials and activities should be geared
for the appropriate level of cognitive
development.
 Social constructivism - Vygostky
 Contemporary notions of social constructivism derive
from the work of Vygotsky and Bruner.
 Vygotsky’s theory states that knowledge is co-
constructed and that individuals learn from one another.
It is called a social constructivist theory because in
Vygotsky’s opinion the learner must be engaged in the
learning process. Learning happens with the assistance
of other people, thus contributing the social aspect of
the theory.
 Bruner is famous for discovery learning theory
 Interactionist theory
 Language develops as a result of the interplay
between the child and the environment in which
the child develops.
 Caretaker speech is modified to suit the
capability of the child. This modified language is a
crucial element in the language acquisition
process.
 lge is both a result of nature and nurture
In summary
Learning
Learning Process
Theory
Through stimulus-response
Behaviourism positive/ negative
reinforcement and punishment.
Rehearsing/organising
Cognitivism information and then storing it
for long term use.
Constructing one’s own
knowledge through past
Constructivism
experiences and group
collaboration.
 Humanism and Carl Rogers
 Humanism emphasises the importance of the inner
world of the individual - learner’s thoughts, feelings
and emotions. These are aspects of the learning
process that are important if we are to understand
human learning in its totality.
 Significant learning will take place when the subject
matter is of personal relevance to the learner ad when
it involves active participation of the learner.
 Learning which involves feelings and cognition is more
likely to be lasting and pervasive.
 Multiple Intelligence Theory
 Proposed by Howard
Gardner.
 The theory states that
there are seven distinct
forms of intelligence
(recently an 8th was
introduced) that each
individual possesses to a
different degree.
 Multiple Intelligence Theory:
Eight Intelligences
1. Verbal/Linguistic. 5. Interpersonal.
2. Logical/Mathematical. 6. Intrapersonal.
3. Spatial. 7. Musical.
4. Bodily/Kinesthetic. 8. Naturalistic.
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Multiple Intelligence Theory:
Instructional Implications
 Teaching/learning should focus on the strength
(particular intelligences) of each person and
assessment of learning should measure all
forms, not just specific ones.
 Individuals should be encouraged to use their
preferred intelligences in learning.
 Instructional activities should appeal to
different forms of intelligence.