Second language learning

1. Schools of Thought in
Second Language
Learning
(1940’s - 2000’s)
Source: Brown, D. Principles of Language Learning and
Teaching. (p.p.9-15)

2. Trends in Linguistics and
Psychology
Psychology
 1940’s-1950’s:
 Behaviorism/
Neobehaviorism
-1960’s:
Cognitive Psychology
Linguistics
 1940’s-1950’s:
 Structural Linguistics
-1960’s:
Transformational-Generative
School

3. 1940’s-1950’s
 Behaviorism
-It focused only on publicly
observable behaviors
 Structural Linguistics
-Only observable linguistic
behaviors can be studied.
Language could be
dismantled into small pieces
or units, described
scientifically, contrasted, then
added up again to form the
whole.

4. Cont’d
Behaviorism
-Notions such as
intuition, memory,
thinking, or any
mental processes
were ignored.
Structural Linguistics
-Notions such as
meaning or
thought were
completely
ignored.

5. Cont’d
Behaviorism
-Learning a behavior: through
conditioning ‘organisms’ to
respond in desired ways to
stimuli --} Practice/ drilling is
important.
Structural Ling.
-Learning language:
conditioning learners to make
the right connection between
stimuli and the desired
responses --}
Drilling in the language
classroom was a dominant
method.

6. Cont’d
Behaviorism
-Reinforcement
(Positive or
negative) plays an
important role in
learning.
Structural Ling.
-Positive/ negative
reinforcement play
a significant role in
language learning.

7. Behaviorism

8. The 1960’s - 1980’s
 Cognitive Psychology
-Meaning,
understanding,
and knowing are
important
psychological
data.
 Transformational-Generative
Linguistics
-They broke away from the
structuralists’ insistence on
only studying observable
language (performance)

9. Cont’d
Cognitive Psychology
-Cognitivists sought to discover
underlying motivation and
deeper structures of human
behavior.
Transformational-Generative
Linguistics
-Linguistics goes beyond mere
description of the surface
structure of language.

10. Cont’d
Cog. Psych.
-Instead of focusing on the
mechanical stimulus-response
connections, cognitivists tried to
focus on psychological
principles of organization and
functioning.
T-G Linguistics
-Studying competence
reveals the hidden level of
meaning and thought
(deep structure) that
generates the observable
performance.
-learning language: language
is species-specific; it is
innate: human beings are
born with the ability to
learn language.

11. Cognitivism

12. The 1980’s – 2000’s
Constructivism
It involves the integration of linguistic, psychological,
and sociological paradigms.
 The active role of the learner is emphasized.
A. Cognitive constructivism: emphasizes the role of the
learner in constructing his/her own representation of
reality:

13. Constructivism
-Learners must transform complex information to make it
their own.
A more active role for students in their learning.
Piaget argues that, “learning is a developmental process
that involves change, self-generation, and construction,
each building on prior experiences.” (in Kaufman,
2004).

14. Constructivism
B. Social Constructivism: emphasizes the importance
of social interaction and cooperative learning in
constructing cognitive and emotional images of reality.
Language learning is a result of thinking and meaning-
making that is “socially constructed and emerges out of
[learners’] social interactions with the environment.”
(Brown, p. 13)

15. Constructivism
Read the article called: “
Applying principles of constructivist pedagogy to foreign language teach
”.
Choose a unit from the textbook Travellers. Identify the following
principles:
1.The learner is an active constructor of knowledge.
2.Activating learners and providing open ended tasks.
3.Developing metacognitive competence.
4.Enabling inductive learning.

16. What is the Best Theory?
No single theory is right or wrong all the way!
“Some truth can be found in every critical approach to
the study of reality.” (Brown, p. 14)